Told off and Relays of Construction Workers Meaning?

[Andy873]

For what seems almost an eternity I've been trying to get some idea / numbers of navvies working on the Great Harwood section of the North Lancs loop construction...

The Preston Herald (early May 1870) gives me a very precise number (only 9 weeks in) of 197 at that time employed in the work.

The article says they were told of in gangs of three or relays. Does this mean 3 gangs each working a different shift? if so, then these gangs would be working over a 24 hour period, Sundays excepted. Am I right please?

 

[Gloster]

It would all depend on what they were doing, how they were paid, etc. It might just be three men working in a group at whatever task they were given. Relay could mean a number of things and you don’t know if this was the term used by the contractor or by the journalist, possibly wrongly. There is also the question of whether they worked round the clock on some or all of the tasks or just dawn ’til dusk. I very much doubt that in those days they worked eight-hour shifts: the contractor got as many hours out of them as he could.

 

[Belperpete]

Remember that they didn't have flood lighting in those days, so I am not convinced that they worked around the clock. Those working underground, such as in slate or coal mines, obviously worked in the dark with almost no illumination, but that was a very different type of work - they were working at established slate or coal faces, with established routes for getting the material out. Navvies were working in much more rudimentary and temporary conditions.

Unfortunately there are few places left in this country where you can still appreciate what it would have been like in those days in true darkness, with no street lights, and even in the countryside no glow in the sky from nearby towns and cities.

 

[eastwestdivide]

"Told off" could be in the sense of a bank teller, i.e. "counted off" or allocated into gangs of three. Rather than its current sense of reprimanded

 

[Rescars]

Unfortunately there are few places left in this country where you can still appreciate what it would have been like in those days in true darkness, with no street lights, and even in the countryside no glow in the sky from nearby towns and cities.

You could try the Dark Sky Park in Galloway. The route of the Port Road runs through it, but sadly you can't use trains to get there anymore!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Dec 2025 ==

"Told off" could be in the sense of a bank teller, i.e. "counted off" or allocated into gangs of three. Rather than its current sense of reprimanded

This seems a likely explanation. Gangs = relays.

 

[Andy873]

I very much doubt that in those days they worked eight-hour shifts: the contractor got as many hours out of them as he could.

Yes I agree, as covered before on other threads, it's daylight hours and reasonable weather were the deciding factors on the whole.

Remember that they didn't have flood lighting in those days, so I am not convinced that they worked around the clock. Those working underground, such as in slate or coal mines, obviously worked in the dark with almost no illumination

Me neither. The town did have some gas street lighting at the time, but it was still in its infancy. In any case, the line was being constructed out of the town in fields, so it would have been very dark there at night.

This seems a likely explanation. Gangs = relays.

"Told off" could be in the sense of a bank teller, i.e. "counted off" or allocated into gangs of three. Rather than its current sense of reprimanded

I've since searched for the "told off" phrase for the era and it did indeed mean what you've just said.

Thanks for your input everyone, I can now imagine groups of three in relays working from the first cutting to the first embankment, a rough distance of around 1700 feet.


The Preston Herald newspaper also comes up trumps in early December 1870 and states that between 500 and 600 are now employed working on the construction of the line. These figures from December are more like it now, many of you have told me several times that there was probably hundreds working on it, and now it's confirmed.

Some time ago, I was looking at the 1871 census (not too long after the December article) and had the presence of mind to count up the numbers of people who had the skills to possibly be working on the construction, such as labourers, stone workers, carpenters etc. Given the December article's numbers (500 - 600), the 1871 census leaves me around 250 people short? could so many have been missed off the census?