“It’s not natural,” said I, pausing in my dissection of a succulent kipper to eye my nephew severely. “I read in the Liverpool Mercury that one of those locomotive engines travelled at thirty miles an hour in the trials! It’s enough to give a person heart failure. If the good Lord had meant us to move so fast, he would have given horses steam boilers and wheels.”
“You won’t come then, Aunt Hattie?” asked Archie.
The dear boy is never quite sure when I am teasing.
“A pity,” he continued. “I understand invitations are much sought after. All the nobs are begging the directors for them, after fighting tooth and nail against the railway. Even the Prime Minister has agreed to open it, in spite of his attempts to defeat the Bill.”
I snorted—unladylike, perhaps, but we are after all a commercial family without pretensions to gentility. Few, at any rate. Besides, age has its privileges (sixtyish, then, but I owned to seventy and everyone thought I was simply marvellous for my age). “The Mercury says the Duke fought it because he’s afraid railways will ‘encourage the lower orders to move about’ as the rich do now. The hero of Waterloo has turned into the most unconscionable old stick-in-the-mud.”
As he was wont to do at any reminder of Waterloo, Archie fingered the scar that ran from the corner of his eye to the corner of his mouth, raising his lips in a permanent half-smile. After fifteen years, the action was quite unconscious. “Yes,” he sighed, “I’m afraid the Beau’s stance against reform has made him very unpopular all over the country, especially here in the North-west.”
“Why, even our Member, Tory though he be, is standing up for reform and against the Corn Laws, though it’s led to a quarrel with the Duke.”
“And for the railways, Aunt. Without Huskisson’s support, the Bill would have died in Parliament. We’re going to break the monopoly of the canals! It’s a wonderful moment for commerce, for both the Manchester manufacturers and us Liverpool merchants and ship-owners. I’m sorry you’ll miss the celebration.”
“Who said I’m going to miss it?” I demanded, turning back to my breakfast. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world! I do wish the good Lord had not seen fit to put so many bones in kippers.”
* * * *
On Wednesday, the 15th of September, 1830, when our carriage bore us to Crown Street Station, swarms of people had already gathered. Archie had given his clerks and warehousemen leave for the day, and many another employer must have done likewise. Dressed in their holiday best, waving Union Jacks, the crowd was in a cheerful mood in spite of towering thunderclouds sailing across the blue sky. As they parted to let the carriage through, someone shouted “That’s Mr. Archibald Primrose!” and a small cheer went up.
The following carriage drew a louder clamour. “Three cheers for Mr. Huskisson! Hip, hip…”
“Hoorah, hoorah, hoorah!”
Archie handed me down and waited patiently while I straightened my bonnet and smoothed down my black silk skirts. The MP’s carriage drew up behind. Huskisson stepped down and turned to offer his wife his good arm. The other hung useless at his side, and he limped as they came to meet us. Botched surgery, they say. The gentlemen raised their tall hats and Mrs. Huskisson and I bowed to each other. Any stiffness was due entirely to our corsets. The Huskissons, a pleasant couple, never forgot who had elected him to Parliament.
“Good day, Miss Primrose,” said Huskisson, a tall, awkward, slouching man of my own age, who looked far from well. “A great day, Primrose!”
“Thanks to you, sir,” said Archie. “If you had failed to persuade the Commons, the directors would have nothing to direct and I nothing to invest in.”
“As past President of the Board of Trade, sir, I am convinced the railways are going to prove an investment in the future of our country. I’m afraid His Grace of Wellington has been quite short-sighted in this, as in other matters. My dear Primrose, I know you served in the army at Waterloo. May I ask you to keep an eye on him today? He is exceedingly unpopular hereabouts, as you know, and though we disagree I should hate any harm to come to him in my district.”
Archie agreed to watch out for troublemakers. The dear boy asked if I would like to return home in view of the possibility of trouble, but I was determined to ride on Mr. George Stephenson’s railway. (My resolve was stiffened, I admit, by Mrs. Huskisson’s refusal to be parted from her husband.)
Mr. Booth, secretary and treasurer of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, and two directors came to greet us, delighted to see Huskisson, who had earlier said his health would prevent his coming. Moving on through the archway into the station, we found a couple of hundred guests had arrived before us. We stopped to chat with friends and Archie’s colleagues and commercial competitors, Liverpudlians and Mancunians enthusiastic about the railway.
But not everyone was equally enthusiastic. Some of the would-be passengers were of the landowning aristocracy or canal owners. These regarded the whole business with emotions ranging from distaste to hatred, which had not stopped them attending so illustrious an occasion.
As Archie escorted me to examine the locomotive engines at close range, we overheard comments:
“They are sure to terrify the cattle into fits, and set the hayricks on fire.”
“Not to mention making horses bolt.”
“The rails will sink into Chat Moss, mark my words. No one’s ever tried to build even an ordinary road over that bog. It’s been known to swallow a horse and rider without trace.”
“Forty acres of my best pasture they took by compulsory purchase.”
“They will set their freight carriage low enough to drive the canals out of business, and then raise their rates, wait and see.”
“Thirty miles an hour—the human body cannot survive such speed.”
“Sixty-three bridges, they say, as well as the viaduct across the Sankey valley, which has nine arches. And they will run eight locomotive engines pulling trains of carriages today, seven hundred passengers. At least one bridge is bound to fail under the weight, unless all the boilers blow up first.”
“They’ll frighten away the foxes and ruin the hunt!”
“Foxes!” I shook my head in disgust.
“No danger to the Duke of Wellington here,” Archie said. These privileged ladies and gentlemen were undoubtedly his supporters, believing with him that to enable the common man to travel freely—let alone to vote!—must lead to revolution.
Archie recognized some and pointed them out to me. The red-faced hunting squire worried for his quarry was Sir Thomas Flough. Over there were the Earl and Countess of Sefton, whose land the railway crossed. John and Robert Bradshaw, both canal-owners, were present. That supercilious gentleman with his exquisitely dressed family was the Marquis of Stafford, chief stockholder of the Bridgewater Canal. According to the Mercury, his shares brought him a fifty percent return, an income of a hundred thousand pounds a year. That was going to change. The high rates and slowness of traffic on the canals were largely responsible for the building of the new railway.
Passing the fringe of the company, we came to the rails. Eight locomotive engines stood there, each with six open-sided carriages hitched on behind. Nearest was the ‘Northumbrian,’ the newest and most advanced engine developed by Robert Stephenson on the model of the ‘Rocket.’ Round it clustered several scientific gentlemen with tape measures, slide-rules, and note-pads, measuring its boiler and studying the pressure gauge and safety-valves. One of its carriages, wider than the rest, was a splendid creation of gilt scrolls and balustrades, with crimson hangings, surmounted by a ducal coronet.
“The Prime Minister’s, no doubt,” I observed.
Archie wondered whether he ought to take a seat in the carriage behind the duke’s.
“Hardly necessary,” I pointed out. “Any danger to Wellington will come from Radicals in the cities at either end, not during the journey, where thirty miles an hour will be peril enough!”
“I ought to get back to the station entrance to watch the duke’s arrival.” Then he saw two men making adjustments to a yellow painted locomotive engine, trimmed in black, with a white funnel. “The ‘Rocket.’ And that’s George Stephenson, and his son Robert. Would you like to meet the great engineers, Aunt Hattie?”
We were forestalled by a beautiful young woman who swept up to the engineers. Her pink bonnet had a huge brim and at least half a dozen white ostrich feathers. I looked askance at her décolletage.
“No chaperon!”
“Fanny Kemble, the actress,” Archie told me. “She’s mad for railways—or some say for George Stephenson, though he’s thirty years her senior. He’s taken her riding on his locomotives.”
“An actress?” I sniffed.
“Here comes her mama.”
“Another actress.” I’m as broadminded as the next person, I hope, but at my age thirty miles an hour and actresses all in one day is rather too much of a good thing.
Turning back, we met the Huskissons again. I stayed to chat, while Archie went off towards the entrance through the growing throng of guests. Suddenly the babble of voices was drowned by an ear-shattering boom.
An Infernal Machine! Someone had blown the duke to smithereens. I hurried after Archie, praying he had arrived too late to be hurt.
But no—people glanced skyward, and umbrellas popped open. Only a few drops fell, though, and the threat of more seemed not to dampen anyone’s spirits. Umbrellas furled as the cloud passed.
I caught up with Archie and went with him out to the street.
A smart carriage had just pulled up to deposit a haughty couple. Lord and Lady Derby—the earl’s cursory glance dismissed Archie as a commercial person of no account and they passed on without acknowledgement of our presence.
Never mind. He had—in the vulgar phrase—squealed like a stuck pig when he discovered the railway would cross his estate.
Fifes and drums announced the approach of the band of the Prince of Wales’s Volunteers, Archie’s old regiment, splendid in white uniforms with yellow and silver facings. The crowd cheered the musicians, but the cheers quickly turned to boos and hisses and catcalls as the Prime Minister’s coach followed. Like Archie, I scanned the nearer ranks of the “lower orders.” Face after face showed scorn and derision, but people retained their holiday mood and no weapons, real or makeshift, were visible.
Wellington stepped down. At sixty-one, he had not lost the arrogant, martial bearing and coldly keen eyes of the general who had saved England from Boney. After him came Sir Robert Peel. The Home Secretary was scarcely more popular than the Prime Minister, having imposed on London the first police force in supposedly free Britain.
From the back of their carriage two men jumped down. They were dressed alike in semi-military uniform: many-buttoned tunics with square-cut tails and round collars marked with insignia, and tall hats with narrow brims. Each wore a belt into which was tucked a painted truncheon.
“Sir Robert has brought a couple of his ‘peelers’ with him,” said Archie.
“Let them take care of the duke,” I proposed with relief.
“I’ll still keep an eye out for troublemakers, but I dare say I can relax my vigilance somewhat,” he agreed.
* * * *
At last the trains were ready to start. A number of nervous ladies elected not to board, and a number of gentlemen stayed behind to take care of them—or so they claimed. The rest of us embarked higgledy-piggledy. Naturally Wellington’s ceremonial car received the nobs (Archie’s deplorable epithet), including a foreign nobleman or two—I heard the name Esterhazy mentioned. The carriage between the duke’s and the “Northumbrian” was reserved for musicians who were to serenade us on our way. The company’s directors filled another. Archie and I found ourselves in the train of the locomotive “Phoenix” together with the Huskissons and others of his constituency.
Miss Fanny Kemble was also of our company. In the scramble to find seats, she had been parted from her mother. I must say she showed a very proper concern for Mrs. Kemble, or Marie Thérèse de Camp, as I understand her stage name to be. Alas, the “Phoenix” rolled into motion, with much puffing and hissing, clanking and rattling, before the pair could be reunited.
The crowds outside poured into the station to watch our departure, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs. In fact, wherever possible along the route, groups had gathered to see the marvel.
Nowadays everyone travels by train, even the labouring classes, so I will not describe the first part of our journey. I found it quite exhilarating. Even the least scientifically-minded passengers were amazed by the Olive Mount cutting, two miles long, twenty feet wide, and up to eighty feet deep, carved into solid stone. What a feat of engineering, as is the great Sankey viaduct. There we were suspended some sixty feet in the air on a construct of brick and stone scarcely wider than the two sets of rails—rather alarming! However, we passed safely and soon thereafter stopped at Parkside, where the locomotive engines were to replenish their water.
All the gentlemen pulled out their watches. Scarce an hour had passed and already we were half way to Manchester! Now if only we did not sink into the Chat Moss bog…
A man came striding along the line, calling out, “Miss Kemble! Miss Fanny Kemble! Is Miss Kemble aboard?”
Miss Kemble leant out. “Yes, here I am. What is it?”
“Miss Kemble, I fear your mother is distraught.”
Along behind him came a second gentleman, supporting a weeping, trembling Mrs. Kemble. We made room and she was assisted up to join Miss Fanny. To her concern at being parted from her daughter, it appeared, was joined a very natural terror at the speed and noise of our journey. Fortunately I always carry smelling salts—though never making use of them myself—and so a fit of hysterics was averted.
However, a number of the gentlemen not unnaturally wished to remove themselves from the vicinity. They descended to the ground, to join others fretted by the delay who were wandering about in defiance of the clearly printed instructions on the invitations. Among these were Sir Thomas Flough, Mr. Robert Bradshaw and some others from the carriage next to ours, and the Prime Minister and several of his entourage.
“I really must go and speak to Wellington,” said Mr. Huskisson. “I did not approach him at Crown Street, but in spite of the breach between us, it would be ungracious of me not to welcome him to Liverpool and thank him for his attendance today.”“Do be careful, my dear,” said Mrs. Huskisson anxiously, as Archie helped him down. He gave her a smile of great sweetness and limped off towards the duke.
I saw Wellington welcome Huskisson with an outstretched hand, but then my attention was diverted back to Mrs. Kemble, who suffered a new crise de nerfs.
All at once an outcry arose. “Clear the track,” shouted several voices. “Stop the engine!” others advised.
I hurried to the side of our carriage. The “Rocket” was approaching at great speed on the other track!
“Whoa!” bellowed Squire Flough.
“Archie!” I cried.
He had stayed close and quickly sprang aboard. The duke, too, I saw hustled into his carriage, but others were still on the line. Two gentlemen clung to the side of one carriage, another was bodily hauled in by friends. Some hid under the embankment. One even lay down between the tracks.
But Mr. Huskisson, lame and unwell, dithered, bewildered by conflicting advice and people scattering in every direction.
“Huskisson!” shouted the duke, “do get to your place. For God’s sake get to your place!”
Turning at last, he started towards us, then realized he would not reach us before the locomotive bore down upon him. He reached for the door of the next carriage.
The door swung open. Huskisson lost his balance and fell, face down, his left leg doubled across the track.
“William!” shrieked his wife, as the inexorable “Rocket” crushed his leg between its iron wheels and the iron track.
And, white with shock, Archie drew me away from the horrid sight, saying, “He was pushed!”
* * * *
In the hubbub, no one else heard him. Even I was too distracted to listen further, hastening to retrieve my smelling salts from Mrs. Kemble to press them upon poor Mrs. Huskisson.
A good sniff revived her from her semi-swoon. “I must go to William!” she cried. “Let me go to William!”
“They have found a doctor among the passengers,” reported one of those who hung over the balustrade, begging for news. “Dr. Brandreth, and a surgeon, Mr. Hensman. They are applying a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.”
Truth to tell, I felt a little faint myself, or I should certainly have supported Mrs. Huskisson as she made her way to her husband’s side. Needless to say, she had no dearth of assistance or comforters.
It was decided that proper medical assistance could not be provided by the side of the track. In no time, the musicians’ carriage was detached from the duke’s, and Mr. Huskisson carried thither on a plank. Mr. George Stephenson himself drove the “Northumbrian,” racing away along the rails, reaching a speed of thirty-five miles an hour, as I later heard. The victim was taken to Eccles, where the Reverend Mr. Blackburne, a passenger, had offered the accommodation of his parsonage, close by the railway. There poor Huskisson bade his unhappy wife farewell, and later that evening expired in agony.
* * * *
In the meantime, the Duke of Wellington very properly wished to abandon the rest of the outing. The city fathers of Manchester, fellow-passengers, convinced him that such a course could prove dangerous. The populace were expecting him. Already disaffected, they would regard his failure to arrive as a slight, and a serious disturbance of the peace might well ensue.
How shall I describe the rest of that dreadful journey? As we crossed the barren bleakness of Chat Moss, the heavens opened and a drenching rain fell, as if weeping for Mr. Huskisson. Gusts of wind blew the rain in at the open sides of the carriages. We were all soaked to the skin.
The crowds were indeed waiting along the track as we rattled into Manchester. Cannons boomed, announcing the duke’s approach. Immediately a hail of stones and brickbats descended upon the trains.
Instead of cheers, we heard jeers, and cries of “Reform!” and “Abolish the Corn Laws!” and “Remember Peterloo!”
Wellington was very unpopular in Manchester. I confess the thought crossed my mind that it was a great pity he had not fallen under the engine instead of poor Huskisson.
Now the duke was on his mettle. To him, unpopularity and still more so danger were a challenge not a deterrent. With difficulty did the city fathers, changing their tune, persuade him that to remain in Manchester was foolhardy, bound to lead to rioting, the destruction of property, perhaps even loss of life.
Cold, weary, hungry, we set out to return to Liverpool, along the rails once more. After all, the alternative was horse and carriage, which would take three or four times as long!
When we stopped again at the fatal spot to take on water, rumour flew that a wheelbarrow had been pushed onto the tracks. Whether a Luddite, raging against Machines, had hoped to destroy one, or a Revolutionary had made the anticipated attempt to assassinate the Prime Minister, we shall never know. The wheelbarrow splintered, the relentless locomotive rolled on.
In spite of the frightful accident, the railway had proved itself.
* * * *
But was it an accident?
After Mr. Huskisson was run down, we were all subdued. There was little conversation, even the vivacious Miss Fanny Kemble sitting quietly beside her mother. Archie was silent, his head bowed, and I knew he wanted to hide his face lest anyone should think his smile was voluntary. He made no further mention of his claim that the poor man had been pushed. Indeed, I forgot all about it until, the following morning, the Mercury reported his death.
Then Archie abandoned his kidneys and bacon and said flatly, “It was murder.”
I suddenly lost my appetite. “Murder?” I croaked. An asinine remark, but really, in such circumstances one cannot be expected to sparkle.
“Huskisson was pushed. He died. Ergo, murder.”
“But what makes you think so, Archie? No one else suggested anything of the sort.”
“I suppose I was in a unique position to see what happened. You recall, I had just jumped aboard and I leant forward to give the man behind me a hand up. I was not looking at him, but at Huskisson, who was in imminent danger. I saw the door of the next carriage open, and a hand reached out. Naturally I assumed someone was aiding Huskisson as I did whomever it was. But the hand closed to a fist, and instead of aid it delivered a blow.”
“A blow!” I said stupidly.
“Not hard. A tap, rather. But off balance as he was, lame and crippled in the arm, it was sufficient to topple him.”
“Murder! But who hit him? Who would commit such a ghastly deed?”
“That’s what I don’t know, Aunt Hattie. Oh, he had plenty of enemies, from those who loathe and fear the railway to opponents of parliamentary reform and those who profit from the Corn Laws.”
“I saw Squire Flough in that carriage,” I remembered, “and the Bradshaws. Birds of a feather…But which of them was it?”
“I have no idea,” Archie admitted despairingly. “All I saw was a black hat, a black coat, a black sleeve and a gloved hand, the uniform of the gentleman. And I have no idea how to find out whose hand. I doubt any in that carriage will bear witness against a friend.”
A moment’s consideration gave me the answer. “Leave it to me,” said I, confidently.
* * * *
Paying a visit of condolence must be distressing for any sensitive person. Yet on this occasion I was buoyed by the hope of aiding the course of justice.
I half expected that Mrs. Huskisson would not be receiving, and that I should have to leave my card, which would make my investigation much more difficult. However, as daughter of an admiral she was made of sterner stuff.
The gentry are taught to hide their emotions. Very pale but outwardly composed, she presided over a darkened drawing room crammed with well-wishers, sincere and hypocritical. As well as Mr. Huskisson’s friends and supporters, I recognized several who had been his bitter opponents, whose cause would be greatly aided by his death. For my purpose, perfect!
After expressing my deep sympathy to the widow, I joined one of the groups in hushed conversation in another part of the room. Naturally the talk was of the accident. Some had been present, but not so close as I was, so I was able to supply details.
“At the last, he very nearly escaped,” I said. “The carriage door was opened, and someone reached out to him. I wonder who it was? No doubt Mrs. Huskisson would be glad to discover who tried to help her husband.”
No one knew, but now the question would certainly circulate. If I stayed long enough, someone would have the answer, which would in time circulate back to me. I moved on to another group.
People came and went. Several times I heard my enquiry repeated, but no one seemed to have the information. After an hour and a quarter, I was quite fatigued and ready to concede defeat. Only the thought of Archie’s disappointment kept me going. Then I observed the arrival of a gentleman, unknown to me, whom I had seen in that fatal carriage. I could endure a little longer, I decided, until the question reached him.
After he had spoken to Mrs. Huskisson, who showed signs of flagging, poor dear, I managed to insinuate myself into the circle he joined. I was surprised at how soon someone said to him, “Fenimore, you were in the carriage Huskisson attempted to enter, were you not? Did you see who it was reached out to help him aboard?”
“Yes, indeed,” replied Mr. Fenimore. I hung on his words. “It was one of the Bradshaw boys, who had himself just clambered to safety, to the terror of his mama. Geoffrey is his name, I believe, Mr. John Bradshaw’s second son. He was most distressed by his failure to avert the tragedy.”
Triumph! I hurried to Primrose & Son to tell Archie.
* * * *
Archie was properly impressed by the swift result of my investigation.
“My dear aunt, I never would have thought to obtain the name by pretending to believe the action praiseworthy! John Bradshaw’s son, eh? The Bradshaws are heavily invested in canals and fought the railway as bitterly as anyone. In fact, Robert Bradshaw is superintendent of the Bridgewater Canal.”
“The railway will ruin them, I suppose,” said I, “cause enough for spite.”
“The fatal gesture was doubtless the impulse of a moment.”
“But none the less fatal for that,” I pointed out.
“Yes,” Archie agreed. “Mr. Geoffrey Bradshaw must take his punishment.”
“You had better go immediately to report to the Coroner.”
Sighing, as at a necessary but distasteful task, Archie locked away the contract he had been perusing. He left instructions with his head clerk and set off to find the Coroner, while I repaired homeward for a well-earned nap before dinner.
* * * *
Archie refused to discuss his visit to the Coroner over the mushroom soup. When the first pangs of hunger had been allayed and the servants had left us with a leg of lamb, roast potatoes and parsnips, and a dish of runner beans, he picked up the carving knife and fork.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Hattie,” said he, stabbing the roast.
“Oh dear, is it tough? It may not be spring lamb, but six-month-old Welsh should not need long hanging.”
“I’m not criticizing your housekeeping! The meat is tender as always. But speaking of hanging, young Geoffrey Bradshaw will not.”
“Will not hang?” Truth to tell I was rather glad. Hanging is barbaric, fit punishment for only the most heinous crimes. “The Coroner sees it as manslaughter?”
“The old man sees no case. Or rather, no case strong enough to bring against one of a family close to the Marquis of Stafford. My word for what I saw is not sufficient, and he will not order his officers to question the rest of the passengers. Too many influential men among them! He means to instruct the jury to bring a verdict of death by misadventure.”
“So much for British Justice!” I exclaimed, but what I thought was, Alas for my brilliant investigative triumph!
* * * *
Thus it was that the death of Mr. William Huskisson, MP, has gone down in history as the first fatal accident on a public railway. Yet a young man’s malevolence and an elderly coroner’s cowardice failed to stem the tide of progress. The railways thrive and are rapidly covering our country with a universal network.
And, incidentally, Archie’s investment has borne fruit a thousandfold.
First published in CrimeandSuspense online magazine, Jan/Feb 2008
Learn more about Carola Dunn’s Daisy Dalrymple mysteries published by St. Martin's Press in hardcover, Kensington in paperback at Carola Dunn’s website
And find ebooks of Ms. Dunn’s Regencies on the Regency Reads website