This learner has completed ID verification. Find out more.
Certificate of Achievement
has completed the following course:
Working Lives on Britain's Railways: Railway History and Heritage
This course investigated the history of railway workers in Britain, studying engine-drivers, signallers, navvies and clerks, to give an insight into the complex history of railway labour and its development.
4 weeks, 3 hours per week
Kirstie Blair
Professor of English Studies
University of Strathclyde
Transcript
Learning outcomes
- Discuss the range of activities involved in working on the railways in the long nineteenth century, and how these changed during the period covered by the course.
- Assess representations of working lives on the railways and railway artefacts and discuss how they relate to wider questions of class, gender, and professional identity.
- Explore written and oral material on workers’ lives within the appropriate historical and material contexts.
- Perform searches in the online resources of the National Railway Museum and other archives for material relevant to railway history and workers’ lives.
Syllabus
You will learn about four categories of railway worker:
- Engine-drivers
- Signallers
- Navvies
- Clerks
You will compare their differing experiences, investigate the physical and mental labour involved in their job and consider some of the following questions:
- What did they do on a daily basis?
- How did this change during this period?
- What were the key responsibilities and risks in their work?
- What were the key pleasures?
You will look at the ways in which railway workers represented their own work, using autobiographies and other primary historical materials.
You will also study how these professions were represented by those with no direct connection to railway labour.
Issued on 26th February 2020
The person named on this certificate has completed the activities in the transcript above. For more information about Certificates of Achievement and the effort required to become eligible, visit futurelearn.com/proof-of-learning/certificate-of-achievement.
This certificate represents proof of learning. It is not a formal qualification, degree, or part of a degree.