Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings and ephemera relating to railway queens and photograph of Kathleen Lawton, railway queen

Scrapbook of cuttings relating to railway queens dating from the 1930s, invitation to coronations of railway queens from 1969-1971 and a tinted fraemd photograph of railway queen, Kathleen Lawton, who reigned from 1939-45.

This scrapbook offers an interesting perspective on the activities and fame of Britain’s Railway Queens. Running between 1925 and 1975 the Railway Queens were industrial pageant queens, drawn from the female relatives of railway workers and selected by company and trade union officials, to be the ceremonial face of the railways. Young women selected partly to be glamorous, they were the subject of considerable press attention and the success of the Railway Queen publicity project was vital to railway companies struggling with falling business in the 1930s Great Depression.