Edwardian Murder: Ightham and the Morpeth Train Robbery

by Diane Janes (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $3.51

  Caroline Luard was shot near Ightham in Kent in 1908. Within weeks, her husband, the respectable Major-General Charles Luard, committed suicide. It was rumoured that he killed himself following a tip-off from the local chief constable that he was about to be arrested. In 1910, John Nisbet, a colliery cashier, was robbed and murdered on a train in Northumberland. Three days after the crime, police arrested a man called John Dickman, who was subsequently executed. The conviction, however, relied on circumstantial evidence. In 1950, C. H. Norman, who acted as official shorthand writer at Dickman's trial, claimed that Dickman was framed for Nisbet's murder, because the judge and prosecuting council believed him guilty of the murder of Caroline Luard. Is it conceivable that John Dickman was guilty of both murders? Or was he framed, and unjustly executed? This new book provides the definitive account of both murders. Including previously unpublished evidence, it is a compelling read, vividly recreating the atmosphere of the Edwardian age. These true crimes bear all the hallmarks of traditional English period murder: steam trains, revolvers, an isolated summerhouse, retired army officers, parlour maids, to say nothing of conspiracy theories, murder, suicide, an execution and a love story.