MARIA CORE
1874-1945
Matron of Railway Servant’s Orphanage on Oriental Road, Woking.
Home to about 120 children whose railway worker fathers had been injured or killed.
Maintained by railworkers’ voluntary contributions the orphanage began life in Clapham in 1885 as a
home for children, up to age 14, whose fathers had died building or working on the railways – it was a very
dangerous occupation in those days – and whose mother might not be in a position to support them. In 1909
it moved to larger premises in Woking, built on land they bought from the London Necropolis Company,
whose own railway or ‘ghost train’ had been carrying London’s dead from Waterloo to Brookwood
Cemetery (in First and Second class carriages!) since 1854.
Born in Bury, Lancashire in 1874 to Susannah and John Core, a paper mill stoker. Her siblings were cotton
spinners or weavers but Maria was to spend her working life in service. She was the domestic servant of a
Baptist Minister a few streets away from home but by 1901 had moved away, working as a laundress at an
Industrial school in Chelmsford. By 1909 Maria was in Woking, as Matron of the new Orphanage.
By 1921 her team of female staff included Rosina Love, assistant Matron; Florence Ashford was Head
needle mistress; Janet Brooks was girls’ attendant and various kitchen assistants, domestic servants. The
gardener was a man. At the time it was called ‘London & South Western Railway Servants’ Orphanage’ and
was home to 120 children, many from Hampshire and Surrey but some from Ireland and Wales too.
Naturally there was school work to do but there were toys to play with – such as a model railway – and there
were days out, useful skills to learn, for example wood turning and shoe repair, there was even a Scout group
to join. Mothers could visit once a month.
In 1934, after 25 years service Maria retired aged 60 and Grace Groom took over her role. Maria went to
live with Mr and Mrs Bond at Heathercourt, Broomhall Lane in Woking. She died in 1945, aged 71.
Watch a 1960 Pathe News segment on the Home here (3mins) https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/36968/
https://www.formerchildrenshomes.org.uk/woking_railway_orphanage.html