Great Train Crimes: Murder and Robbery on the Railways

by Oates, Jonathan

  I saw a lady enter the station from Wilton Road, and from what I read, I am now convinced that this lady was Miss Money. She appeared to be expecting somebody and although she kept walking up and down, I noticed that she was always looking towards the Buckingham Palace entrance. About 7.45, as she was being rather annoyed by gentlemen looking at her, she was joined by a gentleman, carrying a brown kit bag and wearing a pepper and salt coloured coat, who apparently came into the station from the Buckingham Palace entrance. The greeting struck me as very unusual. The gentleman did not sit down, and both went off together immediately, towards the other station.

  It was then thought that she was seen at Croydon station. Alfred Barton, a guard on the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, was on the 9.13 train from London Bridge on the night in question. He was talking to a man on the platform at Croydon just in front of a first class carriage, no. 508. He then saw a man and a woman walking past the barrier. The woman was young and wore dark clothes, with a long muslin scarf. She was tall and thin and her companion was thin, five feet eight high and had a long face and a thin chin. The man was wearing a bowler hat and had a moustache. He saw the couple again at the next station, South Croydon. They were sitting very close together in a compartment. The man sat on the side nearest the door.

  When questioned more closely, Barton gave additional details. He thought the pair were behaving suspiciously by trying to avoid him. He wondered if they were in fact, first class passengers. Barton said, ‘When I looked at the man in South Croydon he looked as if he didn’t want anything to do with me.’ The next stop was Redhill, where the guard, though he was occupied with the mail van, thought that the man alighted. Earlier, he had merely said that he had not actually seen the man leave, but that he had seen a porter shutting the door. Whether or not he had indeed seen Miss Money and her companion is another question. The two may well have been merely eager to avoid the guard because they were having an illicit affair, rather than anything more deadly.

  There was an interesting statement by Frederick Yarnley, a signalman on duty at Purley Oaks signal box. He saw the train which had left London Bridge at 9.13 pass by. He also saw a struggle take place in one of the compartments on that same train, in the carriage which was third from the end of the train. A couple was apparently standing up, and the man was trying to force the woman onto the seat. The man had both his hands up and the struggle took place near to the door, not the communication cord. The woman was about five feet four and was dressed in black. He did not notice whether she was wearing a scarf. He could not identify the woman he had seen with a photograph of Miss Money. Such sights, though uncommon, were not rare and it did not, in his opinion, seem to be of sufficient severity that would justify in stopping the train.

  A possible clue was a handkerchief found at Penge. Robert Money was uncertain whether his sister’s handkerchiefs were marked, but thought they had lace around the edges.

  It certainly seems that Miss Money was seeing a man. An anonymous man said he saw her on the Sunday before her death, involved in ‘a heated alteration in the neighbourhood of Clapham station’. It was reported by another informant that Miss Money often went to the Crichton restaurant, near to Clapham Junction, with a well-dressed man. They were seen there on the Wednesday and Friday afternoons before her death, and allegedly the same man accompanied her to the station on the Sunday evening.

  One suspect who would seem to have been ruled out was Charles Bell, a railway clerk. He had known Miss Money for four years, though there had been no engagement nor any understanding between them. However, he had given her a ring in the previous year. He had last seen her on 18 September. On the day of her death he was on a cycling trip with a friend, Mr Morris. They had had tea at The George at Berkhamsted in west Hertfordshire, and had not returned to London until 9 pm. He knew of no other man that she was seeing.

  Another suspect was Bridger himself. There was some discussion whether his relationship with Miss Money might be more than merely that of employer and employee. George Money claimed that Bridger had once been with her to Waterloo station, where she took a cab to Euston. She did not tell him if Bridger paid for it. When asked about Bridger, Miss Money told her brother that ‘he was a very nice fellow’. She was apparently cheerful in her life and work. Money told the court that his sister said that Bridger told her that he made about £6 per week. On a Sunday in the previous summer, according to her sister, Miss Money went down to Bognor with Bridger and when the latter saw a man from Clapham, who worked at a furniture shop near to the dairy, he turned his face away in order not to be recognized. Once she had been to the theatre with Bridger and her brother. It was also alleged that on 17 September, Bridger went with her to Clapham Junction, where she took a train to Windsor (buying a second class ticket) and it was expected he would meet her on her return. The two clearly appeared to spend time together outside working hours. Finally, Money claimed he saw Bridger after the murder with injured fingers.

  Both Bridger and Caroline, his wife, vehemently denied this. He said he had never given her any gift, nor had he discussed his income with her, nor did he ever go to the theatre with her. Although he had been at the dairy shop on the Sunday, he had left at 2.30 to go home, where he dined with his wife. He then smoked and lay on his bed until about 7 pm. Then the couple had tea and went out for a stroll on the Common before retiring to bed at about 10.30. They were childless and did not employ a servant on Sundays. No one was able to corroborate the story, but there was no direct evidence against him, nor did anyone see him with Miss Money on that fatal night. The clean-shaven Bridger was asked by a juror if he wore a moustache, which he denied.

  Captain Sant was interested in the possibility that Bridger was responsible and encouraged his men to investigate this. He wrote, ‘I should be very much obliged if you could kindly take steps to find whether there is anything in these statements.’ However, after it seemed that Bridger was not with Miss Money that evening, Sant came to another conclusion, and noted that ‘Deceased told lies about not only Arthur Bridger but other persons’. We don’t know exactly what information was uncovered by the police here, but it was presumably convincing.

  James Brosh, of the engineers’ department of the South Eastern and Chatham railway, produced a map of the tunnel. His examination of the place had found a mark along the roof which stopped abruptly 35 feet after the point where the corpse had been found. It was very regular and had to have been made by something hard and sharp. It could have been made by someone holding a stick, but it would have had to have been a powerful man to have held a stick so. It might, of course, have been made after the death. Whether it had any relevance was another question.

  Inspector Warren of the railway company police discussed his findings. He had travelled in carriage 508 on a 9.13 from London Bridge. The total width of a carriage door was 27 inches and that exceeded the space between the train and the tunnel wall. The door could only have been opened about eight inches if opened in the tunnel. When asked by the coroner if a body could have got out in the tunnel, he answered, ‘I think it would have been impossible.’ However, a juror claimed that he could have got through a gap of eight inches. The coroner noted that no signs of blood had been found on the carriage door.

  Superintendent Brice gave the jury the results of the initial police investigations. Every clue had been followed up, but all had led to dead ends. Over a hundred people, including railway employees, had been questioned by the Surrey Police and by Scotland Yard detectives. But after Miss Money’s leaving the sweet shop, nothing could be ascertained of her movements.

  The coroner was undecided what the verdict should be before the jury came up with their conclusion. It took them 70 minutes before they could do so. When they did, the foreman said:

  The jury are unanimously of opinion that the deceased met her death through injuries brought about by a train, but the evidence is insufficient to show whether she was thrown from a train or fell from a train accidentally.


  The jury passed their sympathy to Miss Money’s family. The coroner then stated, ‘Your verdict is practically an open verdict. You do not think the evidence sufficient to justify you in coming to any more definite conclusio?n’ The foreman replied:

  That is so. We understand that the police are anxious to pursue the enquiries further, and it was the greatest wish of the jury to give a verdict which would not hamper the police in any way. If it lay in their power they would render all the help they could.

  Not everyone thought it was murder. Chief Inspector Fox was convinced that this was a case of suicide, but if so why did Miss Money dress up for the occasion, and why was there no note? Furthermore, nobody seemed to think she was in low spirits.

  On the same day that the inquest was completed, the body was taken to Merstham station and then put on a train to Watford. There were six wreaths on the coffin and Robert Money, her brother, accompanied it.

  There were a number of suggestions later made to the police. Henry White, from Shadwell, was alleged by an anonymous source to be the killer. But, on investigation, no one of that name was known there. Another writer suggested that a platform porter at Clapham Junction was the killer. This man was called ‘Rose’. He was aged 31, of medium build, had a moustache and was of good appearance. He was married and lived with his wife at St John’s Hill Grove in Wandsworth. He was reputed to be having an affair with a young woman and he was often home late at night, after travelling on the railways. He was also well dressed and well off. This lead was either not followed up or was rejected.

  An anonymous letter also gave further information about Miss Money. Apparently in 1902 she had had a dairy business at Marlborough Road in Harrow Wealdstone. Because of faulty produce, she was fined £6. Yet this seemed an unlikely story because she would have only been 18 at the time, which seems very young for a woman to be in business.

  Police investigations continued for some years. There were a number of suggested leads, but none led anywhere. For instance, in 1906, the activities of Josiah Smith, alias Fred Mcleod, were unmasked, and he received nine months in gaol. He was a confidence trickster who duped unsuspecting women out of their savings. There was press speculation that he might have been involved with Miss Money, but since murder was not part of his repertoire, it seems hard not to agree with the police comment on the theory, ‘All this originated from the imagination of a reporter.’

  A more promising lead, perhaps, came from Albert Cooper, a stable help and motor car cleaner, who had resided in a room in Lansdown House in 1904–8. He thought that a fellow resident, William Wakeman, a liftman, might have been the killer. There were several connections between him and the victim. He said that Wakeman had gone to school with Miss Money in Watford and often went to Lavendear Hill where she lived and worked, but never visited the district thereafter. Wakeman had also been a coachman employed by Crosse & Blackwell near Harrow and Miss Money had once lived in Harrow. On the Saturday just before the murder, Cooper had asked Wakeman if he could borrow his walking stick. Cooper replied, ‘I can’t let you have it, I am going to meet a particular “Tart” tomorrow’. Cooper explained to Inspector Arthur Hailstone that he had not contacted the police hitherto because he felt he could not trust anyone. However, the police conclusion was that they ‘Can find no direct evidence upon which anyone could be charged.’

  There were a couple of other suggestions. Charles Johnson, who was in Edinburgh prison in 1909 confessed to the murder. Yet it was found that he was in York gaol at the time of the killing, so was ruled out. In the same year, James Raven, a convict in Brixton prison, said that he had relevant information, but would only part with it if he were paid. He was in gaol on the charge of begging and the theft of a gold watch. Any information he had was deemed to be useless.

  All that is certain is that Miss Money left her place of employment on Sunday 24 September 1905 and went to buy chocolates in a sweet shop near Clapham Junction. She then almost certainly took a train from that busy station. The train was one which stopped at East Croydon, where she changed for the 9.13 from London Bridge. Again, it seems fairly certain that at some point that evening she met a man, probably by prior appointment (hence the concern about her appearance before she went out). Who that man was is unknown, but he was clearly her killer. He may have assaulted her before going into the tunnel and there pushed her out of the carriage and onto the line, gagging her first so she could not cry out. He then alighted at the next station and went on his way. Why he killed her is unclear. It does not seem that robbery or rape were motives. Perhaps he wanted to end the affair, perhaps he was being blackmailed, perhaps the man was married and could not afford the scandal. Bridger would seem to be a possible suspect, having been married and having recently raised her salary (blackmail?), but we must be careful. Although he did not have a strong alibi – loved ones have been known to provide killers with alibis – no one saw the two together and there is no direct evidence implicating him, or anyone else. The mystery is as cloudy now as it was in 1905.

  A grim footnote to the case is that in 1912 Robert Money killed the two women he had been simultaneously having affairs with, before shooting himself. Indeed, the Money family was a most unfortunate one.

  The Newcastle to Alnmouth Railway

  Murder, 1910

  ‘It is absurd for me to deny the charge, because it is absurd to make it,

  but I absolutely deny it.’

  On 4 July 1910 at Northumberland Assizes, John Alexander Dickman, stood accused of murder. He was aged 45, was married and with at least two children. In 1910, the family lived at Lily Avenue, Jesmond, Newcastle. The family’s finances, though, were in a parlous state and Dickman had been borrowing money where he could. Mrs Annie Dickman, a former teacher, had two savings accounts; one with the Newcastle savings bank. In January 1910, the sums in these were £15 9d and £17 11d; but in March the latter account only had £4 in it and on the day before the murder, this was reduced to £2. There is no doubt that penury seemed imminent, and it should also be noted that Dickman was not in paid employment at this time; nor had he been since 1906, when he had been a secretary at a colliery at Morpeth. He was a gambler and ran up many debts. He had asked William Hogg, a former employer, for loans on several occasions in 1910. Just before the murder, Mrs Dickman had told her husband, ‘With my dividend due this week and what is in the post office, I dare say it will pay the most pressing things, but it is going to make the question of living a poser unless you can give me some advice as to what to do.’ Pressing demands included a last demand for rates and money for their son’s schooling.

  We now need to return to the events of what had been a fatal day, 18 March. John Innes Nisbet, a 44-year-old married man, who lived at Heaton Road, Newcastle, was employed as a clerk and book-keeper by the Stobswood Colliery, Widdrington. On every alternate Friday, he had to collect the money to pay the workers. This was brought from Lloyds’ Bank in Newcastle. Friday 18 March was one such day. He went to the bank with a cheque from the company made payable to cash. Then the money, a total of £371 9s 6d, was made out in silver and gold and put into a bag.

  He then took the cash and went to Newcastle Central Railway Station, to take a North Eastern Company train to Alnmouth. Charles Raven thought he saw Nisbet and Dickman walking together. Dickman was certainly not alone on the station platform, but Wilson Hepple, an artist who knew him, could not identify his companion. Percival Harding Hall, a clerk, saw two men, one of whom was Nisbet, board the 10.27 train from platform 5. He got into a third class compartment in the first carriage of the train behind the engine.

  The train consisted of the engine and four carriages. The first one consisted of third class compartments and a luggage compartment. The second was composed of a first class compartment sandwiched between two third class ones. The third carriage was of third class accommodation only. The final one was a mixture of third class and luggage compartments.

  The second stop was Heaton. Here Cicely Elizabeth Nisbet
spoke to her husband, as she customarily did. She saw another man in the same compartment, but he was sitting in the shadows and she could only make out his profile. She later said, ‘when speaking to my husband at Heaton station, the view in profile I got of my husband’s companion did not enable me to identify him as anyone who I knew’. She only knew Dickman by sight. Nisbet was still alive when the train left the Stannington station, the next stop, at 11.06. Hall alighted there and saw him, and nodded to him. John William Spink, a clerk and his companion, confirmed seeing him there. There was still another man with Nisbet, but he could not be identified. However, at the next station, Morpeth, a witness stated, after a cursory look, that no one seemed to be in the compartment which Nisbet had entered.

  It was not until the train reached its final destination, Alnmouth, at 12.06, 23 miles from Newcastle, that a shocking discovery was made by Thomas Charlton. Underneath the seat was the dead body of Nisbet. There were four bullets in his head. Two were nickel coated and two were lead revolver cartridges. Two were small and two were large. Three of these bullets were twisted out of shape. There was also paper wadding found there. Although it was thought that two revolvers had been used in the murder, it was probably only one; paper wadding could have been inserted into the chambers where two small bullets were loaded in each. Of the money bag, there was, of course, no sign. It was thought that he must have been killed between Stannington and Morpeth. And one of the passengers who alighted from the train at Morpeth was Dickman, a fact he later readily admitted.

  Three days after the murder, following a lead from Raven, Detective Inspector Tait paid a visit to Dickman’s home. He accompanied them to the central police station and made a voluntary statement about his movements on that day. However, curiously enough for a man up to his neck in debt, the not inconsiderable sum of £17 9s 11d was found on his person. For a clerk, this was about two months’ wages.