Death, Dynamite and Disaster

by Rosa Matheson

  David Jobson (41), an ex-Councillor, of 3 Airlie Place, Dundee, was the son of a former Provost and himself a prominent local citizen. He was the thirty-seventh body to be recovered, on 17 February 1880, near Newport. Jobson was a more-than-comfortably-off oil and colour merchant (whose widow was wealthy enough to hire her own solicitor to fight the NBR, and so received by far the best compensation of all – over £5,000); however, in death, he was just the same as everyone else, an innocent victim.

  William Peebles (39) was a gardener in Broughty Ferry, and had moved as a gamekeeper to Corriemony, to the west of Drumnadrochit, in the Great Glen. He needed to attend his father-in-law’s funeral. He would have had to leave home on the Saturday, travel to Inverness, then down to Perth. His journey would have had to be broken somewhere overnight on Saturday, before continuing towards Dundee by way of Fife. The railway system was made up from different companies, with some of them not working on Sundays. Unfortunately, the direct rail track from Perth to Dundee was owned by one of the companies who did not work on Sundays.60 He left a wife and eight children aged between fifteen months and fifteen years.

  The NBR Staff

  David Mitchell (36) of Leslie, Fife, was the driver of the train. He had worked for the NBR for sixteen years. ‘He had commenced cleaning engines in early 1864, was made a fireman in 1865 and promoted to the position of driver in 1871.’61 He was a well-regarded man and driver, and whilst working as a fireman, according to the papers, had some frightening narrow escapes but had ‘saved the day’ on several occasions. A married man, he left a wife and five young children aged between thirteen months and eight years. His body was not found until nine weeks after the accident. For years he lay in an unmarked grave, until Ian Nimmo-White, the secretary of The Tay Rail Bridge Disaster Memorial Trust, traced the grave and he, and the community of Mitchell’s hometown, Leslie, raised funds and effected a headstone to be erected over the grave in April 2011. Mitchell’s wife, Janet, and baby daughter, Margaret, also lay in unmarked graves and their names, along with his son, Thomas, and daughter, Isabella, were added to the headstone. Perhaps, in a little way, this addresses the injustice of the parsimonious assistance and compensation that this family, along with the vast majority of the other victims’ families, received.62

  John Marshall (23), stoker/fireman (both descriptions were used), was on duty. He had started cleaning in 1875 and was made up to fireman at the end of the following year.63When he was found his face told a sad story. His teeth were firmly clenched and his face was badly burned from falling forwards onto the firebox, or from flames rushing out and up to him as the engine plunged downwards.64 He also had two deep wounds, one above the right eye and the other on the left cheek. He was the seventh recovery, on 7 January. He left behind a mother and two brothers.

  Donald Murray (49) was the mail guard (on duty), and hailed from Inverness. He had worked for the Post Office for almost twenty years, first on the coach and then on the Edinburgh to Dundee mail route. Twice married, he left a widow with two young children, and two grown-up children from his first marriage.

  David McBeth (44) was the railway guard on duty and was easily distinguishable in his railway uniform. An unmarried man, and with his father deceased, his ‘worldly goods’ (2s 9d, watch key, whistle, knife, comb, brass Albert, keys, India rubber and snuff box) were collected by James McBeth, his brother.65 He was recovered on 13 January and was buried at Forfar.

  Two off-duty NBR employees were travelling as passengers. David Johnson (31), a railway guard, was from Abbeyhill in Edinburgh. He was recovered by the crew of a boat under the command of David Deuchars, then District Goods Manager at Dundee, on Monday 5 January. He had been deeply embedded in the sand near the ship Mars. Johnson was the second person recovered, but the first in the new year of 1880.66 He was a married man with two children. His father was a farmer, but David, like many children of agricultural workers of that time, had left the land for the railways in the hope of a better wage and a better life. When David was taken from the mortuary for burial, on 8 January 1880, his coffin was carried on the shoulders of four NBR guards, who placed it in a hearse waiting at the station; this proceeded to Craig Pier and the coffin was then taken by the eleven o’clock steamer to Newport. His body was buried that afternoon in Kemback, Fife. The other NBR employee was George Ness (21) of Tayport, newly made up stoker/fireman, who left a wife and a baby daughter just ten weeks old. It is believed he travelled on the footplate along with his friends. 67He was recovered on 13 January, in the river near the bridge and is buried at Tayport Kirk graveyard.

  How Many Victims?

  The interest and concern for the case, although no longer mainstream news, continued across the country for months. On 11 March 1880, the Portsmouth Evening News reported that the body of George Taylor was recovered – he was number forty. He was found 2 miles east of Tayport in the River Tay. Not all the bodies were recovered. The position where the train went into the water was known for its deep, shifting, treacherous quick sands. One of the grim concerns was that, if the bodies were not recovered quickly, they would become ‘embedded in the sands’ and lost for all time. This may have happened to the women, in their long, heavy and cumbersome clothing. Some retrieved bodies had been swept a good way from the site, like Taylor, so others may have been swept even further. Others just eluded rescue. Jessie Bain was the second body found, but she eluded the grappling hooks and sank; she was identified by her tortoiseshell hair comb. Thursday 15 January was another frustrating and disappointing day when three bodies, two women and a man, were lost from the grappling hooks just as they were within reach. It is said they were carried off by the current. They were not the only women who had been seen by boat crews but not retrieved by them (three in one day reported by the Glasgow Herald on 9 January). This may have been for several reasons, not just physical – taboos, superstitions or extreme ‘delicacy’ may be amongst them. The recovery operation would have been greatly troublesome for these nineteenth-century mariners, who lived and breathed the ancient customs of the seas. Such customs and beliefs were deeply embedded in their bones, as much as sea water was in their blood. Women and the dead on-board a boat went against all maritime traditions, yet their ‘Christian duty’ and saving local people would have made them want to be helpful – that, and the money they were being paid.

  The numbers given for ‘not recovered’ are open-ended. Due to recent research by the Tay Valley Family History Society and the ‘Tay Rail Bridge Disaster Memorial Trust’ it is now believed that the original seventy-five thought lost is nearer sixty or perhaps even fifty-nine. The original number, which is most commonly quoted, is based on the explanation and number arrived at in Yolland and Barlow’s joint report (section IV):

  The recovery of the dead was a lengthy process and ghastly affair. Only three were found by the divers brought in to look for them. Some were ‘trawled’ and others were found beached. Many were in a state of deterioration and some would have been mutilated by the grappling hooks. Others ‘escaped’ in the rescue process – a number of which were women.

  We were told by the ticket collectors that there were at that time in the Train 57 passengers for Dundee, five or six for Broughty Ferry, five for Newport, two season ticket holders, the engine driver, stoker, and guard of the train and two other guards 74 or 75 persons altogether.

  The Times, in its full and detailed report just two days after the accident, lists the tickets collected as:

  2nd Class – 2 Edinburgh, 1 Glasgow Railway Officials’ tickets;

  3rd Class – 2 King’s-cross, London, 1 Burntisland and 1 St Andrew’s, 12 Edinburgh, 2 Ladybank, 1 Dysart, 7 Perth, 1 Kirkcaldy, 1 Leslie, 1 Dairsie, 5 Newburgh, 2 Abernethy, 8 Lechars, (two are halfs), 8 Cupar, 1 St. Fort.= 56.

  It reports that there were a number of children who may have been travelling on their parents’ tickets, and a man with several children, one in his arms. It also states that there were about five passengers for Broughty Ferry and a few other �
��through passengers’, although their number is not known, and at least two season ticket holders. It categorically states that the two third-class tickets from King’s Cross, London, belonged to ‘two young ladies both about eighteen’ – yet the only person in the lists (of dead or missing) noted as travelling from London is James Murdoch.68

  The Aberdeen Weekly Journal says that the fifty-six tickets collected at St Fort Station comprised, ‘three second -class (two from Edinburgh, one from Glasgow), and 53 third-class’, 69 and, in its 31 December issue, it prints the ‘official list’ compiled by the ‘station agent at St Fort.’ This identifies seventy-five travellers, whilst pointing out that this did not take into account the children, which could bring the number to ninety. By 13 January however, it is talking about just sixty-two persons. Not one of them makes mention of a first-class ticket, nor indeed does the report or the station personnel, which is strange (as with many things to do with this mystery), since it does not make sense that someone of William Beynon’s wealth and status would not travel first class. In addition, John Prebble, in his well-known and respected book, The High Girders, gives animated detail of a conversation said to have taken place in a first-class compartment. He also gives the name of the man who owned to having had that conversation, and to having been with Beynon in a first-class compartment – a Mr William Linskill, who was definitely travelling first class, but, upon his horse-carriage being found to take him to St Andrews, he had alighted at Leuchars. It is highly unlikely that Beynon would have then left the carriage and braved the dreadful weather to walk along to the rear end of the train, to sit in the second-class carriage. Even more unlikely is it that he entered a third-class carriage, which would have been on either side of the first class.

  The Dundee Courier, 4 September 1935, wrote that there was a total of fifty-four tickets collected at the time, and that Robert Morris (stationmaster) had been given permission to keep them. It said that he had them mounted in a diamond shape in a frame and, when he died in 1935, the ‘relic’ was bequeathed to his son who had emigrated to New Zealand. This, however, is not entirely accurate as it is now believed the collage was made up in New Zealand by his descendants a long time after the event. The tickets collage has since been closely studied by The Tay Rail Bridge Disaster Memorial Trust, and they found discrepancies. For example, two return tickets issued London to Dundee, which begs the question – were this pair not going back? Also, the number of tickets does not exactly match the number of victims with the stations. In fact, one ticket has been cut in two with a razor blade, the halves separated, and made to look like two tickets. Another oddity is one ticket, from St Andrews to Dundee, supposedly issued on the Sunday when the rail link between St Andrews and Leuchars did not run on Sundays. As there are only fifty-four tickets that also begs the question – who was fare dodging? It is very possible (and probable) that, in struggling with the dreadful storm, some ‘human error’ occurred in the collecting of tickets, and even greater possibility of discrepancies in the forwarding of the relevant and correct number of tickets from the mass that would have been thrown in the ticket drawer, along with all the others collected that day. The evidence that the Tay Valley Family History Society cite for the number of dead being fifty-nine is the fact that this number were registered as dead in the accident, and only fifty-nine death certificates (forty-seven males and twelve females) were issued by the Dundee Registrar, James Anderson. As well as the fact that no other persons were enquired of or reported missing after that, despite the enormous coverage given by the press.

  Those definitely known not to have been recovered number thirteen – five males and eight females – and include four married, or widowed, women:

  Mrs Elizabeth Mann (62)

  Mrs Euphemia Cheape (54)

  Mrs Mary Marion Montgomerie Easton (52)

  Mrs Elizabeth Nicoll (24), of Dundee, travelling with friend George Taylor

  Elizabeth (Lizzie) Hendry Brown (13)

  Eliza Smart (24)

  Elizabeth Milne (21), single, dressmaker

  Annie Spence (22), single, weaver

  David Graham (27), single, teacher at Dalmany Sessional School

  William Nelson (31), machine fitter of Gateshead

  John Hamilton (34), grocer and spirit dealer of Dundee, who left a wife and three children

  Donald Murray, on-duty mail guard (49)

  David Scott, goods guard (26)

  These people do not have headstones – some just have a mention on others – but now there is a memorial near by Tay Bridge to acknowledge all victims with monuments stones with the names of all the known dead on.70

  The administration centre for the river was, and still is, Dundee, with the parish being St Mary’s 282/2. All of the deaths, recovered or not, were recorded in the Register of Deaths of St Mary’s Parish in the City of Dundee, under the pen of James Anderson, registrar. James Leslie and David Neish are entered on page 28, one under the other, numbers 83 and 84. George McIntosh, railway guard and David Jobson, oil merchant, are recorded on page 47, numbers 139 and 141 respectively. (They are divided by James McIntosh who died of consumption.) Under ‘When and where died’ it states the date each was found and at what time. Under ‘Cause of death’ it states for every one of them, ‘Accidentally Drowned from fall of Railway Train and portion of Tay Bridge into River Tay on December 28, 1879’, and underneath this, for each of them is written ‘Not certified’. This was/is not an uncommon practice and usually happens if there are any questions about the death or the cause of death, or relating to the dead person, still to be answered. It is a matter of course if there is an inquiry. All the recovered bodies would have undergone a post mortem (however basic) and, as was usual, would have been investigated by a Sherriff in court under the Fatal Accident Inquiry procedure; however, as this was a unique incident and a much bigger inquiry was taking place, it was the Procurator Fiscal who finally signed off on the certificates and so all shared the same ‘Cause of death’ – drowning.

  They then appear in the ‘Register for Corrected Entries’ (much later after the closure of the Court of Inquiry). This always starts the same way, ‘The Following Report of result of a Precognition has been received touching the Death of … (name is inserted), registered under No.… in the Register Book of Deaths for the Year 1880’. For David Neish, in his corrected entry the ‘Age’ differs from the previous entry. In the book entry he is given the age of thirty-seven years but on the ‘Corrected Entry’ it is given as ‘thirty-six or thirty-seven’. The ages were given by the person registering the deaths. Sometimes, they were not all that close to the deceased, or did not know their age, and so guessed. Some are only slightly out, and others more than that.71 More importantly, the wording of the ‘Cause of death’ has been rearranged so now it reads, ‘Drowning from fall of Tay Bridge and Passenger Train into the River’. In legal terms this is vastly different, however, as both the train and the bridge were the property of the North British Railway, so they were liable for both, one wonders what was to be gained from this emphasis.72

  Neish and Leslie are certified by both the Procurator Fiscal and James Anderson, but not until 16 August 1880. McIntosh and Jobson are not certified until 19 August (on page 93). The St Mary’s Register of Death was closed for the Tay bridge victims at the beginning of September 1880.

  The Inquiry

  A formal Inquiry was immediately set up by Lord Sedon of the Board of Trade under the ‘Regulation of Railways Act, 1871; its purpose to investigate ‘the causes of and circumstances attending an accident which took place on the railway bridge crossing the Firth of Tay.’73

  The Team

  The Inquiry team had three members, each extremely experienced and knowledgeable in their own spheres, they were also the ‘best man for the job’. The Board of Trade choices seem obvious – a man for each problem. Because they were dealing with a wreck at sea, they brought in the Commissioner of Wrecks, Mr Henry Cadogan Rothery, who was appointed Chairman. A mathematics
graduate who trained as a barrister and practised extensively in the admiralty courts, he held many positions of senior responsibility in relation to the admiralty and, on account of this vast experience, he was appointed Wrecks Commissioner in 1876. Mr Rothery was not a man afraid to make up his own mind, even against prevailing thinking, and could be robust with his words – and so it proved. At the conclusion of the Inquiry, he felt it necessary to present his own report separately to the jointly submitted report of the other two.

  Since it was a railway accident the Inquiry also had to involve the Government’s Railway Department, and as this was a very serious railway accident, it was obvious to have the Chief Inspector of Railways, Colonel William Yolland. He was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1828, aged just sixteen, and finished his technical training at the Royal School of Military Engineering (RSME) in 1831. Appointed as an inspector of railways under the Board of Trade in July 1854, he became Chief Inspector in 1877. Influenced by his work as a railway inspector he became a zealous advocate for improved safety on the railways.

  Lastly, because this was also a huge civil engineering disaster, the final member recruited was Mr William Henry Barlow, FRS, FRSE,FICE, MIMechE, a distinguished and practising civil engineer, as well as being the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers at that time. Barlow was an experimenter and inventor in his own right (he had already patented a design for a rail without the need for sleepers), and had a particular interest in the use of steel in the construction of bridges. Barlow would learn a lot from this investigation, and utilised that knowledge to his own advantage – in the designing of the second Tay Bridge.

  The manner in which the Inquiry was conducted was to set a new model and protocol for any railway accident inquiries that followed – it was the CSI of its day. It interviewed eyewitnesses; took ‘expert’ opinion; gathered reports from organisations/companies involved and required ‘material evidence’. For this they instructed an independent, but experienced, assessor, Mr Henry Law, a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and ‘expert’ witness in many railway matters. Law was required to: