crime without a result, despite the offer of a substantial reward for
information. Each country claimed that the robbery must have taken place in
the other country’s jurisdiction. It was rivalry between members of the criminal
fraternity that eventually broke the case. A man called Edward Agar was
arrested for passing a false cheque after police had received a tipoff. Sentenced
to transportation to Australia for life, Agar was sent to Pentonville and then to a
prison hulk at Portland. During this time he discovered that his partner, Fanny
Kay, had not received the £7,000 that another criminal and exrailway
employee, William Pierce, was supposed to have given her. That amount of
money would be worth more than half a million pounds today. Fanny told the
governor of Newgate prison of her suspicions about Pierce, and the governor
told the investigator for the railway company, who went to see Agar.
Agar then told the full story. It had been Pierce who had conceived the plan
for the robbery, using his knowledge of the system gained through his
employment. Further members of the gang were recruited from within the
railway company. When they heard that a substantial shipment was due to be
made, Agar and Pierce bought first class tickets to Folkestone. Agar slipped
into the guards van with the bribed guard, while Pierce went to the first class
carriage. Agar immediately set to opening the safes and boxes and exchanging
the gold for the lead shot they had carried on in bags under their greatcoats
and in their luggage. At Folkestone they left the train and took another to
Dover, where they had some refreshment and then caught a third train back to
London. They shared out the gold between the members of the gang, melting
some of it down.
With Agar’s testimony, the four other members of the gang were arrested
and brought to trial early in 1857. Two were sentenced to fourteen years penal
transportation–Pierce, the instigator, received only a twoyear sentence for
larceny.
All this took place at around the time of the end of the transportation
system; in 1853 the colonies told the British government that they would no
longer accept convicts. These developing societies had begun to achieve the
confidence that would eventually lead to independence, and they resented
being seen as the dumping ground for Britain’s shame. With nowhere else to
go, prisoners languished in the various hulks offshore until a new programme
of prison construction could provide them with housing. Transportation as a
penalty was replaced with penal servitude with hard labour in this country.
The first murder on the railways occurred on 9 July 1864. Thomas Briggs,
an elderly banker, boarded a first class carriage on a North London Railway
train bound for Hackney. When the train arrived at Hackney, two bank clerks
VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN CRIME