BTPHG member Malcolm Clegg has his second BTP related book published within a few months and takes another place on the virtual BookShelf.
This time he is looking at crimes in the Victorian era.
The book, published in hardback by Pen & Sword, contains 160 pages and will be released on 30th January 2023. It will be available from Amazon, other online retailers, most book shops or direct from the publishers, and is available to pre-order now.
From the publisher’s description:
The vast majority of Britain’s railways were built between 1830 and 1900 which happened to coincide with the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). By the turn of the Nineteenth/Twentieth Century, over one hundred different railway companies were operating in Britain on more than 22,000 miles of railway track.
Although these new railways brought prosperity to the nation and enabled goods and passengers to be speedily transported the length and breadth of the country for the first time, this remarkable feat of engineering brought with it some unwelcome side-effects, one of which was crime. Wherever crowds of people gather, or unattended goods are being transported, a few unscrupulous individuals and career criminals will usually emerge to ply their trade. Some railway staff members are also unable to resist the temptation of stealing money or goods passing through their hands.
This book gives an insight into the nature and types of crime committed on the railways during the Victorian era, incorporating such offences as theft, assaults and murder, fraud, obstructing the railways and various other infringements of the law.
Over seventy different cases mentioned in the book are true accounts of events which took place on the railway during the Victorian era, the details of which were obtained as a result of hours of researching British Newspaper Archives of that period. The author hopes that readers will get as much pleasure from analysing the various cases cited in the book, as he himself derived from researching and writing about them.
Update: January 2023
Malcolm advises: Just to keep you updated. The book was released on Wednesday (11th January 2023) and my copies arrived on Thursday.
Hardback copies are now available from the publisher, Pen & Sword, priced at £18.00 (RRP £20) each.
Also see:
British Transport Police – A definitive history of the early years and subsequent development