Vol 13; No 25 Railway Stories Part 1

Non-Hampton & Richmond Borough related posts.
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Les1949
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HAMPTON, AROUND AND ABOUT

Things you may not know, or didn’t know you knew!

No 25 RAILWAY STORIES Part 1
Local News items picked up on the way

Whilst researching background on the various articles that I write for the Match Day Programme, I often come across odd items that I put aside for later, so…..

Illustrated Police News, 28th November 1896 – A Strange Good-Bye

This item relates to a Corner’s Court into a death on the railways. Coroners Courts were often held in pubs, there is no information on where this Inquest was held.
The Coroner, Mr Braxton Hicks, was called upon to investigate what he said was “the most extraordinary case of suicide I had ever heard of”.

The deceased was 49 year-old Henry Mockford, a Carman working out of 8 Splighton Road, West Molesey (a Carman’s trade was a delivery business). Isaac Stone, the driver of the 6.50pm train from Waterloo to Hampton Court stated that after leaving Thames Ditton Station, he felt his engine strike something but couldn’t see an object on the line. Returning later, light engine (without carriages) in tow) – and those of a nervous disposition may wish to skim the next bit – he spotted a headless body lying in the Permanent Way. A few feet away he found the head, face down in the ballast.


Police Sergeant Russell visited the area the next morning to view the ‘crime scene’. Searching the immediate area, he found some 30 yards away from where the body had lain, a series of chalk marks on the rail itself. The words “Henry M. Goodbye for Ever” were written. Nearby, on the embankment were found a pair of boots. It was thought that Mockford had removed his boots so that the sound of his footsteps would not alert the Signalman in the adjacent Signal Box, additional on searching Mockford’s possessions, a piece of chalk was found in the deceased’s pocket.

Coroner Hicks said that he had seen many writings by suicides but he couldn’t recall a man leaving a message of that kind, on a railway line.

As expected, the Coroner’s Jury returned a verdict that the deceased committed suicide whilst temporarily insane – a standard verdict at the time.


Henry Mockford was buried in St Peters Churchyard, West Molesey, by order of the Coroner.

The Old Historian
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