http://www.stampandcoin.co.uk FEBRUARY 2016^63matched up the halves.
Later in the week an investigating
detective, seeking clues around the
station, leaned against the fence of
a field that backs onto the railway
tracks. The fence gave way and the
detective spotted that it had previously
been cut through, with the loose
section propped in position. When
he walked across the field to another
fence that flanked a quiet road, he
found an identical loose section. In a
timed test it was calculated that a fit
man carrying a mailbag of similar size
could have crossed the field to reach a
waiting car in just forty seconds – an
easy task on a dark night with only
two porters guarding three posts.
Using the headline ‘The Great Mail
Robbery’ several newspapers reported
on the 1886 trial at London’s Central
Criminal Court of a mail train theft
that netted about £40,000 – the
equivalent to almost double the
£2,300,000 snatched by Ronnie Biggs
and co in 1963. But the outcome of
the Victorian court case hung on a
thread, literally.
On the night of the robbery a mail
train left Cannon Street station bound
for Dover. Coupled to the locomotive
and tender were two TPO carriages and
a luggage van, followed by a first class
carriage with several passengers aboard.
The luggage van held two tied and
sealed bags containing registered letters
to Berlin and St Petersburg. At Dover
they, and all other overseas mail in the
TPO, were transferred to a second-class
cabin of the channel steamer and placed
under lock and key. At Ostend the bags
were loaded aboard a through-train to
Berlin; and as soon as that train entered
Prussian territory sorting clerks aboard
broke the seals on the registered bags;TRAIN ROBBERIES AND THE TRAVELLING POST OFFICEpub not far from the bank. But when
the detective handcuffed him and
took him to the pub he had named,
they found it locked. A notice in
the window dated the previous day
informed customers that the pub
had closed temporarily because the
landlord had died suddenly.
Nevertheless the accused
continued to protest his innocence
in court until forensic evidence
convinced the jury that he had
been one of the train robbers: the
thread used to sew up the slits in
the mailbags was a special type made
exclusively for mailbags. It was spun
by a firm in Bridport, Dorset; and
they had fulfilled no foreign orders.
The accused went down for eight
years, admitting after the trial that
the gang had travelled to Dover in
the first-class carriage. During the
journey two members had climbed
out of a corridor window and
made their way to the luggage van
while others kept watch. A lock
was picked, mailbags slit, registered
packages stolen, the door relocked,
and the two daring gang members
made their way back to the first-class
carriage. The gang travelled back to
London on the next available train.
Security improved as the 20th
century progressed, but the 1963 lapse
will not fade from public memory for
a long time to come.Pre-war robberies
A few sentences from early 20th-century newspapers:Western Gazette, February 1929: There have been 109
mailbag thefts since 1925.Gloucestershire Echo, December 1929: Yet another mail train
robbery has occurred. This is the sixty-sixth mailbag to be
stolen since September 1928.Western Morning News, January 1930: More Mail
Robberies... There have been 71 mailbag robberies since the
beginning of 1929, with many thousands of pounds stolen...
This month’s total stands at 5.Above: a TPO cover,
one wonders if any
thematic collector has
looked for covers from
trains that were robbed?
Plenty of dates to seek if
newspaper stories are
to be believedRight: this 1920s
photograph captures
the busy scene in a
Travelling Post Office
as it thundered through
the night while the
sorters dealt with letters
and packages. Hardly
surprising that a thief
could steal a mailbag
or twoonly to find that all the
packages and envelopes
had been opened and their
contents taken. Closer
examination of the mail
bags revealed a slit in each
which had been neatly
sewn, no doubt after the
mail was removed. Foreign
currency and other valuables worth an
estimated £40,000 had vanished.
Because there was no extradition
treaty between Great Britain and
Prussia at that time, the prosecution at
the London trial had to prove that the
theft of mail had occurred somewhere
between Cannon Street and Dover.
Only one gang member was on trial,
caught when he foolishly tried to
change a 100-rouble Russian note not
long after the steamer departed Dover.
When challenged by a police detective
who had been called to the bank by a
suspicious bank manager, the accused
claimed that the banknote had been
given to him a few minutes earlier
by a friend who owed him money.
He said they had met by chance in ap62 Train robbery.indd 63 21/12/2015 10:00