Great Train Crimes: Murder and Robbery on the Railways by Jonathan Oates Read Free Book Online

on 13 September 1867. On 30 December 1869, he left for Colombo. Whilst in Australia, he was told, by a newly arrived convict, that his name was a legend in London’s criminal fraternity, to which he replied, ‘That means nothing, nothing at all.’ Agar died in exile in 1881. Saward, incidentally, was sentenced to be transported to Australia for forgery in 1857.
    The reader will, if acquainted with the 1978 film, note various differences. Tester is excluded. Miriam, who helps her colleagues in the plot does not resemble Fanny Kay, who played no role in the actual crime or its plotting, nor does the film feature a baby. There are four keys to be taken in the film, not two. Perhaps most importantly, Pierce is arrested near the end of the film, and then triumphantly escapes at its close – a far cry from the initial success and then the squalid climax of reality. The film is really a romanticized version of reality, though asfiction it works splendidly, with acting, scenery, costumes, plot and soundtrack being of the first order.

The First Railway Murder, 1864
     
    ‘An event took place which excited an extraordinary sensation
of surprise and alarm in the public mind and continued
for several months.’
     
    Perhaps it is a tribute to the law-abiding nature of mid-Victorian Britain that it was almost four decades after the first passenger-carrying train that a murder was committed on one of them. Or perhaps it was the conservative and unimaginative nature of the criminal classes.
    Thomas Briggs appeared to be the embodiment of the prosperous middle-class, middle-aged Victorian; perhaps a character out of Dickens. He had been born in about 1795 in Cartmel, Lancashire, where he had attended the grammar school. His family were middle-class and Anglican. However, he had lived in London since he was 16, and in Hackney since the late 1830s. In London he began working at Sir John Lubcock’s bank. Briggs was hardworking, courteous and of sound judgement. In 1864, he was about 69 and was chief clerk (the highest post below that of partner) at Messrs Robarts & Co. of Lombard Street in the City of London (they had taken over the firm he previously worked for). At death, he was worth between £2,000 and £3,000. Although he had suffered a severe illness and went to Lancashire to recover, by 1864, he was in good health for a man of his age. Briggs was tall and bearded. He lived in a house on Clapton Square, near Hackney parish church. With him lived his wife, Margaret aged 70, and three of his adult children. Of his two sons, one was an insurance clerk and the other a ship broker in the City. They had two domestic servants: a cook and a housemaid. He was highly respected and had many friends. Yet his ultimate fate was a most unfortunate one.
    The day began as any other did; like most salaried employees, he led a life of routine. He spent most of Saturday 9 July 1864 at work and at 3 pm left his office. He travelled to see his niece, who lived in Nelson Square, Peckham, arriving at 5 pm. He dined there and at 8.30 left. His niece and her husband, David Buchan, a woollen warehouseman, saw Briggs take an omnibus outside the Lord Nelson pub on the Old Kent Road. This was 15 minutes’ walk from their house. Briggs seemed well and was perfectly sober. He had told them of his route home – to the City, then to take a train from Fenchurch Street to Hackney station, arriving at 10 and so home. There were two or three other passengers on the omnibus, besides the conductor and driver, and its eventual destination was Islington. However, Briggs would have alighted at the corner of King William Street, the nearest stop to Fenchurch Street, and the journey should have taken about 20 minutes.
    It was about 9.45 when Briggs arrived at Fenchurch Street station. Thomas Fishbourne, ticket collector there, knew Briggs as a regular traveller on the line, and saw him at this point. Briggs was alone and greeted Fishbourne before going up to the platform.