A book researcher has uncovered the lost grave of a man who died building the Great Central Railway.
Ann Smith found the unmarked plot at St Mary's Church, in Lutterworth, which is believed to contain the body of 32-year-old William Smith, who was crushed to death by train buffers in Lutterworth in 1896.
She was able to trace William's great-grandniece, who yesterday went to visit the plot.
Retired teacher Ann, who is no relation to the former navvy, said: "The story of William is an interesting one and gives us an insight into how people worked during the late 1800s and early 1900s."
Ann used archived copies of the Leicester Chronicle to find articles about William Smith's death, on March 12, 1896.
The paper reported that Smith was crushed to death by two buffers after jumping between train wagons to unhitch them.
Ann said: "It wasn't a nice way to go – quite gruesome.
"But we know it happened on a Thursday, the inquest was on the Friday and he was buried on the Sunday.
"He had more than 1,000 people at his funeral and it was held on a Sunday because they wouldn't give them time off in the week."
Ann traced the site where she believes the body was buried by checking the church's burial records.
She said William Smith, who had come originally from Grappenhall, in Cheshire, did not have a headstone as there was no one to pay for it.
"He was probably too poor," she said.
"In fact, all the navvies gave one shilling a head to pay for the funeral.
"It was called the Navvies Shilling, and they all gave it whenever anything like this happened."
In May, she found great-grandniece Caroline Gibson-Crook, 52, who lives in Warrington, Cheshire. Caroline said: "I've been studying my family history for the past 30 years, but I didn't know much about my father's side because my grandfather and great-grandfather had fallen out and they never spoke.
"This is a part of my history I never knew about so it's wonderful to finally add William's name to the family tree."
Ann's research will make up one chapter of a book detailing the history of the Great Central Railway and its impact on Lutterworth between 1890 and 1910.
The book will be available next April, from Lutterworth Museum, in Gilmorton Road.
