John Hugh Mowatt appears to have been the first station master at Woodlesford and remained in post until his death in 1856. He was also the founder of a small railway dynasty as three of his sons joined the industry. Like many of the pioneers of main line operations who had to create a new way of working he was involved in several accidents. Prior to becoming a railwaymn he’d served in the army, been a shopkeeper and narrowly avoided being charged with murder!
According to research by his descendant John Dixon, John Hugh Mowatt, or Mouatt, was born between 1791 and 1795 in St George’s Parish, Grenada in the Windward Islands. His family are thought to have owned a plantation but probably ran into hard times during a slave rebellion a few years later. John Hugh came to England and joined the 5th Dragoon Guards as a musician in Canterbury in 1812 and served in the Peninsular War in Spain and then in France. He was eventually discharged from the army as a Chelsea Pensioner in 1825 suffering from rheumatism and general ill health. His discharge papers record he was about 34 years old, 5 feet 10 inches tall with black hair and hazel eyes. His “tawny” or light brown complexion raises the possibility that his mother may have been one of his father’s slaves.
Mowatt had returned from Europe and was based at Fulford barracks near York when he married his first wife, Ann Gregory, at the parish church there on 14 December 1818. After he left the army he’s believed to have become a commercial traveller and grocery shop owner selling bacon, ham and cheese at Garden Place in the city. An 1830 directory entry indicates he had a sideline issuing licences to door-to-door hawkers.
In 1837 his freehold house and shop had to be sold after John couldn’t pay his debts and he moved with Ann and their younger children to Leeds. There, from premises at 7 Lower Headrow, he earned a living as an agent selling one-way tickets to people emigrating to the United States and Canada. The “fine first class” copper bottomed ships sailed from Liverpool and were supposedly “very lofty and spacious between decks.” In reality conditions for the cheapest “steerage” class were very poor with overcrowding on board, sea sickness and outbreaks of infectious diseases.
Then about a year later things went from bad to worse. It followed the discovery of the body of a man called John Towlard on Tuesday 7 August 1838. He was found in one of the goits, or channels of water, around the King’s Mills on the banks of the River Aire just off Swinegate in Leeds. An inquest was started the following day where it was revealed a letter had been found on the body which suggested Towlard had been in a relationship with Ann Mowatt in York.
The coroner adjourned the inquest for further inquries but the revelation led to speculation in the press pointing the finger at John Mowatt and his wife. The following Saturday the Leeds Mercury, under the headline “Suspicion of Murder” reported the case: “The body exhibited a considerable number of bruises, and the fact of the deceased having cohabited with a married woman named Ann Mowatt, residing in Buslingthorpe Lane, whose husband had threatened to murder him, and who in company with his wife were known to have been with him on the night of his death, has induced suspicion against them of having thrown him into the water,” it said.
At the resumed inquest Ann was closely questioned. It transpired she’d known Towlard in York for about 14 or 15 years suggesting they’d formed a relationship whilst John was still away in the army. Towlard was an out of work joiner whose own wife had died in 1837 and he had followed Ann to Leeds. She’d started meeting him surreptitiously in pubs around the city and had given him small amounts of money and food. She said he’d tried to persuade her to run away with him to Manchester but she’d resisted and at their last meeting it was clear to her that he was intending to take his own life.
Ann went on to say that what appears to have been a suicide note saying he would “do it near the Wellington Bridge” had been discovered at Towlard’s lodgings at a pub in Sheepscar on the day of his death. It had been taken to her house and was opened by her husband. She testified that she wanted to save Towlard’s life and she and her husband had gone to look for him near the river but couldn’t see him so they went home.
It appears John Mowatt had found out about his wife’s lover a few weeks earlier and had tried to send Ann to stay with relatives in York but he’d followed her and she was only away for one night. Another witness, Harriet Fountain, the wife of a beer shop owner who rented out rooms, said Towlard had stayed with them “some time ago.” About three weeks before the drowning John Mowatt had come looking for him. She told him she believed Towlard had left the city and Mowatt had said he believed he’d had “improper connections” with his wife. She claimed he had said: “If I can find him it will be the death of him.”
It’s not clear if John Mowatt attended the inquest but John Thompson, a policeman instructed by the coroner, had spoken to him. On the face of it he again seemed to implicate himself in Towlard’s death by confirming he went with his wife to look for him on the Thursday before he died. He had taken a “thick stick” and if he’d met him he would have “saved him the trouble of drowning himself.” He also said that he had been in the army, knew how to use both a sword and a pistol, and would go to York Castle (to be tried) if he had to.
After another adjournment the eminent surgeon Thomas Pridgin Teale from the Leeds General Infirmary gave a detailed report of an autopsy he’d carried out on Towlard’s body. The head, face and neck were swollen and black but he couldn’t see any evidence of wounds, injuries or strangulation. From the condition of the lungs, heart and stomach “the presumption was that the man was alive when immersed in the water, and that death resulted from drowning.”
Towlard’s last letter was then read out: “August 2nd, 1838. “My Dear Ann, With a mind almost frantic I write these few last lines to you. You are aware that I have carried on this spree to too great an extent, as you know the human heart is prone to evil. I hope you will forgive in the great liberty I have taken with you in all respects, when you consider all things that has drove me to present determination, and I think it’s the best, though not a rational conclusion, but being hardened through sin has thus brought these consequences. Let me entreat of you by all that can be said of one in my situation, to stay at home and become a good wife and mother. Don’t fret on my account, as I am the main cause of your uneasiness. I shall do it near to Wellington Bridge. May God bless you. Adieu. J. T…d.”
After this the coroner summed up saying it was clear that Towlard’s death had been caused, by drowning, but it wasn’t clear if he’d thrown himself into the water, or had accidentally fallen in. Believing John Mowatt he told the jury he thought they should attribute his statements “to the momentary excitement caused by the conduct of his wife, than to any real intention to injure the deceased.” In tune with the attitudes of the times he was less sympathetic to Ann Mowatt saying she had “evinced a degree of depravity in a married woman such as he never before met with, and he could only account for it by supposing that she was a woman of weak intellect.” Within a few minutes the jury returned a verdict of Found Drowned.
With that the Mowatt’s were free to resume their lives and despite the hurt, humiliation and notoriety the case had brought it looks as though they stayed together to look after their existing children. A few years later Ann gave birth to another son who was taken by train from Woodlesford to be baptised at Leeds parish church in December 1844.
There are no railway records to show precisely when John Hugh Mowatt started as the station master at Woodlesford. He could have been there for the opening day’s special train on 30 June 1840 or perhaps took up his post a few weeks or months later. The only indication comes from a short obituary in the Leeds Intelligencer when he died. It said he’d been there “since 1840.” Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to have been recorded in the census in June 1841 although his wife and four children were still at the same address in Leeds as they had been in 1838. This would seem to suggest that they were waiting for their accommodation in the station building at Woodlesford to be finished. With few people versed in railway operations it’s likely John Hugh was chosen for the job based on his ability to obey and deliver orders from his army days as well as his experience as a ticket agent. His notoriety from the Towlard incident seems to have been discounted although the North Midland Railway’s Leeds based directors would have been well aware of the case.
The first official reference to him comes in a Report to the Committee of the Privy Council of an accident on 27 December 1844. It records that a train from Manchester to Leeds ran into the back of one from York that had just left Woodlesford in foggy conditions in the late afternoon. Mowatt got the blame for not setting his signal against the Manchester train to prevent it from running into the back of the York train. It was running late since it had to shunt two wagons into the Woodlesford goods yard sidings.
The collision happened on the curve in the line just after the station towards Leeds. The Manchester train caught up with the one from York and crashed into the rear carriage which became detached from its train, the driver carrying on to Hunslet Lane station with the rest of the train, unaware that anything untoward had happened.
In those early days, before more sophisticated signalling was invented, trains were regulated by keeping them 5 minutes apart and after this accident the duration was increased to 10 minutes. Mowatt was fined and given a good ticking off by his bosses from the newly formed Midland Railway.
Only one passenger was injured in that incident but it appears that John Hugh Mowatt remained a bit of a slapdash railwayman as his name appears in several other accident reports. In the first, from November 1847, he was working one morning with a porter to manhandle a truck into a siding. It had been detached from a train but as they were struggling to move it from the main line a non-stop train bound for Manchester, which had left Leeds at 7 a.m., suddenly appeared and struck the truck breaking off one its buffers.
The porter, Henry Doncaster, managed to pull Mowatt out of the way but the broken buffer hit him on the head and he was killed on the spot. Born at Carsington in Derbyshire Henry Doncaster was 31 years old and had first been employed on the North Midland Railway at Wingfield between Chesterfield and Derby. He left a wife and four children. She then married Joseph Connell, a waggoner at Fleet Mills, but was widowed again few years later. In 1863 she married Oulton born Charles Cockerham and rejoined the railway family when he became a labourer or platelayer at Whitwood. She was finally reunited with her first husband when she was buried with him at Oulton in 1882.
Meanwhile late on the evening of St Leger day in September 1850 there was a similar accident to that in 1844 when a packed excursion train returning to Leeds from the races at Doncaster was rear ended by a passenger train from Derby. Again it was dark and foggy and the driver of the Derby train was told at Normanton to proceed with “great caution” as the excursion train was only a few minutes ahead of him. At Methley Junction he saw a lit caution signal and was intending to stop again at Woodlesford to check how far the Doncaster train was ahead of him. But just before he reached the station the rear of the excursion loomed out of the darkness and he ran into it. Luckily only six passengers were slightly injured.
An investigation was carried out by Captain George Wynne of the Royal Engineers. He discovered that station master Mowatt had lit the distant signal on the down line towards Normanton but had failed to light the one approaching Woodlesford on the Up line. This was probably because it was a long walk from the station. He even admitted that it had not been lit at night for the last six months. Mowatt was blamed and severely reprimanded but didn’t lose his job. This seems to be because his bosses at the Midland company were also criticised as nobody had reported or even noticed that the signal hadn’t been lit suggesting a slap dash attitude amongst the drivers and their management.
A couple of months later in November 1850 the hapless Mr. Mowatt was involved when the guard of a train on its way to York was hit at Woodlesford by a train going towards Leeds. The York bound trains didn’t normally stop but this one was following a southbound Midland Railway train which had stopped less than five minutes earlier. In accordance with the rules Mowatt had set his signals for the York train to stop so it didn’t catch up and run into the back of the earlier train. The guard, Thomas Gibbins, appeared to be annoyed at this and gesticulated towards Mowatt on the opposite platform as if to ask what was going on. He then jumped down on to the Leeds bound track to go and remonstrate with the station master. However he didn’t hear the whistle of a train from Knottingley, operated by the Great Northern company, which was approaching at between 25 and 30 miles an hour.
As he tried to climb onto the platform the buffer of the engine hit Gibbins on the head and forced him between the train and the platform wall. His thigh was smashed near to the hip joint, his head and face cut and his abdomen was crushed. The local surgeon, Robert Craven, gave first aid. Gibbins was then carried on the Great Northern train to be taken to the Leeds Infirmary but he died “in the greatest agony” just as the train reached Wellington station. An inquest returned an accidental death verdict and this time no blame was attached to John Hugh Mowatt. Thomas Gibbins was reported to have run a pub in York and left a wife and nine children.
Ann Mowatt died in the station house at Woodlesford in 1849 and John remarried Mary Wright from Skipton at Rothwell church two years later. She was the daughter of a railway ticket collector. The 1851 census records them living at the “station house.” In the same building were porters Ambler Woodhead from Sheffield and William Cusworth from South Hiendley and their families. There were three separate households but it’s not clear if this was the large station building on the Down platform or the short row of cottages the railway had built on Station Lane above the line.
John’s son James from his first marriage worked at Woodlesford station as a clerk and was still living at 10 Princes Street (Church Street) during 1881. His brother William was a railway clerk and coal agent at York and then Newcastle. James later contacted gangrene in his leg and died in the care of his brother’s family at Newcastle.
John Hugh Mowatt died of “heart failure” at Woodlesford on Monday 1 December 1856 following another accident in foggy conditions under his watch the previous Thursday morning. A stationary Midland goods train on the down line was run into by a Great Northern goods train from Knottingley. One of the guards was “much shaken and injured” and consignments of fresh fish were scattered across the tracks. It took only about two hours to clear the debris and the accident was blamed on a faulty signal at Methley Junction. Given his record though John Hugh may have felt his job was under threat and if he was already unwell the accident may have brought on his demise.
John Hugh and Mary’s two children were Joseph and Edmund, born in 1851 and 1855. After John Hugh died they moved with their mother to Bridlington where she ran a guesthouse. They all eventually moved to Hull. In the census Joseph is recorded there as a railway clerk and Edmund as a fireman. It appears he wasn’t working on the railway but at sea where he died in July 1901. The Hull Evening News records that he was on board a steamer called Georgia sailing from South Shields to Cronstadt in Russia. The ship’s captain reported that he’d been seen on deck half an hour before going on duty but had disappeared in “mysterious circumstances” two days into the voyage.
Below is an engraving showing an early railway signal and a signalman or “bobby”, named because they were originally called railway policemen and wore uniforms similar to the civil police introduced by Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel in 1829. It’s likely that signals like this were erected at Woodlesford but it’s not known precisely where they were located.
