Samuel Bennett, the old mail guard mentioned, and contemporary of Moses Nobbs, was frequently injured on road and rail. In 1847 he was much shaken when a Birmingham-to-Bath train by which he was travelling ran off the line. A few years later he nearly came to an untimely end, having been regarded as dead after being much knocked about when two trains between Bristol and Birmingham collided. On that occasion, after he recovered consciousness, he got together some of his mail bags and carried them on to Bristol.
The Gloucester Journal said of the occurrence:—"Samuel Bennett, the guard of the mail bags, appeared dead when found, and was dreadfully cut; but on recovering, he manifested great anxiety for the bags. When the special train arrived in which the wounded passengers were conveyed onward, Bennett, with great courage, determined to take the bags by this train, which was done."
And the Bristol Mercury wrote of him as follows:—"The mail guard, Samuel Bennett, was very much cut over the face and head, and bled profusely. Happily, he was not rendered long unconscious or disabled, and with a conscientious and self-denying
attention to duty not often met with, he refused any attention to his hurts until he had gathered up the mutilated letter bags and their contents, and made provision for bringing them on to this city."
In the Bristol district there is a railway Post Office apparatus station at Fishponds, on the Midland Railway, bags being deposited thereat by the train due at Bristol at 5.40 a.m., and taken up by the train ex Bristol at 7.0 p.m. On the Great Western Railway, the apparatus arrangement is in operation at Flax Bourton, Nailsea, Yatton, and Hewish, chiefly in connection with the 6.15 a.m. train ex Bristol. It rarely happens that any failures occur at Fishponds or Hewish, but vagaries of the apparatus are more frequent at Yatton. About once a year something or other goes wrong, the pouch usually being dropped and carried along by the train, with mutilation of the mail bags and a general scattering of the letters. On the last occasion, after the line had been searched up and down, the embankment closely looked over, and the ground on the other side of the hedge on the down side closely scrutinized, all unavailingly, some two or three days
after the accident a bundle of letters was picked up which, such was the force of the impact, had been "skied" into a field over two hedges of an intervening lane.
On another similar mishap, a Post Office remittance letter containing £20 in gold was burst open and the coins scattered over the line. After diligent search in every direction, £18 10s. was recovered. One half sovereign, bent in an extraordinary manner, was found between the metals three-quarters of a mile from the apparatus standard. The apparatus has to be adjusted with mathematical nicety, and if not so arranged failures are liable to occur. It is well that the public should bear in mind that packets sent by mails which are exchanged by apparatus are in more or less danger, and any article of a fragile or costly nature should, if possible, be forwarded by mails carried by stopping-trains. The places so affected in this neighbourhood are:—Alveston, Bitton, Blagdon, Burrington, Clevedon, Congresbury, Downend, Fishponds, Flax Bourton, Frampton Cotterell, Frenchay, Glastonbury, Hambrook, Hewish, Iron Acton, Langford, Mangotsfield, Nailsea, Oldlands Common, Portishead, Pucklechurch,
Rudgeway, Sandford, Staple Hill, Thornbury, Tockington, Warmley, West Town, Willsbridge, Winterbourne, Wrington, and Yatton.
Until lately mails for Bristol were forwarded by the midnight train from Euston (L. & N. W. R.) and reached this city by way of Birmingham in time for the North mail delivery. It was on that railway that in 1890 a sad occurrence happened at Watford, when a young man whilst in the discharge of his duties as fireman lost his life. The deceased was leaning over the side of his engine, which was stationary, watching for the signals to be turned, when the day mail train from London dashed by. The travelling Post Office apparatus net which had picked up a pouch at a point a few score yards away was still extended and it struck the unfortunate young man on the head, completely severing it from the body. The poor fellow's cap was torn from his head by the apparatus net and fell into the travelling Post Office carriages with the mail pouches much to the consternation of the travelling sorters, who found evidence of the mutilation on the apparatus framework. The net was only down for the short space of ten seconds. The travelling officials first heard
full details of the accident on their arrival at Tring, where the train next stopped.