EDITH SHEPPARD b 1891-1963
Stationmaster at Dorking during the first World War
Edith Sheppard’s life and opportunities changed completely because of the war. She was able to take up a
job that had only been open to men before.
Edith was born in Eastbourne, 1891 and had a brother Horace. Their father Sidney had been the
stationmaster at Littleworth and later Ockley. During the war there was a shortage of railway staff as men
enlisted or were conscripted. Some stations, like Box Hill Station, closed for lack of staff. Edith became one
of the first women stationmasters, at Ardingly in West Sussex. She then moved to Dorking to become the
stationmaster there. With military and civilian transport dependent on the railways, it was a very responsible
job and not one that would have been entrusted to a woman before 1914. After the war many women
returned to traditional roles, but they had changed people’s ideas about what women could do.
In 1915 her brother Horace, was killed riding his bicycle when it collided with a lorry under the South East
& Chatham Railway bridge in Brockley, London. He was 19.
In 1921 Edith married Ardingly timber merchant Cyril Turner and they lived in Dorking and off Ardingly
High Street, where she died in 1963.
Source: Kathy Atherton Dorking Museum; Additions: Danny Coope
