Brighton railway disaster

Brighton railway disaster
Engraving of the accident
Details
Date	6 June 1851 12:05 pm
Location	Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom
Coordinates	50°51′51″N 0°2′35″W
Line	Brighton, Lewes and Hastings Railway
Incident type	Derailment
Cause	Suspected sabotage, obstruction on rail, excessive speed
Statistics
Trains	1
Vehicles	4
Passengers	7
Deaths	5
List of rail accidents (before 1880)

The Brighton railway disaster was a train derailment that occurred in 1851 resulting in the deaths of five passengers and crew members. The accident was initially speculated to be an act of sabotage carried out by a juvenile.

Background

The No. 82 Sharp single train was a passenger transport line operating between Lewes and Brighton. On Friday 6 June 1851, the train was running as usual. On this day, there were only seven passengers, plus the brakeman and engineer. The train had just pulled into Falmer railway station, then departed around noon, heading eastward towards Lewes.

Accident

As the No. 82 departed, it went down an incline reaching a speed of 27 miles per hour. Further down the line, a ten-year-old child identified as Jimmy Boakes was seen playing on the train tracks. Eyewitness accounts said that the boy was playing with a wooden sleeper that was lying across the tracks and using it as a seesaw. At around 12:05 pm, the No. 82 reached the point where Boakes had been seen and struck the wooden sleeper, causing the train to derail.

Upon derailing, the train and its cars overturned into an embankment over an archway. Three passengers and both of the crew members died as a result of the accident. Accounts of the accident stated that the three passengers that had perished were in a passenger that had no roof and died upon being ejected from the wreck. The fireman was instantly killed in the wreck; the engineer managed to survive the accident, but was gravely wounded, later succumbing to his wounds. The only survivor in the roofless passenger car was a male who ducked down underneath a seat as the carriages began to overturn. He managed to walk away from the disaster only with bruises.

Investigation and inquiry

After rumors began to spread about Boakes causing the derailment, a £50 reward was offered to anyone who could provide whereabouts in an effort to arrest him. Boakes was eventually questioned by the police about his role in the crash. According to Boakes' mother, Hannah, Jimmy and his younger brother had gone to the site where the accident would occur at 11:30 am because he wanted to see the train as it passed. When further questioned about the obstruction on the tracks, an officer asked the boy if he had seen the wooden sleeper on the tracks. According to Jimmy, he had not seen the sleeper on the tracks, but rather near the tracks.

Falmer railway station, located near the site of the accident

After a pastor's attempt to get a confession out of Boakes proved futile, the case started to shift blame away from the child. Furthermore, doubts of Jimmy's role grew as the railroad sleeper would have been too heavy for a boy his age to lift by himself. The case then changed, pointing responsibility to the engineer for excessive, as well as blaming the manufacturer for not putting a metal guard on the front of the train.

The charges against Boakes were eventually dropped. Some historians suspect that the sleeper had been left on the tracks by careless railway workers. A year after the accident, Jimmy Boakes would die near the site of the accident after he was struck by lightning.