ARTICLE: Murder on the Railway, 1864

It’s been a while, so here’s another trial from British history. As ever, it comes courtesy of a series of books about notable trials that was produced before the First World War. Last time, we looked at the first time someone was basically tried in the press. You can see that here:

ARTICLE: Trial By Newspaper in 1823

Today, though, we’re fast-forwarding forty-one years in time and it’s London, with a jaunt to New York, and the very first time a victim was done to death on a moving train…

A contemporary image of Fenchurch Street. It opened in 1841, and was the first terminus built in the heart of the city. Previous ones like Euston were constructed in what were the outskirts at the time (Wikipedia)

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Our story starts one summer evening at Fenchurch Street station, which by this point had been open for about twenty years. At 9:50pm on 9th July, a suburban train belonging to the North London Railway puffed its way out of the terminus and into the night on its eventual way northwest-ish to Chalk Farm. (Not the tube station, another one which eventually was re-named and eventually closed in 1992) Eleven minutes later the train stopped at Bow, at 10:05 it pulled in to Victoria Park, and then at 10:11 it arrived at Hackney, where two bank clerks climbed into an empty first class carriage bound for Highbury. They had hardly sat down when one of them called out. His companion appeared to have blood on his hand. The guard was summoned, and an examination of the compartment found blood all over one of the seats situated with its back to the engine; on the window next to it, and even on the seat opposite. The guard also found a black beaver hat, a stick and a bag. Puzzled, but with no witnesses, and certainly no victim present, he removed the items, locked up the carriage and the train went on its way.

A few minutes later another, empty train was on it’s way back to Fenchurch Street passing along the same part of the line when the driver saw something dark lying in between the two tracks about two thirds of the way to Bow station from Victoria Park. Trains didn’t move as fast in those days, 30-40mph, and so he pulled up and walked back, where he made a gruesome discovery. Lying there on his back with his feet pointed towards London was a man who had been repeatedly bashed about the head…

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