The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable

A True Tale of Passion, Poison and Pursuit

Carol Baxter

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781780742441
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

John Tawell was a sincere Quaker but a sinning one. Convicted of forgery, he was transported to Sydney, where he opened Australia's first retail pharmacy and made a fortune. When he returned home to England after fifteen years, he thought he would be welcomed; instead he was shunned.Then on New Year's Day 1845 Tawell boarded the 7: 42 pm train to London Paddington. Soon, men arrived chasing a suspected murderer – but the 7: 42 had departed. The Great Western Railway was experimenting with a new-fangled device, the electric telegraph, so a message was sent: a 'KWAKER' man was on the run. The trail became a sensation, involving no apparent weapon, much innuendo, and a pious man desperate to save his reputation – and would usher in the modern communication age.Told with narrative verve and rich in historical research, this is a delicious true tale of murder and scientific revolution in Victorian England.

‌

Also by Carol Baxter

Captain Thunderbolt and His Lady:
The True Story of Bushrangers Frederick Ward
and Mary Ann Bugg

Breaking the Bank:
An Extraordinary Colonial Robbery

An Irresistible Temptation:
The True Story of Jane New and
a Colonial Scandal

‌

A Oneworld Book

First published by Oneworld Publications 2013
Copyright © Carol Baxter 2013

The moral right of Carol Baxter to be identified as the Author of this book has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988

All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78074-243-4
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-78074-244-1

Cover design by nathanburtondesign.com
Printed and bound by Page Bros Ltd.

Oneworld Publications
10 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3SR

‌

Contents

• Prologue
• Part 1 · Alarm
• Part 2 · Obsession
• Part 3 · Suspicion
• Part 4 · Fascination
• Part 5 · Agony
• Epilogue
• Author’s Note
• Bibliography

‌

Really, sir, you cannot be serious in proposing to stop the escape of a thief or swindler by so small an electric spark acting on a needle. If you had talked of sending a thunderbolt or flash of lightning after him, I might have thought there was some feasibility in it.

Sceptic to would-be electric telegraph inventor Edward Davy, 1830s, quoted in J.J. Fahie’s A History of Electric Telegraphy (1884)

‌

‌Prologue

Of all the physical agents discovered by modern scientific research, the most fertile in its subserviency to the arts of life is incontestably electricity, and of all the applications of this subtle agent, that which is transcendently the most admirable in its effects, the most astonishing in its results, and the most important in its influence upon the social relations of mankind and upon the spread of civilisation and the diffusion of knowledge, is the Electric Telegraph.

Dr Lardner,
The Electric Telegraph (1867)

EVERY NIGHT, as the clock strikes midnight, a new date emerges from the wings, initially blind to the events that will transpire as the next twenty-four hours unfold, the events that will mark its place in history. Most days pass by unnoticed or are soon forgotten – in a particular locality, at least. Yet pluck any date from the historical calendar and somewhere on the world’s stage something momentous happened. Perhaps it had long been marked for glory. Perhaps it exploded cataclysmically into view. Often, though, while seeming inconsequential at the time, its importance is recognised only when history’s binoculars are refocused on that particular stage.

Tuesday, 25 July 1837 was a date that Britain’s Professor Charles Wheatstone was hoping would in time be celebrated in the history books. It was late in the evening when he entered the carriage shed at Euston Station, the terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway then under construction. Hammering had ceased in time for the station’s ceremonious opening five days earlier, an occasion already marked for posterity. Yet, despite the current lack of ceremony and the dingy surroundings, Wheatstone believed that this date would be of far greater importance – if all went according to plan.

Small and slight, curly-headed, bespectacled and excruciatingly shy: the mould of the eccentric scientist might have been fashioned with Wheatstone in mind. He had long been fascinated by the workings of musical instruments and by acoustics, optics and electricity, and his inquisitive mind had led him to experiment with the possibilities of a communication system driven by electricity – a so-called ‘electric telegraph’.

By the flickering light of a tallow candle, Wheatstone could see his recently patented electric telegraph machine squatting on the table in front of him. The model had a simple four-needle display that allowed only twelve letters to be indicated. Its ‘clock face’ was a diamond-shaped grid, with lines heading north-east and north-west from each of the four needle bases that were positioned across a central horizontal axis. When two needles were simultaneously tilted towards each other at a forty-five degree angle from the vertical, they pointed along these lines towards a junction at which a letter was inscribed. To each needle was attached a single wire along which the electric current would pass. The wires trailed from the machine and became part of a thirteen-mile circuit wrapped around a frame sitting in the carriage shed, before heading out the door and disappearing into the shadows.

Wheatstone made a last-minute check – all the wires were securely fastened to needles, all the needles moving freely – like a teacher anxious for his prize student to shine. He then lifted his hands to the machine’s controls and deflected the two needles that would signal the first letter. Obligingly, the machine began transmitting his message.

A mile-and-a-half away in the winding-engine house at Camden Town sat his partner, William Fothergill Cooke, facing an identical instrument. An impecunious ex-military officer, Cooke was desperate to make money – lots of money – and had seen the commercial potential of an electric telegraph machine. Energetic and resourceful, he had the personality necessary to attract business but lacked the scientific ...

Table of contents

• Copyright Page
• Prologue
• Part 1 • Alarm
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Part 2 • Obsession
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Part 3 • Suspicion
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Part 4 • Fascination
• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Chapter 24
• Chapter 25
• Chapter 26
• Chapter 27
• Chapter 28
• Chapter 29
• Part 5 • Agony
• Chapter 30
• Chapter 31
• Chapter 32
• Chapter 33
• Chapter 34
• Chapter 35
• Chapter 36
• Epilogue
• Author’s Note
• Bibliography
• About the Author