Some 141 years of railway history ended early on October 24 when Petersfield signal box was decommissioned after seeing its final public train through around 1.30am.

But what happened to the signallers who worked in the box over the years?

The fascinating story of one of them – Arthur Churchill – has just come to light.

He worked at Petersfield signal box from the late 1940s into the 1960s; but his story and connection to Petersfield starts earlier, with his son, Gordon, continuing this railway story to the present day.

Arthur’s parents, Arthur and Ada, married in Petersfield in 1899. Arthur junior was born in Ewell in 1905 where his father was working as a signalman for the London and South Western Railway (LSWR).

His dad sadly died in 1911 and as a result, Arthur entered the LSWR Orphanage at Woking. Although his mother was still alive, he became a fatherless child and an orphan in legal terms.

In around 1915 Arthur sent a postcard from the orphanage to his mother in Petersfield. The sender was around ten years old and he surrounded his message with kisses, including using them to form the words ‘love to all.’

He wrote: “Dear Mother. I hope you are quite well as I am.

“I am waiting for visiting day to come. I also thank you for the letter you sent me this morning.

“We won the football match the other day. I have not much to say now. So now I must close with love from Arthur.”

Woking Orphanage opened in 1909 and could accommodate up to 150 children. This was a shocking indictment of the railway industry, which regularly killed hundreds of workers each year across the system.

In 1919 Arthur left the Orphanage and came to Petersfield to live with his mother. He joined the LSWR in 1921 and built a career working on the railway. By the 1930s he was a signalman, working at Buriton. He married, and with his wife, Edna, had a son, Gordon.

Arthur worked at Petersfield signal box in the later 1940s through to the 1960s before retiring in the early 1970s and dying in 1977.

Arthur’s story might have stopped there had it not been for the postcard he sent to his mother all those years before.

The postcard was bought by Mike Esbester, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Portsmouth, and co-lead of the Railway Work, Life & Death Project, which looks at accidents to railway workers before 1939.

Mike returned to Arthur’s life as part of the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts project, a collaboration with the Havant Local History Group designed to find out more about railway workers in our region.

As well as Arthur, the project uncovered a range of surprising life stories – many of which are featured in a project exhibition currently on at the University, called The South Coast’s forgotten railway workers.

An exhibition visitor, Doug Jones, recognised the name Arthur Churchill from work he’d been doing on the history of Buriton as part of the Buriton Heritage Bank. He put Mike in touch with Arthur’s son, Gordon, who was still living in the area.

Gordon recalls visiting his father on duty in Petersfield signal box in the 1950s and riding on the footplate of steam engines working the Midhurst branch line. Arthur took his wife, Edna, and Gordon to orphanage reunions, long after he’d left. Whilst life can’t have been easy, particularly after the loss of his father when so young, it seems Arthur built some lasting connections.

Thanks to Network Rail, Gordon was able to visit Petersfield signal box one final time in the days before it closed. It brought back those memories of seeing his father at work 70 years before.

A full version of Arthur Churchill’s life story is available from the Portsmouth Area Railway Pasts website at https://www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk/portsmouth-area-railway-pasts/

By Gordon Churchill and Mike Esbester