1855 British train heist
The Great Gold Robbery took place on the night of 15 May 1855, when a routine shipment of three boxes of gold bullion and coins was stolen from the guard's van of the service between London Bridge station and Folkestone while it was being shipped to Paris. The robbers comprised four men, two of whom—William Tester and James Burgess—were employees of the South Eastern Railway (SER), the company that ran the rail service. They were joined by the planners of the crime: Edward Agar, a career criminal, and William Pierce, a former employee of the SER who had been dismissed for being a gambler.
During transit, the gold was held in "railway safes", which needed two keys to open. The men took wax impressions of the keys and made their own copies. When they knew a shipment was taking place, Tester ensured Burgess was on guard duty, and Agar hid in the guard's van. They emptied the safes of of gold, valued at the time at £12,000 (approximately ), then left the train at Dover. The theft was not discovered until the safes arrived in Paris. The police and railway authorities had no clues as to who had undertaken the theft, and arguments ensued as to whether it had been stolen in England, on the ship crossing the English Channel, or on the French leg of the journey.
When Agar was arrested for another crime, he asked Pierce to provide Fanny Kay—his former girlfriend—and child with funds. Pierce agreed and then reneged. In need of money, Kay went to the governor of Newgate Prison and told him who had undertaken the theft. Agar was questioned, admitted his guilt and testified as a witness. Pierce, Tester and Burgess were all arrested, tried and found guilty of the theft. Pierce received a sentence of two years' hard labour in England; Tester and Burgess were sentenced to penal transportation for 14 years.
The crime was the subject of a television play in 1960, with Colin Blakely as Pierce. "The Great Train Robbery", a novel by the writer and director Michael Crichton, was published in 1975. Crichton adapted his work into a feature film, "The First Great Train Robbery", with Sean Connery portraying Pierce.
Background.
South Eastern Railway.
In 1855 the South Eastern Railway (SER) ran a boat train service between London Bridge station and Folkestone, on the south coast of England. It provided part of the main route to Paris at the time, with a railway steamer from Folkestone to Boulogne-sur-Mer, northern France, and a train to complete the journey direct to Paris. The service ran at 8:00 am, 11:30 am and 4:30 pm; there was also an overnight mail service that left at 8:30 pm and a tidal ferry service. Periodically the line would carry shipments of gold from bullion merchants in London to their counterparts in Paris; these could be several hundredweights at a time. The bullion would be packed into wooden boxes, bound with iron hoops and with a wax seal bearing the coat of arms of the bullion dealers in question: Abell &amp; Co, Adam Spielmann &amp; Co and Messrs Bult &amp; Co. The agents who arranged the carriage of the gold, including collecting the bullion from the three companies and delivering it to London Bridge, were Chaplin &amp; Co. The gold shipments always went on the 8:30 pm train. At Boulogne the bullion boxes were collected by the French agents before being transported by train to the Gare du Nord and then to the Bank of France.
As a security measure, the boxes were weighed when they were loaded onto the guard's van, at Folkestone, on arrival at Boulogne and then again on arrival in Paris. The company's guard's vans were fitted with three patented "railway safes" provided by Chubb &amp; Son. These had sides and were made of steel. Access to the safe was through its lid, which was hinged for access; the exterior had two keyholes, high on the front. Each of the three safes had the same pair of locks, meaning that only two keys were needed to open all three safes. Copies of the keys were held separately by SER officials at London Bridge and Folkestone, and the company ensured no individual could hold both keys at the same time.
Participants.
The originator of the plan was William Pierce, a 37-year-old former employee of the SER who had been dismissed from its service after it was found that he was a gambler; he worked as a ticket printer in a betting shop after leaving the company. According to the historian Donald Thomas, Pierce was "a large-faced and rather clumsy man with a taste for loud waistcoats and fancy trousers. ... he was described as 'imperfectly educated'. The turf was his true schooling".
The burglar and safe-cracker Edward Agar was just under 40 at the time of the robbery and had been a professional thief since he was 18. He returned to the UK in 1853 after ten years spent in Australia and the US. He had £3,000 in government consol bonds and lived in the fashionable area of Shepherd's Bush, London. According to Thomas, the robbery "grew almost entirely from the absolute self-confidence and mental ability" of Agar.
James Burgess was a married, thrifty and respectable man who had worked at the SER since it had started running the Folkestone line in 1843. He worked for the company as a guard, and was often in charge of the trains that carried the bullion. As with many railwaymen of the time, Burgess's wages had been reduced as the railway boom had passed.
Fanny Kay, aged 23 in 1855, was Agar's partner and lived with him at his house, Cambridge Villa, in Shepherd's Bush. She had previously been an attendant at Tunbridge railway station and had been introduced to Agar by Burgess in 1853. She had a child with Agar and moved in with him in December 1854.
William Tester was a well-educated man who wore a monocle and had a desire to improve his position; he was briefly employed after the robbery as a general manager for a Swedish railway company. He worked in the traffic department at London Bridge station as the assistant to the superintendent, which gave him access to information about the carriage of valuable goods and the guards' rota.
James Townshend Saward, also known as Jim (or Jem) the Penman, was a barrister and special pleader at the Inner Temple. His activities were described by contemporary sources as "planning and perfecting schemes of fraud, the bold audacity of which is equalled only by their success". He was the head of a forgery gang who had been practising cheque fraud for several years.
Planning and preparation.
After being dismissed from the SER, Pierce continued to drink in the pubs and beer shops around London Bridge in which railway employees also drank. Over time he picked up detailed information about the gold shipments to Paris, while he watched and planned. He concluded that a theft would only be possible if he obtained copies of the keys to the safe. He relayed his thoughts to Agar before the latter's visit to the US; at the time Agar declined to take part, telling his friend the scheme was impracticable. When Agar returned to Britain, the two discussed the possibility again and Agar said that "it would be impossible to do it unless an impression of the keys could be procured". Pierce said he thought he knew how that could be arranged. They realised that for any theft to succeed, they needed the assistance of a guard travelling in the van with the safes, and an official with access to the staff rotas and who knew when the bullion shipments were to be made. It was at this stage that Pierce recruited Burgess and Tester to join the group.
In May 1854 Pierce and Agar travelled to Folkestone to watch the process involved at that end of the line, particularly the location and security surrounding the keys. They spent so long, and were so obvious, in their surveillance that they came to the notice of the SER's own police force and the Folkestone Borough Police. As a result, Pierce returned to London and left Agar to watch alone. As part of his intelligence gathering, Agar drank in the Rose Inn, a public house near the pier, where railway staff also drank. The pair concluded that one of the keys was carried by the superintendent of the Folkestone end of the line; the other was locked in a cabinet at the railway offices on Folkestone pier.
One of the keys held at Folkestone was lost in July 1854 by Captain Mold of the steamship company. The SER sent the safes back to Chubb for the locks to be reconditioned and new keys issued. The clerk involved in corresponding with the company was Tester. By October, Chubb's work had been completed and the keys sent to the SER. Tester was able to smuggle them out of the office briefly, and met Pierce and Agar in a beer house on Tooley Street, London, where Agar made an impression of them in green wax. Tester was so nervous when he removed the keys, that he brought two identical ones with him, rather than one for each lock; the plotters were still missing one of the keys. Agar, using the false name of E. E. Archer, used his own funds to send £200 of gold sovereigns on the SER line. The box of bullion, labelled "E. R. Archer, care of Mr. Ledger, or Mr. Chapman", was sent through to Folkestone where Agar would collect it. Agar collected the package from the SER office and watched while the company's superintendent retrieved the safe key from a cupboard at the back of the room. Knowing where the keys were stored, the following weekend Agar and Pierce stayed in nearby Dover and walked to Folkestone. When the boat arrived from Boulogne, both members of the SER staff left the office to meet it; they left the door unlocked when they left. Pierce entered the office while Agar waited at the door on lookout. Pierce opened the cupboard and took the safe key to Agar who made a wax impression. The key was returned, and the two men returned to London via Dover.
Over the following months Pierce and Agar created rough keys from the impressions they had taken. In April and May 1855 Agar would travel along the Folkestone route when Burgess was on duty—seven or eight trips in total—and would hone the keys until they worked smoothly and without effort. Pierce and Agar then separately visited the Shot Tower, Lambeth, where they obtained of lead shot. They also obtained courier bags, which could be strapped under a cloak, and carpet bags: these were to carry the lead shot onto the train, and the gold off it.
By May 1855 the men were now ready to carry out the robbery, and only needed to wait for a day when a gold shipment was taking place. Tester altered the staff rosters to ensure Burgess was working on the evening mail service for the month to ensure Agar had access to the safe. A signal was arranged whereby either Agar or Pierce would wait outside London Bridge station every day; if a shipment was being made, Burgess would walk out of the station and wipe his face with a white handkerchief to alert them. At the same time, Tester would travel to Redhill railway station and await the first stop of the train. He would take one of the bags of gold and return to London.
Robbery: 15 May 1855.
On 15 May 1855, while Agar was waiting outside London Bridge station, Burgess came out of the station, wiped his face with his handkerchief and went back inside. Agar notified Pierce and the two men purchased first-class tickets for the journey to Folkestone. They gave their bags to Burgess for storage in the guard's van during the journey and, just before the train was due to leave, Pierce took his seat in the cabin, and Agar slipped into the guard's van and hid in the corner, covered by Burgess's overalls.
As soon as the train departed the station, Agar began work. Only one of the locks was secured—an SER employee later reported that typically only one lock was used—and Agar