Major railway stations such as big city termini have also attracted a diverse stream of people operating just inside, or often most definitely outside, the law. Those offering freelance but illicit porterage services, for example female prostitutes and rent boys; procurers and procuresses; touts of all sorts; robbers; cadgers; those bent on sexual assault eying up their potential victims; cowboy taxi operators; con men looking for gullible marks; rich men, poor men, beggar men and thieves.
Big cities, especially London, have long attracted inward migration from the provinces. In many cases those who have been drawn to London have been bright, resourceful and energetic people, often young, who have found multifarious rewarding opportunities in the maelstrom of economic, commercial, cultural and other activities which is the life of the capital. For them the streets may not have exactly been paved with gold but they certainly brought them good fortune.
Another layer of incomers were those with skills that maybe attracted less remuneration, who perhaps left the provinces because of a shortage of economic opportunities. Substantial numbers of unemployed miners left South Wales in the depression of the 1930s and moved to London, in many cases to become milkmen. London offered them a better future. The size of London, the wealth generated there, its anonymity and the opportunities it offered for crime have attracted ‘career criminals’, many of whom have found rich pickings.
Unfortunately London has also always attracted the vulnerable and dysfunctional. For example, young people perhaps trying to get away from physical or other types of abuse at home; the bored and disaffected; drug addicts; people trying to escape from something (they do not necessarily know what); those restlessly seeking adventure or hoping that life in ‘The Smoke’ will kick-start their dreary lives. The best that many of them could look forward to is a succession of low-paid and menial jobs while living in squalid accommodation. They might be just as well off had they stayed in the surroundings that they knew and could deal with. Many of these drifters have certainly not been well equipped to deal with the dangers and temptations offered by the metropolis. Many were, and still are, lured into the sex trade.
This hotchpotch of humanity has tended to arrive by train, especially at King’s Cross and Euston stations, evidence that many have come down from the north of England and from Scotland. The problems facing such new arrivals were dealt with by Michael Deakin and John Willis in a riveting but disturbing television documentary made in the 1970s and followed up by the book Johnny Go Home. They featured scared, callow, lonely and vulnerable arrivals, some of them literally children, and the reception committee of predatory low-life characters apparently ready to ‘befriend’ them as soon as they got off the train. The Transport Police know what goes on and can keep this activity under some degree of control but they cannot prevent it. It is almost as old as humanity itself, and it is certainly as old as London.
As a boy, one of the authors ranged far and wide throughout Britain in the quest to underline every engine number in his Ian Allan ABC. He did pretty well in that self-appointed task but fortunately his interest did not end there. Even at the age of twelve or thirteen as he travelled around, frequently absenting himself from school in order to do so, he began to ask questions which seemed to flow naturally from these trips.
Why might March, a small Fenland town in Cambridgeshire, have what some said were the largest railway marshalling yards in Western Europe? Why did some small settlements, no more than villages, have two or more railway stations? Why was there no major railway station in what could reasonably be described as central London? Why was it that Manchester, a large provincial city, had four major railway termini, all of which were on the periphery and most definitely not in the centre of the city? Why was Bristol’s main station called ‘Temple Meads’ when there was not a blade of grass in sight? And why was it Carlisle ‘Citadel’ or Hull ‘Paragon? Was the latter such a brilliant station? Who was the ‘Doctor Day’ of Doctor Day’s Bridge Junction Signal Box just outside Bristol? He wanted to know the answers to these, and a thousand other, questions.
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.
One 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 enforce
d 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’.
Valentine Baker, who was forced into exile after the incident on the train, but who went on to rebuild a successful career for himself overseas.
Only members of the cloth seem to have been able to come through a compromising situation on the basis of their innocence generally being presumed. We shall never know exactly what was said or what went on when a young curate entered a compartment containing just a sixteen-year-old girl on a train of the Great Western Railway. The girl alleged that he had pulled her onto his knee, kissed her swan-like neck and whispered various intimate observations and suggestions into her ear.
The case went to court but the curate rejected all suggestions of wrongdoing on his part. He did admit that he had entered into conversation with the girl and had suggested that he might be able to get her a job playing the organ in his parish church. It was a most magnificent organ, he had boasted. Could this innocent comment have been taken as meaning something else? The court did not think so and the curate returned to his parish with his reputation unsullied.
In 1864 a gentleman sitting happily in the compartment of a London & South Western Railway train travelling between Surbiton and Woking was startled out of his ruminations when he found himself staring into a woman’s face a few inches from his, looking in from the outside of the rapidly moving train. He leapt to help what clearly was a maiden in distress. She was standing on the footboard of the carriage and clinging on for dear life, clothes and
hair streaming in the wind. It was no easy matter to haul her to safety but fortunately some people by the side of the line spotted her predicament and alerted the guard who quickly brought the train to a halt.
A dastardly character by the name of Nash had earlier specifically selected and entered a compartment containing two female passengers, one of whom of course was our woman on the footboard, Mary Moody. Nash had attempted, with a marked lack of subtlety, to chat up the other woman but she had alighted at Surbiton. When this happened, Mary also tried to leave the carriage but she was a few seconds too late, and as the train steamed out on its way to Woking she found herself alone with the singularly unsavoury Nash.
He began to ask her a string of questions full of sexual innuendo. Maybe Mary’s silence inflamed his passion because he first embraced her and then attempted to assault her indecently. That was when Mary saw little option but to attempt to escape his clutches via the compartment door and the carriage footboard. Nash was arrested and was hauled up in front of the magistrates.
In 1892 Mrs Mary Siddals, an attractive mother-of-two, was the victim of a serious sexual assault on a Midland Railway train travelling between Burton-on-Trent and Tamworth. She was alone in the compartment except for a man dressed in black who, having attacked her, tried to throw her out of the moving carriage. She was able to cling on for a few seconds but eventually fell off and tumbled down to the bottom of an embankment, receiving serious injuries.
A man was arrested and charged with assault and grievous bodily harm. His rather feeble defence was that Mary had been hallucinating. Two other witnesses came forward who attested that the man in black had made similar attacks on them. His work as a preacher and teacher of the young cut no ice with the court, and he was described as a ‘sanctimonious hypocrite’ before being sentenced to two years’ hard labour, which most people thought was overly lenient.
Blood on the Tracks: A History of Railway Crime in Britain Page 2