Navvy Collection

Illustration, Railway Ribaldry by W Heath Robinson -- The building of Saltash Bridge. Date: 1935

GWR navvies, Treffgarne, Pembrokeshire, South Wales
A group of ten Great Western Railway navvies working on the Treffgarne railway at Nant Y Coy, Pembrokeshire, Dyfed, South Wales

Toddington Station under construction, and navvy camp, 1904
An atmospheric view of Toddington Station under construction in Gloucestershire in 1904, showing the shanty town-like navvy camp

Construction of St Pancras Station, London, c 1867
Travelling Gantry and First Girder of Midland Station St Pancras. This station was completed in 1868, as the London terminus for the Midland Railway. The station was designed by William Barlow

GWR workings on a railway line in South Wales
Navvies working on a Great Western Railway line embankment, somewhere in South Wales. The navvy hut can be seen in the distance on the left

Railway cutting works, discovery of fossilised trees
Railway cutting works on the Manchester to Bolton line, discovery of fossilised trees. Date: 1840s

Tring cutting, London & Birmingham Railway, 17 June 1837 (1839). Artist: John Cooke Bourne
Tring cutting, London & Birmingham Railway, 17 June 1837 (1839). Navvies excavating the cutting. Wheelbarrows are filled with spoil at the bottom

Railway Navigator
Affectionately satirical view of a navigator, or navvy

A Ruston-Bucyrus 25-RB steam navvy loading side-tipping wagons, hauled by 0-6-0 tank locomotive 'Pelican' at Hessle Quarry

Lunch hour, San Sebastian, 1924. Creator: Edmund Blampied
Lunch hour, San Sebastian, 1924

British coal strike - idle dock laborers, Cardiff, between c1910 and c1915. Creator: Bain News Service
British coal strike - idle dock laborers, Cardiff, between c1910 and c1915

Admiral King's visit to the King of Siam at Bangkok: procession...to the Palace, 1865. Creator: Unknown
Admiral King's visit to the King of Siam at Bangkok: procession from the royal landing place to the Palace, 1865. Engraving of a sketch by Mr. R

An engraving depicting navvies working on the Liverpool-Manchester Railway across Chat Moss Bog, 19th century
5310641 An engraving depicting navvies working on the Liverpool-Manchester Railway across Chat Moss Bog, 19th century; (add.info.: Date: 1859); Universal History Archive/UIG

Cartoon depicting a Navvy in heavy marching order: Railway navvies were sent out to the Crimea to build a railway
5308762 Cartoon depicting a Navvy in heavy marching order: Railway navvies were sent out to the Crimea to build a railway and to help with digging trenches, during the Crimean War

Navvies working
5308306 Navvies working.; (add.info.: Engraving depicting Navvies working on the Liverpool-Manchester Railway line across the Chat Moss Bog. Navvies were the men who actually built railways)

Cartoon depicting a navvy and amateur palaeontologist arguing, 19th century
5308837 Cartoon depicting a navvy and amateur palaeontologist arguing, 19th century; (add.info.: Cartoon depicting a navvy and amateur palaeontologist arguing)

Barnum & Bailey poster depicting the destruction of the Spanish Fleet by the United States Navvy, off Cuba 1898
528964 Barnum & Bailey poster depicting the destruction of the Spanish Fleet by the United States Navvy, off Cuba 1898; Universal History Archive/UIG

British & Chinese road b'ld'rs [i.e. builders], 11 Mar 1919. Creator: Bain News Service
British & Chinese road b'ld'rs [i.e. builders], 11 Mar 1919. Canadian railway troops, possibly with Chinese Labour Corps members

Transportation of lumber for the smelting of iron ore, 1910. Creator: Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky
Transportation of lumber for the smelting of iron ore, 1910. Group of laborers sitting in front of a pile of logs

Topographer and Laborers Near the Ust'-Kabyrza Ulus, 1913. Creator: GI Ivanov
Topographer and Laborers Near the Ust'-Kabyrza Ulus, 1913. From a collection of 109 photographs taken during a 1913 topographic expedition to the Gornaia Shoria in the Altai region

A Laborer Returning From a Land-Management Expedition on a Raft After His Dismissal...1913. Creator: GI Ivanov
A Laborer Returning From a Land-ManFrom a collection of 109 photographs taken during a 1913 topographic expedition to the Gornaia Shoria in the Altai region

Commencement of the Thames Embankment works near Westminster Bridge, 1864. Creator: Unknown
Commencement of the Thames Embankment works near Westminster Bridge, 1864. View of...piles being driven in, and scaffolding of an extensive character being erected to support

A barrack for family workers in Krasnoyarsk, 1890. Creator: Unknown
A barrack for family workers in Krasnoyarsk, 1890. This collection includes more than four hundred photographs of daily life in Yenisei Province in the late tsarist period

Road building MOT01_01_34
Coast Road, Horden, County Durham. A group of workmen beside a Ruston excavator loading earth into wagons on a track, during the construction of Coast Road

Agricultural Labourers Union at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon-Street...1876. Creator: Unknown
Agricultural Labourers Union at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon-Street, [London]: Delegates signing Petition, 1876. About a thousand persons from different parts of the country were present

Navvy, 1920. Creator: Helmer Osslund
Navvy, 1920

Ploughing in Turkestan; Notes on Western Turkistan, 1875. Creator: Unknown
Ploughing in Turkestan; Notes on Western Turkistan, 1875. From Illustrated Travels by H.W. Bates. [Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, c1880, London] and Galpin

Street Paver, before 1927, 1956 publication. Creator: Eugene Atget
Street Paver, before 1927, 1956 publication

Bridge & Workers (Pont De La Mulatiere), Printed 1856 circa. Creator: Edouard Baldus
Bridge & Workers (Pont De La Mulatiere), Printed 1856 circa

The Bahia Railway, Brazil: Paripe Valley - from a photograph by B. Mulock, 1860. Creator: Unknown
The Bahia Railway, Brazil: Paripe Valley - from a photograph by B. Mulock, 1860. View of...the heavy works to carry the railway across the valley of Paripe

Workers breaking up rails, 1871-1906. Creator: Pieter de Josselin de Jong
Workers breaking up rails, 1871-1906

Workmen in line with a client, 1860-1865. Creator: Anon
Workmen in line with a client to carry out work on a house, 1860-1865

Building site in the west of old Amsterdam, 1900. Creator: George Hendrik Breitner
Building site in the west of old Amsterdam, 1900

Labourers pulling a heavy cart on Jacob van Lennepkade, Amsterdam, 1900. Creator: George Hendrik Breitner
Labourers pulling a heavy cart on Jacob van Lennepkade, Amsterdam, 1900

Return of the Army Works Corps from the Crimea, 1856. Creator: Unknown
Return of the Army Works Corps from the Crimea, 1856. Mechanics and labourers at Waterloo Station in London. The Army Works Corps...originated in a suggestion made by Sir Joseph Paxton

Culebra Cut, Culebra - Gang of 150 Men Shifting Track By Hand, January 1912. Creator: Harris & Ewing
Culebra Cut, Culebra - Gang of 150 Men Shifting Track By Hand, January 1912. Men working on the Panama Canal project

Culebra Cut - View at Base of Gold Hill, Showing Basaltic Columns Developed By Steam Shovel, 1913
Culebra Cut - View at Base of Gold Hill, Showing Basaltic Columns Developed By Steam Shovel, Cut in March 1913. Men working on the Panama Canal project

Panama Canal, 1913. Creator: Harris & Ewing. Panama Canal, 1913. Creator: Harris & Ewing
Panama Canal, 1913. The Panama Canal project was one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken

Panama Canal, 1913. Creator: Harris & Ewing. Panama Canal, 1913. Creator: Harris & Ewing
Panama Canal, 1913. The Panama Canal project was one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken

Navvies embarking at the Birkenhead Docks, 1854. Creator: Unknown
Navvies embarking at the Birkenhead Docks, 1854. Manual labourers leaving Britain for the seat of war in the Crimea....the ranks of the nomadic army of shovellers are continually recruited from

The Manchester Ship Canal, lock gates at Eastham, 1891, 1891. Creator: Charles William Wyllie
The Manchester Ship Canal, lock gates at Eastham, 1891, 1891. From "The Graphic. An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper", Volume 44. July to December, 1891

Messrs. Peto, Brassey, and Betts Office, Waterloo-Road, 1854. Creator: Unknown
Messrs. Peto, Brassey, and Betts Office, Waterloo-Road, 1854. After the British government requests a Civil Engineering Corps to build the Grand Crimean Central Railway, the London offices of Peto

The New Victoria Dock Works, Plaistow Marshes, 1854. Creator: Unknown
The New Victoria Dock Works, Plaistow Marshes, 1854. Expansion of the River Thames shipping trade capacity by Peto, Brassey and Betts

Navvies at the North-Western Railway Terminus, Euston-Square, 1854. Creator: Unknown
Navvies at the North-Western Railway Terminus, Euston-Square, 1854. Manual labourers leaving London for the seat of war in the Crimea....there are instances of men who have risen from the pick

Fallen Railway Arches in Copenhagen-Fields, 1850. Creator: Unknown
Fallen Railway Arches in Copenhagen-Fields, [London], 1850. Extension of the Birmingham Railway to Blackwall. Last week, one of the most important works on this line

Loading copper, between c1900 and c1930. Creator: Unknown
Loading copper, between c1900 and c1930

Japanese cavalry troops watching over their supplies on the beach at Chemulpo, 1904. Creator: Robert Lee Dunn
Japanese cavalry troops watching over their supplies on the beach at Chemulpo, 1904

Russian wheat warehouse, Chemulpo, c1904. Creator: Robert Lee Dunn
Russian wheat warehouse, Chemulpo, c1904. Koreans and Japanese laborers filling bags with wheat(?) at a warehouse

Demolition of Hungerford Market to make room for the Charing-Cross Railway Station, 1862. Creator: Unknown
Demolition of Hungerford Market to make room for the Charing-Cross Railway Station, [London], 1862. Our View is taken from the lower end of Villiers-street

Dock in course of construction at Boulogne, 1862. Creator: Unknown
Dock in course of construction at Boulogne, [France], 1862. The entire dock, including the sluice-entrance, will cover nearly seventy English acres...the total cost...is estimated at something like

The Metropolitan Railway and the Fleet Ditch, 1862. Creator: JM Williams
The Metropolitan Railway and the Fleet Ditch, [London], 1862. In a few months Paddington will be joined to the City by a new thoroughfare...This line has a width of nearly thirty feet

Laborers awaiting work at the Hill of Idleness Types of Russian working... between 1885 and 1886. Creator: Unknown
Laborers awaiting work at the Hill of Idleness Types of Russian working people at Tumen [ie, T i umen]?, between 1885 and 1886

Members of the South Middlesex Rifle Volunteer Corps at work by torchlight in the gardens... 1862. Creator: Unknown
Members of the South Middlesex Rifle Volunteer Corps at work by torchlight in the gardens of Burlington House, Piccadilly, clearing the ground for a drill-shed, 1862

Navvies building a railway

Steam shovel and Navvies building a railway

Navvies building a railway line in the UK, early 1900s

Men working on Festival of Britain building site, London
Group of men working on the Festival of Britain building site, London. Seen here taking a break to read their favourite newspapers: the Daily Herald, the Daily Worker and the Daily Mirror

Methode par section divisee, Achevement du ciel de l excavation (engraving)
3645189 Methode par section divisee, Achevement du ciel de l excavation (engraving) by French School, (19th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: Methode par section divisee)

Memories of an Indian Tour, leaves from a Travellers Diary (litho)
1040706 Memories of an Indian Tour, leaves from a Travellers Diary (litho) by Ralston, William (1848-1911) (after); Private Collection; (add.info.: Memories of an Indian Tour)

The wheelbarrow (chromolitho)
977648 The wheelbarrow (chromolitho) by French School, (19th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: The wheelbarrow. French educational card, late 19th/early 20th century.); © Look and Learn

The social question. Illustration for Le Rire (colour litho)
2786391 The social question. Illustration for Le Rire (colour litho) by Flores, Ricardo (1878-1918); Private Collection; (add.info.: The social question)

World War II Curtiss Helldivers, US Navvy aircraft carrier
World War II vintage photograph - Curtiss Helldivers on a US Navvy aircraft carrier in the Pacific 1944

Carpenter, Waitress, Shoemaker, Navvy (engraving)
6010606 Carpenter, Waitress, Shoemaker, Navvy (engraving) by English School, (19th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: Carpenter, Waitress, Shoemaker, Navvy)

Railway cutting works in progress in the early days of rail expansion. Date: 1840s

Railway cutting works at Wormwood Scrubs, West London. Date: circa 1840s

Underground railway construction, London 1861
Underground railway construction in progress for the Metropolitan line, London, at Thames Embankment. 1861

Underground railway construction, Euston Road, London
Underground railway construction, earth-hoisting machine, drawn by horses, operating in Euston Road, London. 1861

Underground railway construction, Kings Cross, London
Underground railway construction for the Metropolitan line, Kings Cross, London. Date: 1860

Railway construction, Baker Street, London 1868
Railway construction at Baker Street, London, at the junction of the St Johns Wood and Metropolitan railways. Date: 1868

Railway construction, extension to Broad Street, London 1871
Railway construction, showing demolition of the Worship Street Gas Works to make way for Great Eastern Railway extension to Broad Street, London. 1871

Railway construction accident, Camden Town, London 1849
Railway construction accident at Camden Town, NW London, when some newly constructed arches collapsed on the western side of Kentish Town Road

Construction, Rose Hill cutting, Brighton & Lewes Railway
Construction work taking place on the Rose Hill cutting, Brighton & Lewes Railway. Date: 1846

English Navvies and the Iron Horse (sepia photo)
STC439408 English Navvies and the Iron Horse (sepia photo) by Birtles, Thomas (1832-1914); Private Collection; (add.info.: Manchester Ship Canal)

The old church. Illustration for Le Rire (colour litho)
2786576 The old church. Illustration for Le Rire (colour litho) by Ibels, Henri-Gabriel (1867-1936); Private Collection; (add.info.: The old church)

Methode par grande section, Achevement de l excavation et construction des pieds-droits qui doivent supporter la voute
3645187 Methode par grande section, Achevement de l excavation et construction des pieds-droits qui doivent supporter la voute (engraving) by French School

Methode par grande section, Construction de la voute (engraving)
3645185 Methode par grande section, Construction de la voute (engraving) by French School, (19th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: Methode par grande section, Construction de la voute)

Metropolitan Extension under construction 1864
Metropolitan Extension Railway under construction at Smithfield, London. 1864

Metropolitan railway and Fleet Ditch 1862
Engraving from the foot of Frederick Street, Grays Inn Road, at its junction with Bagnigge Wells Road. of a portion of the works in progress for this vast undertaking. 1862

The navvys pick and shovel (chromolitho)
977700 The navvys pick and shovel (chromolitho) by French School, (19th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: The navvys pick and shovel)

Block and tackle (chromolitho)
977653 Block and tackle (chromolitho) by French School, (19th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: Block and tackle. French educational card, late 19th/early 20th century.); © Look and Learn

Methode par section divisee, Construction de la voute (engraving)
3645190 Methode par section divisee, Construction de la voute (engraving) by French School, (19th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: Methode par section divisee, Construction de la voute)

Percement d un tunnel, methode par section divisee, Ouverture des galeries auxiliaires et construction des pieds-droits
3645188 Percement d un tunnel, methode par section divisee, Ouverture des galeries auxiliaires et construction des pieds-droits (engraving) by French School

Equipe De Terrassiers (colour photo)
2817455 Equipe De Terrassiers (colour photo) by European Photographer, (19th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: Equipe De Terrassiers)

A Young Navvy, iIllustration for The Pictorial Times, 6 November 1847 (engraving)
1594564 A Young Navvy, iIllustration for The Pictorial Times, 6 November 1847 (engraving) by English School, (19th century); Private Collection; Look and Learn / Illustrated Papers Collection

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"Unsung Heroes of the Railway: The Mighty Navvies" Step back in time with this captivating illustration from W Heath Robinson's "Railway Ribaldry, " showcasing the indomitable spirit of navvies. These hardworking laborers, like those seen here in Treffgarne, Pembrokeshire, South Wales during the construction of St Pancras Station in London circa 1867, were instrumental in shaping our modern transportation system. Their tireless efforts can be witnessed through remarkable discoveries such as fossilized trees unearthed during railway cutting works. Take a glimpse into history with John Cooke Bourne's artwork capturing Tring cutting on the London & Birmingham Railway on June 17th, 1837 (1839). These dedicated GWR navvies left an enduring mark on landscapes across South Wales while working tirelessly to lay down railway lines. The image of a steam shovel alongside these determined individuals further emphasizes their crucial role. Witness how they transformed mere blueprints into reality as they built railway lines throughout the UK during the early 1900s. Their unwavering commitment and expertise were not limited to railways alone; even at Festival of Britain building sites in London, these men continued to shape our nation's infrastructure. Let us pay tribute to these unsung heroes - the mighty navvies who worked relentlessly behind-the-scenes - ensuring that generations could travel seamlessly across vast distances. Their legacy lives on within every rail we traverse today.