History

Railway companies did employ disabled people in nineteenth-century Britain, but they tended to relegate such workers to lower-paying positions outside of public view. The railway was also a significant creator of amputees in this period owing to accidents involving workers and members of the public. Some railway companies, including Great Western Railway, were among very few employers to provide special prosthesis funds for injured workers. For more on this topic, see Ryan Sweet’s free 2022 book Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture.