Access to the Huskisson Memorial monument

[Gathursty]

It's almost 187 years to the day since the first passenger in the world died on the railway!

I had a short drive down to Parkside Junction near Loston to try to get good shots of the Huskisson Memorial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Huskisson)

I didn't realise that there is very poor access to see it. The memorial is within the railway boundary and is actually extremely close to the line.

From the railway, you go past that quick, it's barely noticeable.
From the road, a footpath goes around the back of the memorial.
On the other side of the line is a farmers field with no clear public vantage point opposite the memorial.

I thought there may be a bit more of a dedicated vantage point/access for the memorial than this.

Feel free to discuss.

 

[Elecman]

There used to be a viewing point directly opposite the memorial, accessed from the road, but it was closed many years ago.

 

[Welshman]

This thread has set me thinking about the purpose of public memorials.

Immediate relatives/contemporaries of the deceased understandably wish to place some sort of impromptu memorial at the point where the accident occurred - eg. bunches of flowers left at the roadside, etc.

But with the passage of time, the purpose of a memorial changes to mark the importance of the deceased person to a wider public, who will not have personal knowledge of that person, and, for whom, the actual location of the accident is secondary.

Hence, I think the permanent memorial should be in a place more accessible to the general public - hence the one in the National Railway Musuem at York. It is there that people with an interest in railway history will learn about Huskisson, rather than searching up and down the Manchester-Liverpool line.

It is the same, for example, with Horatio Nelson. I don't know if there is a memorial to him at Cape Trafalgar in Spain, but it is in London's Trafalgar Square where he is given prominence.

 

[edwin_m]

the first passenger in the world died on the railway!

It is often quoted as such but I'm pretty sure many railway and colliery workers would have been killed before that on the colliery tramways and the S&D, not to mention navvies building the L&M. Being mere working class lackeys rather than persons "of some standing", history didn't tend to record those deaths.

 

[Busaholic]

It is the same, for example, with Horatio Nelson. I don't know if there is a memorial to him at Cape Trafalgar in Spain, but it is in London's Trafalgar Square where he is given prominence.

And in Penzance, Cornwall, in the Union Hotel in Chapel Street almost opposite where I'm writing from. The Nelson Room has great significance as it was the place where, it is said, Nelson's victory at Trafalgar was first announced.

 

[kentman]

Memorials, if you can call it one, are not always public. According to http://www.kentrail.org.uk/north_downs_tunnel.htm There is a statue of St. Barbara 10 meters inside the CTRL North Downs tunnel.

Here is a feature which even a regular user of the line would not know exists. Approximately 10-metres inside the tunnel from the London-end portal sits a statue of "St. Barbara", patron saint of tunnellers and miners. At window level you can see where the cable troughs are routed around the cutout in the wall on the "down" side. © Paul Cooper-Hayden

 

[hairyhandedfool]

It's almost 187 years to the day since the first passenger in the world died on the railway!

I had a short drive down to Parkside Junction near Loston to try to get good shots of the Huskisson Memorial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Huskisson)

I didn't realise that there is very poor access to see it. The memorial is within the railway boundary and is actually extremely close to the line.

From the railway, you go past that quick, it's barely noticeable.
From the road, a footpath goes around the back of the memorial.
On the other side of the line is a farmers field with no clear public vantage point opposite the memorial.

I thought there may be a bit more of a dedicated vantage point/access for the memorial than this.

Feel free to discuss.

There is a copy of the memorial tablet at Newton-le-Willows station, on the Manchester bound platform at the top of the stair case.

 

[Gathursty]

There is a copy of the memorial tablet at Newton-le-Willows station, on the Manchester bound platform at the top of the stair case.

I will look out for that. Thanks.