Blood on the Tracks: A History of Railway Crime in Britain (3 page)

The man for whom
£
2 was a small price to pay for the pleasure of smoking a pipe.

As he continued travelling around, and additionally began reading books about railways, he became aware of aspects of economic history, economic geography, topography and local history. He became fascinated by major (and minor) civil engineering features such as viaducts and tunnels, bridges, stations and hotels. Why were the mouths of some railway tunnels given features reminiscent of medieval castles? Why did some stations have what he came to know as Tudor or Jacobean or Gothic architectural motifs? He became aware of geological factors in the location of railway lines and other installations, and also in terms of regional building styles and building materials.

Regional and local cultural differences impinged on his awareness – most starkly at Newcastle Central when he asked another spotter if he knew the identity of a Gresley A4 Pacific puffing away into the distance. The answer provided by the friendly native was so unintelligible that it might as well have been uttered in Swahili. It was the future author’s first brush with the Geordie accent. Via the medium of locomotive names, in particular those of the LMSR ‘Jubilee’ Class, he became aware of many obscure and far-flung parts of the former British Empire such as Bhopal, Bechuanaland and the Gilbert & Ellice Islands. He found out about great British sea dogs including Cornwallis, Barham and Tyrwhitt and battles such as Camperdown, Aboukir and Barfleur. Lastly, from the same class he was able to widen his vocabulary with the names of warships such as
Indomitable
,
Impregnable
and
Implacable
. Not bad for a class of 191 locomotives! A sense of curiosity and of needing to find out was stimulated. Fortunately this has continued and has made for a very interesting life.

This book brings together the authors’ interest in social history and the history of crime, both subjects on which they have a number of published titles to their credit, with their enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, Britain’s railways. They are particularly interested in the economic, social, political and cultural impact of the railways. This book is aimed at the general reader. It is necessarily selective and does not pretend to provide a comprehensive coverage of every type of crime committed on or around Britain’s railways.

1
Perkin, H.
The Age of the Railway
, 1971.

O
ne early and enthusiastic historian of railways commented in 1851 that it was invariably safer to travel on the railway than to stay at home. Many of his contemporaries during the early years of the railways would not have agreed. Derailments, crashes and boiler explosions, for example, were unlikely to occur in the majority of homes, but were disconcertingly common experiences for railway travellers. So were spats with other travellers, as we shall see.

Travellers could rarely choose their fellow passengers. Antisocial behaviour resulting from overindulgence in alcohol led to many unsavoury scenes. Not the least of these occurred when men, with bladders clamouring for relief, exposed the necessary part of their anatomy in order to urinate out of moving trains. If the train was proceeding at speed, it was not unknown for passengers in carriages further down the train to find themselves subjected to a random shower of urine.

Many early railway carriages were, of course, open to the elements. Women especially, but also other men, could easily misconstrue the intentions of male travellers who started groping around in their nether regions in order to locate and extract their genitalia. Even this action, when intended for no more sinister a purpose than as the prelude to relieving themselves, was of course an infringement of public decency. A drunkard with a full bladder who was also believed to be a flasher or sex fiend really did not have a leg to stand on.

Many early passenger carriages contained a number of compartments, and the existence of this type of accommodation posed a whole world of problems for the sensitive traveller. The nature of the compartment meant that passengers were, by necessity, somewhat thrown together. In a crowded
carriage there could be the most frightful situation of enforced physical intimacy, though those of a nervous disposition often found this easier to handle than the occupation of a compartment with just one fellow passenger. This stranger might turn out to be a robber, a sexual predator with curious or repulsive preferences, a homicidal maniac, a lunatic, a chain-smoker or a mind-numbingly tedious bore.

Robberies and assaults within the confinement of compartments were by no means uncommon. People felt trapped inside these small spaces, and although the vast majority of such journeys were completed without anything untoward happening, the reality that there was no easy way to stop the train, or even to contact a member of its crew, was a threatening one. Travellers therefore sometimes equipped themselves with weapons up to and including firearms before they embarked on train journeys. A traveller in 1854 admitted in a letter to a local newspaper that he never travelled by train without a loaded revolver in case he found himself tète-à-tète in an otherwise empty compartment with a lunatic or dangerous criminal on the run.

Before the days of lighting on trains, it was generally felt that tunnels were the places where assaults were most likely to happen. Advice to those alone in a compartment with only one other traveller was to be prepared for an attack by placing the hands and arms in the fashion best suited for defence. Ladies often had a hat pin at the ready. It was always felt that female travellers were more vulnerable to the various hazards of early train travel, especially those involving sexual or other forms of assault. For this reason some compartments were designated ‘Ladies Only’. Of course simply labelling a compartment for the use of women only did not prevent some determined male reprobate from jumping in when the guard’s back was turned. In Victorian melodramas the blackguard concerned would invariably proceed to subject his female victim to a fate worse than death.

Even railway employees were not above taking advantage of female travellers on their own. A guard of what later became the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway was dismissed in 1841 after he had very solicitously suggested to a female passenger that she move from one compartment to another which was more comfortable and reserved for ladies. He carried her bag for her, but then remained in the compartment when the train started and attempted to take what were coyly described as ‘certain liberties’ with her. She fought back, preserving her virtue, only to be ungraciously thrown out by the guard onto the platform of the next station at which the train stopped.

Many other horrors could await the female traveller in ‘Ladies Only’ compartments. She might have to put up with screaming or otherwise fractious mothers, children and/or babies, mothers breastfeeding (which was frowned upon by those who considered themselves genteel), women beggars and others with sob stories they needed to get off their chests. It was by no
means unknown for prostitutes to ply their trade, particularly in otherwise empty ‘Ladies Only’ compartments. The especially determined ones thought nothing of ejecting a single female occupant and replacing her with the client of the moment. Ideally the trains involved in these activities were not stopping-at-all-stations trains on busy inner-city or suburban routes. ‘Ladies Only’ compartments finally disappeared in the 1970s.

Making the Best of It.

It was not unknown for men travelling in a compartment with just an unknown woman for company to find themselves on the other end of a ‘fate worse then death’ situation. For reasons best known to themselves women passengers sometimes maliciously concocted stories that the men concerned had made indecent comments or suggestions, or had molested or sexually assaulted them. If there were no witnesses, the man, even if he was totally innocent,
might find that his guilt was almost taken for granted, and he could very well find himself undertaking a lengthy and very uncongenial prison sentence.

Over the years small numbers of men had found themselves being blackmailed by women who pretended they had been assaulted and threatened to inform the authorities unless the man concerned parted with money. A woman who had shared a compartment with a male dentist on a train from Watford Junction to London Euston alleged that he had indecently assaulted her. She unwisely informed the court that the dastardly fellow had smoked a pipe throughout the entire journey. The court rejected her evidence on the basis that pipe-smoking and sexual assault were two activities which could not be carried out at the same time. It did not help her case that neither her body nor her clothes had borne any evidence that an assault had been made. However, it is no wonder that some men studiously avoided entering a compartment containing a lone female traveller, just as some other men with evil intentions would have made a beeline for one. Over the years a number of women prostitutes did time for demanding money with menaces from lone male passengers on trains.

In 1875 one of the greatest sexual scandals of the nineteenth century hit the headlines. The British public has a keen and constantly salacious appetite for sex scandals, especially if they involve members of the social elite. The main player was Colonel Valentine Baker (1827-87), a well-respected and eminent professional soldier. He was forty-four years of age at the time. At Liphook in Hampshire Baker entered a first-class compartment of a train of the London & South Western Railway. It contained only one other passenger – a young woman called Kate Dickinson. She was attractive and from a well-connected and wealthy family. Perhaps unwisely, Baker engaged Kate in conversation.

As the train headed for London someone on the platform at Woking noted a young woman apparently hanging out of a carriage door. He notified the station staff and the train was stopped near Esher. Kate informed the police that Baker had ‘insulted’ her, a euphemism for sexual assault. Baker had to attend court to face a charge of ‘assault with attempt to ravish’. The scandal-mongers of the gutter press got to work with relish, unearthing real information and inventing imaginary stories as necessary, and publishing them to an extent that prejudiced Baker having a fair trial.

Unsubstantiated rumours circulated to the effect that this was not the first time that he had been implicated in this kind of thing. The papers made much of the fact that Baker had a brother who had earlier caused a scandal of a different sort when he married a young girl he had bought in a slave market, although this was hardly germane to the case under review. Baker was found guilty, but of assault rather than attempt to rape, sent to prison for a year, fined
£
500 and dismissed from the service. He spent much of his subsequent life
gaining fame and honours as a mercenary soldier but he was never rehabilitated by society. Some people thought that the relative leniency of the law in dealing with him was evidence of the class bias of the courts towards those in ‘high places’.