Ryde Social Heritage Group research the social history of the citizens of Ryde, Isle of Wight. Documenting their lives, businesses and burial transcriptions.
RYDE SOCIAL HERITAGE GROUP
Based at Ryde Cemetery Heritage & Learning Centre. Preserving, documenting and promoting the social history of Ryde on the Isle of Wight.
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Ryde Architecture

At one time the Railway Mission Chapel

Gospel Chapel, Monkton Street, at one time the Railway Mission Chapel

Isle of Wight Observer 26 January 1889

In a talk given by Mr. SEAGRAM (the Secretary of the Mission to Railway Men) said “Their object was the salvation of souls. What would profit if a man gained the whole world and lost his own soul?  On the railways of Great Britain and Ireland no less than 400,000 men were employed, and when they reckoned the wives and families of these men, there would not be far short of a million persons dependant on the railways.  By God’s blessing they had been able to reach these men, and now, in connection with the Mission, there were 300 places of meeting.  In many places there were halls capable of holding 200 people.  Here the railway employés held religious and temperance meetings all to themselves, and in many places, ladies had taken up the work, and were going amongst the men and their wives and leading them to higher things.”  He believed “that fully 90 per cent of these men believed it to be their duty, as Christians, to become total abstainers. Could the travelling public regard such a result as this with indifference?”  He strongly urged “that this mission should be affiliated to the London Mission, so they should be able better to unite in resisting the common enemy—the devil.”

The Railway Men were also catered for at other premises in Ryde as the article below shows.

Isle of Wight Observer 30 November 1895

Railway Mission – On Tuesday evening the annual meeting and tea of the I.W. Branch of the Railway Mission was held at the Oddfellows’ Hall, Ryde.  Lieutenant Gartside TIPPINGE took the chair, after a very enjoyable tea, and was supported by the Revs. W. H. REDKNAP and E. B. PEARSON and Messrs. G. HUTT, J. DOWN, T. GILES and BAIGENT.  The Chairman in his address, bore testimony to the usefulness of the work done by the mission. The mission had started here a year ago.  Miss GILES, the lady superintendent, in a short address, explained that the Mission was not Sectarian, but simply aimed at catching the Railway men as they came from work.  Mr. HUTT said that that the mission was a grand organisation and likely to prove of great benefit to all those working on railways.

Isle of Wight Observer 28 February 1920

Railway Clerks—A meeting of the Ryde Branch of the Railway Clerks Association, was held at the Mission Hall, Monkton Street, on Saturday evening, when an address was delivered by Mr. W. STOTT, R.C.A., Assistant Secretary and Editor of the “Railway Services Journal.”

A regular Listing under Places of Worship, in the Isle of Wight Observer included, (for example) 21 May 1910 and 25 November 1916 – The Railway Mission Hall, Monkton Street.

Image source: RSHG Archive Roy Brinton Collection