Malcolm Clegg, Railway Crimes Committed in Victorian Britain (Pen & Sword, 2023)
There is something a bit romantic about Victorian railways. This was the age of powerful locomotives shrouded in clouds of steam, sprinting through England’s green countryside, and plush carriages full of elegantly dressed passengers. But, like most aspects of the Victorian era, rail travel was something of a façade; most engines were workaday mules compared to the racehorse locomotives, and more people travelled Third Class than First. And crime, in all its facets, stalked the railways. Former British Transport policeman, Malcolm Clegg, is here to tell you all about it.
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We sometimes forgot in the modern age how important railways were for transporting mail and valuable goods. It is appropriate then that Clegg opens with stories of theft, from mailbags to coal to boxes of gold dust, and including the first great train robbery in 1855. Theft sometimes led to murder as happened to Detective Sergeant Robert Kidd in 1895. In this section on violence and murder, Clegg includes the real first ever railway murder, in 1840, and the tragic infanticide committed by Louise Masset in 1899. Also of interest is the scandalous affair of Colonel Valentine Baker, which sounds like a Sherlock Holmes story but was far more sordid in its details. Clegg moves onto fraud, not a crime you automatically equate with railways, but there were some eye-popping cases and look quite peculiar when matched with simple fare dodging in the same chapter. Pickpocketing follows, while the next chapter on obstructing the railways focuses on much more serious, sometimes deadly, crimes, including the famous train derailment in 1865 that nearly killed Charles Dickens. Some of the latter cases were more negligence and accident than crimes, but defendants still stood trial. Clegg concludes with some cases that definitely were accidents and feel like ‘padding’ when other true crimes could have been explored further.
Railway Crimes is not a book about railway crime; it is a collection of cases grouped under convenient headings. That does not make this a bad book, but in some ways, it is an opportunity missed. Clegg also neglects to attach any sources or bibliography, which is annoying especially for social historians who might want to dig a little deeper into some notorious crimes. Nevertheless, true crime aficionados will appreciate this collection, which is well written, and it is a good read, maybe even on a long train journey.
