Description:Station staff pictured outside the public entrance to Armitage Railway Station during the national railway strike of July and August 1911. This had been the first national strike of railway workers in Britain. The Station Master is Edward William Walker and the second Porter from left is John Leigh. The 'Normal Working Resumed' poster relates to the end of the strike. The adjacent poster advertises a special rail excursion to Blackpool.
Armitage Station on the Trent Valley line was built to serve the villages of Armitage and Handsacre. It was opened by the LNWR on 1st November 1847 and closed on 13th June 1960, a casualty of railway rationalisation and declining business.
Milk churns stand waiting for collection and in the background can be seen semaphore type signals.
This picture is from an album of photographs taken by Thomas Harvey Boycott (1876-1949) who lived with his widowed mother, Fanny Maria, whose family had lived at Handsacre Hall as farmers, together with his unmarried aunt, Sarah Elizabeth Harvey. Harvey was a Clerk at Lichfield District Probate Court and a skilled amateur photographer. The album was a parting gift from Harvey and his mother to the Rev. R.E. Grice-Hutchinson (1885-1976) who was Curate of Armitage with Pipe Ridware 1909-1913.