Death, Dynamite and Disaster by Rosa Matheson

Author:Rosa Matheson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750957014
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2014-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

The explosion that happened at Aldersgate Street Station was the work of ‘person or persons unknown’. It is believed that an ‘anarchist’ set ‘the bomb’ with a time fuse in the first-class carriage at the previous station – Farringdon Street. When the bomb exploded one man was mortally wounded and he, Harry Pitts, became the first terrorist death on British railways.

First Terrorist Death on the Railways

Whilst the Fenians’ campaign had effectively been brought to a standstill by mid-1885, the anarchists were getting into their stride. Dynamite was their weapon of choice also. There were many anarchist groups known to the police and the Intelligence Service. The Autonomie Club in Windmill Street was one, which was linked to the ‘Martin Bourdin Affair’.

On 16 February 1894, Bourdin, a believed anarchist of French origin, took ‘the South Eastern Railway … from Charing Cross to Greenwich, [he] no doubt jostled against many worthy citizens at the ticket office or on the platform and sat side by side with them in the railway carriage.’57 He did all this whilst carrying a volatile explosive device. So volatile, that he blew himself up in front of the Royal Observatory with the bomb he had carried to the park, thereby creating enormous speculation. What was his intention? Was he an anarchist bomber? Why was he carrying an explosive substance? Was it a tragic accident or did he truly die ‘for the Revolution’? No one truly knows. The anarchist press described the explosives expert, Col Majendie’s, assumption that Bourdin intended to blow up ‘the Observatory, its contents, or inmates’, as ‘utterly absurd’ and it is interesting that Bourdin was not claimed by the anarchists as a martyr to the cause. In fact, they wanted to distance themselves from the whole affair.’58 This whole episode is another ‘unknown’ in the dynamite conspiracies of that era.

Rollo Richards, however, was an anarchist. He declared himself to be one. He was born in 1861 in Clapham, so was a local man. He was a member of his local ‘Educational Society’ – a euphemism for anarchist group. He was not a man in the first heady rush of youth. In August 1894, when he started to wage war against ‘the Establishment’ and planted a series of bombs to blow up Post Office property, he was, in fact, thirty-three years old. Somehow, he evaded capture and was not apprehended for these ‘felonies’ until early March 1897. When eventually arrested, he was found by the police to be somewhat eccentric and rather strange, given to ‘wild, obscene language’. He was also found to have bomb-making apparatus in his room. In April, he was tried at the Old Bailey for causing an explosion by gunpowder likely to endanger life, found guilty and sentenced to seven years penal servitude.59 All this is significant because it is believed that the bombing of Aldersgate Street Station was in retaliation for Rollo Richards’ harsh sentence. It is even more significant because it led to the first terrorist death on the Underground.

The

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