From the founding of the Company by amalgamation in 1844, the largest single location for Midland Railway staff was Derby, where the three predecessor lines had met and where the MR had its headquarters, main works and other operating facilities.

Amongst the Midland people were famous names from the railway world, including George Hudson, the “Railway King”, who was Chairman from 1844 and largely responsible for the company being formed, and others who played an important role in its history, such as the Ellis and Paget families, which each provided two further Chairmen, the Beale family which provided four, and the Bass family, with one Midland Director and a well-known brewery, a major Midland customer.

Like all large businesses, the company organised its staff into departments with their own functions, traffic, locomotives, carriages and wagons, way and works, each with its management structure, initially highly centralised and later more regional.

Many, including some leading figures in later years, typically started work with the Midland at the age of 14-15, for example as a clerk at a local station, and those with promise moved up to more senior positions at larger locations, particularly Derby, or took over responsibility as Station Master or Agent, a prominent position in a local community. It was not uncommon for several generations from the same family to work with the Midland, and to move throughout the country or even abroad as the company’s representatives. People who joined the Midland could look forward to an exciting future in a growing industry, as the railways were for most of the Midland’s period of existence!

The people who ran the MR, at all levels from the Chairman to the teenaged Engine Cleaner, are a topic of interest and research for many members of the Society. The documents and data which members have collected and analysed, many held by the Midland Railway Study Centre, are also of value to a much wider public, including those students of Victorian and early 20th century history, local historians and families researching into their past generations which may have included Midland railwaymen (until at the start of the Great War in 1914 the vast majority of railway staff were male)