Mr Briggs' Hat: The True Story of a Victorian Railway Murder (42 page)

9
Tracks ran over rivers:
Pendleton, op. cit., p. 15.

10
250 million passenger journeys:
Flanders,
Consuming Passions
, p. 187 ff.

10
speed as the new principle:
Schivelbusch,
The Railway Journey
, foreword.

10
the scorn of the punctual
:
Pendleton, op. cit., introduction, p. viii.

10
indispensable agent
:
Ibid.

11
fragility and helplessness of human life:
Harrington, ‘The Neuroses of the Railway’,
History Today
, vol. 44, no. 7, 1994.

11
uneasiness … amounting to actual fear
:
Schivelbusch, op. cit. Also Harrington, op. cit.

12
the triumphant monster, Death
:
Dickens,
Dombey and Son
, chapter 20. The train as a visible expression of destruction and trauma was beginning to pervade the work of writers across the developed world – think, too, of Tolstoy’s
Anna Karenina
(1873–7) where it partly symbolises all that is new and damaging, the sweeping away of an old order and, ultimately, of Anna’s life.

12
legally responsible for the safety:
Hansard, 12 March 1861. Mr Haliburton to Milner Gibson.

12
Victorian trains were fairly safe and reliable:
<
www.york.ac.uk/inst/irs/irshome/papers/rlyacc.htm
>

CHAPTER 2: SATURDAY 9 JULY 1864

13
five feet nine:
Some reports from doctors say 5’ 8”. David Buchan at trial says 5’ 9”. A later letter (8 October 1864) in
Jackson’s Oxford Journal
states that Briggs was under 11 stone.

14
a decade old:
The East and West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway received Royal Assent in August 1846 and opened for passenger traffic in September 1850. It became the NLR at the start of 1853.

14
first-class ticket:
NLR had no third class until the mid-1870s. Briggs was regularly described as a season-ticket holder which would have cost ten guineas a year. See Robbins,
The North London Railway
.

14
soot that streamed from its chimneys:
Advice to passengers in
Mogg’s Handbook for Railway Travellers
, 1846.

14
watercress fields receded:
National Gazetteer
, 1863.

14
Bryant & May match factory:
The factory at which Annie Besant sparked the match-girls’ strike of 1888, protesting against the use of toxic yellow phosphorus in matches.

15
fog of industrial smoke:
Mayhew and Binny,
The Criminal Prisons of London
, pp. 3–8.

16
Cheapside … St Paul’s:
Mayhew and Binny wrote in 1862
of the incessant strugglings and chafings of the distant tides … all the petty jealousies, and heart-burnings, small ambitions and vain parade of ‘polite society’ … a strange incongruous chaos of the most astounding riches and prodigious poverty, of feverish ambition and apathetic despair, of the brightest charity and the darkest crime … the scene of countless daily struggles, failures and successes
.
The Criminal Prisons of London
, pp. 9 and 18. Contemporary descriptions of St Paul’s and the city are partly informed by Miller’s
Picturesque Sketches
. See also Mayhew,
London Labour and the London Poor
.

16
horse-drawn omnibuses:
These packed public London ’buses carried an estimated one million passengers a day to and from the suburbs for the single fixed fare of sixpence. ‘Outsides’ would climb up an iron ladder to the roof, and women, children and the elderly crammed inside on five-a-side seats, jolted together, watchful for fleas in the straw-covered floor, amused or intimidated by the busy top-hatted conductor who touted energetically for business.

16
King William Street:
Briggs’ omnibus route from David Buchan’s trial testimony. General omnibus routes: see the Reinhohl Collection at the London Transport Museum, particularly album 2, pp. 41–4, for records of horse-drawn routes from Dulwich to the City via Camberwell, and Peckham to the City via Gracechurch Street. For descriptions and numbers of cabs, see Mayhew, op. cit., p. 353 ff.

16
He paid sixpence:
Flanders,
The Victorian House
, p. 361, also White,
London in the Nineteenth Century
, p. 76 ff.

16
almost exactly at five o’clock:
Details from David Buchan’s testimony at trial.

17
said goodnight:
The Times
, 19 July 1864, p. 7 col. c.

17
a few minutes behind time:
Ibid.

17
cane and bag on the seat beside him:
According to evidence of Thomas Lee given at Bow, 22 July 1864 (US extradition papers).

CHAPTER 3: THE DUCKETT’S CANAL BRIDGE

18
Edward Dougan, Policeman 71:
Number from trial transcript, Central Criminal Court.

18
Mitford Castle:
Now the Top o’ the Morning, in renamed Cadogan Terrace, Victoria Park.

19
The dark-suited body was twisted:
Inquest report,
The Times
, 19 July 1864, p. 7 col. c.

20
William Timms at his side:
Ordinarily Timms would have been expected to rejoin his train but it was widely reported that he stayed by Briggs’ side.

21
half a first-class return train ticket:
It is odd that half a ticket was found on Briggs as he was widely reported as holding a season ticket. It is possible that paper tickets were also issued in order to count passenger numbers in the Victorian bureaucratic system but it has proved impossible to substantiate this.

21
a diamond ring:
Description of what Dougan found on the body from Bow warrants.

22
Passing behind the pub:
All the early reports record that carriage 69 was locked at Bow. Later reports in September (e.g.
The Times
, 25 September 1864, p. 7 col. f) contradict this, stating that the carriage was kept at Chalk Farm at the other end of the line, though it seems clear that this was a mistake.

21
uncoupled from the rest of the train:
Ames’ testimony, also Kerressey and the Solicitor General. See also
The Times
, 11 July 1864, p. 9 col. a. Some reports suggest that the carriage was uncoupled at Bow, having been sent down the line attached to the rest of its empty train. Most, however, state that it was uncoupled at Chalk Farm.

22
staying well past the time:
Although it was well past closing time, all local reports agree that the crowd at the pub refused to leave until the early hours of 10 July.

23
head-first:
Liverpool Mercury
, 13 July 1864, p. 7 col. d.

24
Bow Division:
Bow, or K Division. When the Metropolitan Police were formed there were originally six separate divisions, soon enlarged to seventeen and then, in the mid-1860s, to twenty. They were identified by alphabetical numbers so that A, closest to Scotland Yard, was the Whitehall Division and Y was Highgate. See Browne,
The Rise of Scotland Yard
.

24
over three hundred police constables:
MEPO, Police Order Books for the end of 1864, showing the numbers of police in divisions across London. Totals were: 130 first-class sergeants, 500 first-class constables, 2700 second-class constables and 700 third-class.

24
no blood on Briggs’ bruised hands:
Daily Telegraph
, 25 September 1864, p. 5 col. e.

CHAPTER 4: FERRETING FOR DETAIL

27
he was dictatorial:
Cavanagh,
Scotland Yard Past and Present
, p. 74 ff. See also Browne,
The Rise of Scotland Yard
, p. 130 ff.

27
fanatical about minutiae:
MEPO 7/25, Police Order Books.

27
‘brilliant’:
Browne, op. cit., p. 166.

27
Five foot seven:
Extradition proceedings evidence.

27
the Chief Office:
Right in the heart of government at Whitehall, Scotland Yard took its popular name from this rear entry used initially only by visitors to the Commissioners.

29
1434 yards:
Trial evidence of Edward Dougan.

29
three and a half minutes:
Times from Ames’ deposition at Bow.

29
almost five pounds:
Dougan had found: in the man’s left-hand trouser pocket, four sovereigns. In his right pocket, eight shillings and sixpence in silver and copper. In the left-hand pocket of his waistcoat was a florin (a two-shilling piece).

30
cross to the opposite track:
Report on inquest,
The Times
, 19 July 1864, p. 7 col. c.

30
Henry Lubbock … visited:
MEPO 3/75.

CHAPTER 5: MORBID, HIDEOUS AND DELICIOUS

32
Atrocious Murder
:
Daily News
, 11 July 1864, p. 4 col. a.

33
Some wondered:
Observer
, e.g. 17 July 1864, p. 7. Also the
Hull Packet and East Riding Times
, 22 July 1864, p. 3 col. e.

33
a robbery on the same spot:
For example,
Daily Telegraph
, 15 July 1864, p. 6 col. a.

33
instituting every possible inquiry
:
The Times
, 11 July 1864, p. 9 col. a.

33
Mr Briggs’ hat in mistake
:
Daily News
, 11 July 1864, p. 4 col. a.

34
morbid, hideous and delicious
:
Braddon,
Aurora Floyd
, p. 52, and
Lady Audley’s Secret
, p. 319.

34
cracks within the Victorian ideal:
Pykett,
The Sensation Novel
, p. 69.

34
drug our thought and reason
:
‘Our Female Sensation Novelists’,
Christian Remembrancer
, 46, 1864.

34
abominations of the age
:
W. Fraser Rae, ‘Sensation Novelists: Miss Braddon’,
North British Review
, 43, 1865, pp. 180–204. Oliphant, ‘Sensation Novels’,
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
, 1, May 1862.

35
wander further afield
:
Spectator
, 28 September 1861, pp. 1068–9.

36
the sense of insecurity evidently felt
:
Hansard, 9 May 1865.

CHAPTER 6: THE SMILING FACE OF A MURDERER

37
One delivered to Scotland Yard:
MEPO 3/75.

37
known to be guilty of the darkest deeds
:
Ibid.