Britain’s First Railway Murder
by On the evening of the 9th July 1864, the chief clerk of a firm of London bankers boarded a train at Fenchurch Street station, sadly he was never to reach his destination.
Thomas Briggs became the first person to be brutally murdered on Britain’s railways.
As in the case of the former Board of Trade Minister, William Husskison, who died as a result of his injuries after being struck by a locomotive at the grand opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830, fatalities on the railway were confined to straightforward accidents, or work-related incidents. However, in the summer of 1864 this would cease to be the case. Britain was about to experience a hitherto unknown breed of crime – murder on the railways!
Late in the evening of the 9th July 1864, a train approaching London made a sudden and unscheduled stop between the suburban stations of Bow and Hackney. The driver and fireman of the locomotive had spotted something strange on the line ahead. Climbing from the cab they approached what they thought to be a discarded bundle of clothing. Recoiling in horror as they began to examine the item, they realised immediately that the bundle was in fact the body of an elderly man; his clothes soaked in blood.
The police were quickly summoned to the scene and the man, who was barely alive, was taken to a nearby public house and placed in a private room. A doctor arrived and after a brief examination, revealed that the man had suffered an extremely violent assault, resulting in a number of serious head wounds, one of which was a skull fracture.
The badly beaten man died the following evening from the injuries that he had sustained.
Without delay an investigation into the horrific murder began, headed by Chief Inspector William Tanner, an experienced police officer from Scotland Yard. The identity of the victim was soon established as Thomas Briggs, the chief clerk of a firm of bankers in Lombard Street, London. Apparently he had boarded an evening train at Fenchurch Street station that was bound for Hackney. He never reached his destination.
Tanner was in no doubt that the motive for the murder was one of robbery, after receiving credible information from those who knew him that he was in the habit of wearing a black top hat, gold spectacles and a gold watch and chain in his waistcoat. A subsequent search of the railway carriage revealed three personal items – a walking stick, a black beaver hat and a leather bag, all of which were lying in sickly pools of congealed blood. The spectacles and the watch and chain were missing.
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