At the time of the First World War tens of thousands of Salford men had done their duty and joined up to fight for their country on the Western Front.
It left a huge jobs gap which women would step in to fill, and one of the most popular was for the smartly-dressed tram conductor.
Manchester Corporation Tramways launched in the late 19th century, with Salford employing large numbers of ‘trolley boys’ and ‘trolley girls’ who helped the conductor by directing passengers.
Being one step above them, as a conductor, was a prestigious position in a country facing the drain of thousands of men being shipped out to France and Belgium.
Sexism was still clearly rife. As the archives tell us, Salford’s Tramway inspectors in 1915 found Salford’s women ‘tramguards’ to be “most satisfactory”, but the the men’s Union believed the introduction of women’s work into the system as “a dangerous innovation”.
Emblematic of this was the case of one female tram conductor from Eccles who would have a day she’d rather forget in November 1915.
Annie Pile was working late on a Salford Corporation tram at Blackfriars Road in Broughton on Friday 12 November.
The circular route, heading over Broughton Bridge, would run up Frederick Road and then back to Manchester along the Crescent.
Salford Corporation double decker tram 338, via Flickr. Original photograph by M. J. O’Connor
It was around 10pm when collier John William Glass boarded the tram, which was packed and standing-room only.
There was trouble from the start when Glass demanded a seat. He was granted his wish by a nervous passenger but when Annie Pile asked his for his fare and destination, he said that he wanted to go to Pendlebury and offered her a halfpenny.
She politely explained that the tram would take him to Pendleton Baths on Frederick Road where he could get another tram to Pendlebury, but it would cost him one penny.
Glass put a sixpence in his mouth and offered her the halfpenny again, saying that, “if you don’t take that you’ll take nothing,” adding, “you are like the rest of the German crush, trying to cheat me”.
It was clear that the miner was heavily intoxicated, Salford Magistrates Court heard.
Salford Corporation tram 88 at Peel Green, 1914, via Flickr
Annie stopped the tram and asked the driver, Arthur Siddons, to have a word with him, which he did, asking him to “be a gentleman and pay the lady” so that they could all go on their way.
Glass handed her the sixpence and was given five pence change in return, however he then demanded that she give him back the halfpenny which he hadn’t tendered in the first place.
As she went to press the bell to let a passenger off Glass stood up in what was described as “a fighting pose” and shouted that if she didn’t take her finger off the bell he “would choke her”.
Shocked passengers got off the tram, fearing violence on the way.
While this was happening a lone man worse the wear for drink, a Mr Brockbank from Swinton, boarded the tram, oblivious, but Annie Pile was too frightened to walk past Glass to collect his fare in case he assaulted her. Sadly her fears were about to come true.
Glass stalked up to her and placed both hands around her throat stating that he was “going to do for her”.
She promptly fainted and the next thing she remembered was coming round at the tram shed with her uniform and clothing covered in mud, missing one shilling 11 pence from her money.
The police were summoned and Glass was taken to Cross Lane police station were he became very violent and was charged with assault and being drunk and disorderly.
Mr Brockbank told Salford Magistrates Court (with a straight face) that he knew Glass, and saw that he was drunk, but he didn’t see any assault take place as he was looking out of the tram window!
Glass’s solicitor Mr Davey told the court that he “could not defend an attack on a defenceless girl who was only doing her duty and earning her livelihood” under the novel cirmcustances that male former tram conductors were serving in the armed forces.
He then proceeded to say that Glass had taken a drink before making “quite offensive if not ridiculous statements” about Miss Pile.
In mitigation he argued that the collier had suffered an head injury whilst working on the railways some time ago and it was dangerous for him to drink alcohol.
Davey also suggested that a woman undertaking these arduous duties would be in a condition of “overstrain” and when overwrought might conjure up in her mind the notion that she had been assaulted and was probably “seized with illness and terror” at the newness of her work!
Fortunately the Stipendary was having none of this rubbish and said that Glass had carried out a brutal assault and was lucky not to be facing more serious charges, sentencing him to two months in jail with hard labour added on.
Little wonder that women demanded equal rights and the right to vote when buffoons such as Mr Davey could imply that women were somehow inferior to men and more exicitable under pressure.
I’m certain that if a drunken collier threatened me and attempted to strangle me to death I too would become “seized with illness and terror”.
Despite their service to keep the country running in wartime, it would not be until 1918 that women over the age of 30 got the vote, and not until 10 years later that women over 21 were allowed to vote under the Franchise Act of 1928.
While a new bus and tram depot was built at Weaste in 1929, the last of Salford Corporation’s tram services ended in 1947.
It would not be until Metrolink rebuilt the a 4-mile line branching from Cornbrook to Eccles via Salford Quays in autumn 1995 that local people would again see trams running through the city.
Construction work started in 1997 for the £160 million Phase Two of Metrolink’s expansion, with the Eccles line opening as far as Broadway on 6 December 1999, and extending to Eccles interchange on 21 July 2000.
Main image © Alamy
