ARTICLE: An Innocent Man Hanged?

A while, back I dedicated an article to the first known murder on a British railway, in 1864.

ARTICLE: Murder on the Railway, 1864

Today, I’m going to fast forward to the sixth, in another notable trial covered in a series of legal history books published just prior to the First World War. For this, we have to drop in on March, 1910, and travel north, to where a man was found murdered on the Northeastern mainline. As ever, there had to be a justification for the choice of case. On this occasion, the event was still very much in the minds of the public when the book was released, and there had been no end of speculation in the press.

After the trial… the papers were filled with this type of letter, denouncing the verdict of the jury as ‘vicious and ill-considered,’ etc. It is hoped that the publication of the evidence in full, will afford to many food for reflection and comfort to the sceptical.

On Friday, 18th March, 1910, a train left Newcastle at 10.27am, bound for Alnmouth, some 35 miles away. One it was one John Innes Nisbet, a clerk and bookkeeper for the Stobswood Colliery Company. Every other Friday, Nisbet was responsible for bagging up the wages at the bank and transferring them to the colliery close to Widdrington station in a locked bag. On this morning, he had with him the princely sum of £370 9s. 6d. (About £56,000 in todays money).

It was quite a short train, consisting of a luggage van and three compartment carriages, and there were at least two other clerks aboard bound for their own collieries. Usually, Nisbet rode at the back of the train, but for some reason, on this day, he walked along platform five to the front.

The train pulled out of Newcastle station and made for Stannington, then set off on a 27 mile sprint to Morpeth. Here, the conductor distinctly remembered a man in a loose overcoat leaning the train having overshot his ticket. He provided the excess fare, however, and the railway employee didn’t pay him much more attention. The train took on water, and then off it went towards Alnmouth where it was due to arrive at 12:08pm.

And that’s where a gruesome discovery was made when the porter, one William Charlton, opened the door to the third compartment of the first carriage. Blood was pouring out from under the seat, and when Charlton crouched down, he discovered the lifeless body of John Nisbet shoved as far out of sight as his killer could manage. Overkill would be an understatement, as he bore five gunshot wounds to the head. 'A broken pair of spectacles showed that life had not been surrendered without a struggle.’ The bullets extracted from his skull during the post mortem revealed that the killer had used at least two revolvers. Missing, was his black leather bag with the colliery’s wages.