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From: "jeff.gould" <>
Subject: RAILWAYS
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 23:45:07 +0100


In 1892, my great grandfather, Ephraim Owen, a goods guard at Llantrisant, was having 3 houses built in Pontyclun. I know of another railwayman, a platelayer, who was buying a farm at about the same time.

How did these men, of modest means and large families, acquire the funds to do this? I suspect they had been sold endowment policies 25 years earlier, but have been unable to find any proof of this.

I do know that insurance companies regarded railway employees as sound prospects, and that Provident Mutual in particular had a long term connection with GWR employees.

A tentative approach to Norwich Union, which took over Provident Mutual, has produced a statement that all early policy data has been destroyed.

Have any other listers come across unexplained "wealth" in their railway ancestors? Jeff

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