John Benson

John Benson 23/11/1936 - 08/2022

John Benson was one of the first members of the Ffestiniog Railway Society (joining in 1955) and with reorganisation of the membership list early on in the life of the Society, and a name beginning with B, he ended up with annual membership number 5. He was born at Burghill in Herefordshire and at 18 years of age was called up for National Service which was then compulsory and was sent to The Royal Army Pay Corps (RAPC). He made the army his career and retired in 1977 with the rank of Sergeant Major/WO1. In his army career he went from Devizes to Singapore, Nepal, UK for additional training, Germany with the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry as paymaster, back to Pontefract then via Edinburgh to Donington from where he retired.

From the RCTS web site a tribute by C H M Cheltenham:

John Benson was a much respected member of the Branch for many years, living near to Hereford. He enrolled into the RAF, after WWII, and served as ‘ground crew’ assigned to the administration offices. [These details of his service are incorrect - Mark Temple - He was in the RAPC.] He was soon sent on tours of duty to further flung parts of the world. In between his duties as a pay clerk, he would seek out the local railway infrastructure and take photographs. It was a selection of these which Dave Hill, a long-time friend living nearby, has had digitised and presented to us on 21st March. Images from the 1950s in France and Germany, and in the 1960s from India, Nepal, Singapore – and whilst on leave in the UK he took his camera to many areas of the country. Because his service role gave him opportunities everyday travellers didn’t get so close after the war, we saw images of locomotives in Europe which many of us never new existed. Odd how the French locomotives looked more aesthetically pleasing as they got bigger – and newer! John had an encyclopaedic knowledge of railways, and his record keeping was meticulous. If a fact about a steam locomotive was required, John would know the answer, or at least know where to find the answer.

The RCTS was bequeathed John's meticulous notebooks which now reside in the Society's Library at Leatherhead Stationmaster's House.

As befits someone in the RAPC John could be fastidious about small things. For example in 1965 and 1967 he gave his apologies in writing for absence at the FR Society's AGMs as is recorded in the minutes in FR Magazine. In both cases his rank was given as sergeant but in 1967 his unit is also given as RAPC. As only a handful of apologies for absence are given out of the thousands of members who are non-attenders this puts him in a very small minority of the most conscientious.

John donated a Ruston & Hornsby works plate from 700 mm gauge DL class RH 244873/1945 of the Ulu Remis Estate at Layang Layang, Johore, Malaysia to be the centrepiece of a trophy of an Industrial Railway Society annual photographic competition. He published an article about the Kosi Project Railway (KPR) in Nepal with photographs in Industrial Railway Record - the journal of the Industrial Railway Society - in August 1975. It was based on his time posted to Ghopa (British Gurkha) Camp at Dharan in Nepal from 1966 to 1968. Gopha Camp was the largest Brigade of Gurkhas establishment in Nepal and was a crucial link between Nepal where the Gurkha are recruited and where they were mainly serving in Malaysia and Hong Kong. There was plenty of work in financial administration for the Brigade of Gurkhas numbered more than 16,000 men and there were many more pensioners (including widows and dependents) in receipt of pensions and voluntary allotments which in those days were paid in cash at numerous pension paying posts in the hills.

For Benson's photos of the KPR in the late 1960s follow this link: https://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/raj/nepal/raj3.htm

In 1971 John's letter entitled "Industrial Locomotives in Singapore and Malaya" was published in Industrial Railway Record with pictures of two Peckett saddle tank engines Nos. 1841 and 1846, both of 1932. He was writing from Singapore. He gave his address as: S/Sgt J. Benson, RAPC, 32 Company, Royal Army Medical Corps. c/o GPO Singapore.

He lived at Marden in Herefordshire and was the son of a local church minister. Like many in the clergy his father had a fascination with railways. This was the origin of John's love of them.

John Benson visited the Ffestiniog Railway on 4/9/1958 and took at least 13 photographs of which this is one.

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  Prince at Pen Cob in September 1958. Photo credit: John Benson.
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  On 13th August 1968 John was the guest of the General Manager of the Janakpur Railway, Nepal, Bhuvan Bahadur Pradhan and their shot together was taken on 'Pashupati'. Such were the communication problems in those days that John was entrusted with an official letter listing required spare parts for Hunslet Engine Company back in the UK. (John Benson)