

BY MARK ROTHWELL
A passenger railway from London to Falmouth, to compete with planned rail links from Southampton, was first proposed in 1835 but took many years to materialise. The Cornwall Railway Company was proposed in 1839, but it was not fully constituted until the passing of the Cornwall Railway Act 1849. The line traversed very difficult terrain, and as such the company was beset with material shortages and thus financial problems, and construction was suspended from 1848 to 1852. The first leg of the line, from Plymouth to Truro, finally opened in 1859. In 1860, in keeping with other railway companies, a small constabulary was formed for the purpose of detecting and deterring crime on the rail network. Known as the "Cornwall Railway Police", it was the only south-west force to be headquartered outside of the county it was sworn to police; headquarters was situated in Millbay, Plymouth, alongside the headquarters of the South Devon Railway Police. Officers were sworn as Special Constables by local justices and their wages paid by the railway company.
John William Northcott, from North Tawton, was the first Chief Constable of the Cornwall Railway Police and held the rank of Superintendent. He transferred to the South Devon Railway Police in 1875, and a year later was serving in the Great Western Railway Police (GWR) in the rank of Inspector following the GWR takeover of the South Devon Railway Company. He served a long career in the police and was one of the officers assigned to the Flying Dutchman whilst Major General Sir Frederick S. Roberts VC, the then new Governor and High Commissioner of Natal and the Transvaal, toured the south of England by train.

The Cornwall Railway, 1863
The Cornwall Railway, 1863

The Cornwall Railway, 1863
Theft on the railway was not an uncommon occurrence, but it must have been especially trifling for Superintendent Northcott to discover that so many members of the Company's staff were on the take. On 24th February 1861, Charles Warne stole a piece of linen from a box in transit at Liskeard Railway Station. The item was later located in the possession of Warne's wife by Superintendent Barnes (Cornwall Constabulary) who arrested Warne at his home the following March.i Warne was additionally charged with feloniously breaking open a case of brandy, the property of the Cornwall Railway Company, and stealing from it two bottles whilst on duty in Liskeard.ii John Henry Benallack was brought up on embezzlement charges after pocketing excess train fare whilst checking tickets at St Austell Railway Station on 28th March 1863. Although the sum amounted to a mere five shillings and sixpence, the case was proceeded with, and he was committed for trial at Bodmin Assizes.iii He was sentenced to six months' hard labour.iv In July 1864, employee Albert Roskilly, an ex-Royal Marine based at Falmouth, was charged with the theft of various items of property belonging to the Cornwall Railway Company.v He was further discovered to have helped himself to items in the station lost property store. He was arrested by Superintendent Northcott and was later sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment with hard labour at Bodmin Gaol.vi Pointsman Frederick John Julian, based at Truro, almost caused a train crash in July 1864 when he made a mistake turning the points. He was dismissed from the Company as a result and was ejected from his lodgings. In the weeks following the incident, Julian sent several letters to his former landlord Mr Glasson, insisting on the return by post of a box of personal belongings he left behind. So persistent was Julian's correspondence that Glasson became suspicious as to the box's contents. He took the box to Truro Railway Station and asked a porter named Bate to bear witness to its opening. When Glasson cracked it open, a cash bag and account book which had gone missing from the railway station cash office the previous December was found.vii For theft, Julian was sentenced at Bodmin Assizes to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour.viii
In 1866, Northcott jointly investigated a serious case of fraud against the Cornwall Railway Company and the West Cornwall Railway Company (whose police force, the West Cornwall Railway Police, was headed by Superintendent Armitage). Several railway employees, namely Thomas Penberthy, station-master at Scorrier, Thomas Mayne, clerk in the parcels office at Truro Railway Station, and a Mr Curnow, a clerk in the audit office at Plymouth, were discovered to have embezzled significant sums of money by altering 'waybills' for cash-in-transit deliveries between stations. Curnow concealed the thefts by cooking the books and the conspiracy was thought to have gone on for several years. Penberthy and Mayne were committed for trial at Truro, however Curnow absconded and appears to have never been caught.ix
In 1869, the Force consisted of one Superintendent (Northcott), one Inspector and thirty-one Constables.x By virtue of the Cornwall Railway Companies Amalgamation Act, the Cornwall Railway Company was taken over by GWR and all members of the company constabulary transferred over to the GWR Police in July 1889. Henry Uren, who worked for the Cornwall Railway Company from its inception in 1859, first as a passenger guard and then as a Police Constable, became the longest serving original member of the Force and of the company in general. He retired in 1905. During his career he saw great alterations in the development of steam-powered passenger trains, as well as the dangers. In the late 1890s, he narrowly avoided death when the 5pm train from Plymouth derailed between Doublebois and Bodmin Road. A year before he retired, he was serving as a guard and was on board the Cornish Riviera Express when the first ever GWR express service from Penzance to London Paddington was made.xi
Sources
- "Charge of Stealing Against a Railway Policeman" Western Daily Mercury 12 April 1862, p6
- "Robbery from a Railway Truck on the Cornwall Railway" Western Daily Mercury 15 March 1862, p3
- "Embezzlement by a Railway Policeman" Western Daily Mercury 6 May 1863, page 4
- "Trials of Prisoners" Royal Cornwall Gazette 3 July 1863, p8
- "Falmouth County Police" Lake's Falmouth Packet & Cornwall Advertiser 16 July 1864, p1
- "Robbery by a Railway Servant at Falmouth" Royal Cornwall Gazette 5 August 1864, p7
- "A Railway Policeman Charged with Felony" Morning Post 15 August 1864, p7
- "The Robbery at the Cornwall Railway Station" Cornish Telegraph 26 October 1864, p4
- "Embezzlement from the Cornish Railway Companies" Cornish Telegraph 28 February 1866, p3
- "Railway Forces" Police & Constabulary Almanac 1869, p72
- "Veteran Railway Guard" Cornish & Devon Post 7 October 1905, p6
- Title image: Geof Sheppard, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en, seal cropped