As part of Southeast Communities Rail Partnership project to produce 200 Blue Plaques for Railway 200, here is the story of Charles Willoughby.

Charles was born in Dunsden in 1872, one of at least six children to parents Mary Ann Hamblin and husband Henry Willoughby, an agricultural labourer. After leaving school Charles worked on a farm, marrying Annie Purton in 1896.

By the time of the 1911 census, now aged 39, Charles described himself as a railway labourer and platelayer (laying and maintaining the tracks) and living with his family at Matthews Green, Wokingham. They would have 8 children in all, though only five survived: Sons Edmund and Charles and daughters Elsie, Gertrude and Lilian. Lilian went on to marry Reginald Brown, a former railway navvy – a tough, often dangerous, job of heavy, manual labour, building railway bridges, cuttings and tunnels, with little more than picks, shovels and gunpowder.

A decade later Charles is still platelaying, with the family now living at 144 London Road, Wokingham (opposite Froghall Green, where St Crispin’s School is now). He died in 1932, aged 59.

His son Charles was a railway gateman – manning level crossing gates – for South Eastern, though by 1939 he’d become a railway porter with office duties, and particularly at Winnersh Station after WWII. He was living at 9 Barkham Road, just yards from Wokingham Station (and Lottie’s railway bridge!) with his wife Edna May and their seven children including Gladys, Leonard and Cyril.

Cyril Willoughby (Charles’ grandson) started working on the railways himself when he was 15 years old, becoming a ‘fireman’ on the steam trains when he turned 16. He went on to drive trains from the age of 23 – steam trains initially and later diesels and electric – working the Reading-Waterloo line through Winnersh much of the time – until his retirement.

Research and imagery: Danny Coope.