​Morpathia: The Longwitton Railway Accident

It consisted of six coaches – the front and back ones being composites, part brake van, part carriage, two 3rd class carriages and two 1st and 2nd class composites. The guard in the front van was Matthew Lilley, the rear one old Harry Swinburne, who was in charge.

A retired police superintendent, John Gillespie, was alone in the last carriage. At Longwitton, several people boarded the train, mostly workmen going home for the weekend.

The engine was detached to pick up eight empty goods wagons from the siding of the Green Leighton Coal and Lime Company. As was usual, these were shunted onto the front of the passenger train.

Just south of Longwitton, the line entered a downward incline – much of it on a high embankment. The driver shut off steam for the train to coast down to Scots Gap. It was then travelling at about 25 mph.

As usual, Harry applied a moderate amount of brake. A few hundred yards north of the Delph Burn, a cottar pin securing the drawbar of the second wagon broke, leaving one wagon behind the tender.

The rest of the train carried on for perhaps a minute, the drawbar hitting the sleepers until it dug in, fetching the wagon off the line with six others and the front brake van, all of which ended up on the west side of the line.

The embankment at this point was about 15ft high with a stone-built cattle creep underneath. The brake van hit the masonry, making the damage worse.

Old Harry, in the rear brake van, leapt to his brake but was thrown off his feet. The van remained upright straddling the track, but the other carriages went down the embankment (the Morpeth Herald said that they fell on the east side, but this was incorrect).

The fallen rolling stock all lay south of Delph Bridge, facing the wrong way.

The report of the Board of Trade Inspector, Col. F.H. Rich, said: “The engine-driver and fireman were not aware that they had left the greater part of their train behind ... The fireman’s attention was first drawn to the circumstance by three ladies, Misses Winship, who were standing in a field on the east side of the line, close to the railway fence, and who, on observing the train running over the bank, called and waved their arms as violently as they could to attract the attention of the engine-driver. The young ladies proceeded at once to give all the assistance they could to the injured passengers...”

The driver reversed back, but seeing that he could do nothing went forward to Scots Gap to raise the alarm. The eldest Miss Winship later described how the detached wagon seemed to rise up and glide over the embankment before disappearing down the other side.

The station master at Scots Gap telegraphed Morpeth and the porters and anyone else at hand went directly to the scene. The noise of the crash alerted the workmen on the nearby farms, who were just finishing work: “Miss Winship, immediately on their arrival, despatched some of her father’s men to the hall for brandy and other restoratives; and Mr and Mrs Winship ... immediately had a quantity of wine, spirits, and linen conveyed to the scene.”

The front carriage, which hit the cattle creep, dug itself a foot into the ground. The guard, Matthew Lilley, was killed instantly. Several passengers in the same coach were hurt, three fatally.

William Fenwick, mason of nearby Shafto Moor, died after a few minutes. George Shaw, foreman pattern maker of Byker, died in his wife’s arms. Mrs Shaw was herself badly injured, with blood all over her face. George Thompson, a contractor of Stanhope, Co. Durham, was severely hurt.

The 3rd class carriages were shattered to pieces, but the workmen in them, many of them labourers working for Mr Thompson, climbed out and, with the Misses Winship, began helping the other passengers, and were joined by other rescuers as they arrived.

Amazingly, a man who was trapped beneath a carriage by one of his legs simply walked away after he was freed.

A train from Redesmouth, timed to meet the Rothbury train, took the wounded to Scots Gap, where many of the local people were treated, some of whom were able to go home soon after. Others were carried to Morpeth, including George Thompson and Mrs Shaw.

They were taken to the station master’s house, where Mr Thompson died at about 4.30.

Other passengers were treated at the Queen’s Head, Turk’s Head and elsewhere in the town by the local doctors.

The station master at Morpeth, Mr Robinson, telegraphed Newcastle Central, where the North Eastern Railway’s station master sent a special train carrying the NBR Passenger Superintendent, Mr William Bell, along with doctors and medical supplies.

Meanwhile, senior officials of the NBR set out from Glasgow and Edinburgh and a crane and a strong force of workmen were on site by early evening.

The metal frames and attached woodwork of the carriages and wagons were removed to Scots Gap on trucks, but their main concern was to restore the track, which they did in time for the last train of the day.

The workmen gathered up the scattered fragments of woodwork and burnt them at the side of the line, prompting the Morpeth Herald to accuse the officials of suppressing evidence, though in fact the drawbar that caused the accident was produced for the Board of Trade Inspector, Col. Rich, with traces of the ballast still on it.

Amongst the injured were three members of the Robinson family of Scots Gap – one of whom, Robert, never worked again.

The Alnwick Mercury reported that Mr Shaw, the pattern-maker, “had been persuaded by his wife to spend a week’s holiday at Rothbury, that he might keep away from the Newcastle Races; and they were returning to their home on Saturday afternoon to join their family of six children...”

Ex-superintendent Gillespie related what must be the strangest event of the day: “Mr T. Dobson, superintendent of police at Rothbury ... had gone that morning to Woodburn to pay his men, and, as is his custom, had intended to stay till the afternoon train.

“He had ordered his dinner, but just as it drew near ... he all of a sudden and without any definite reason, thought he would catch the mid-day train back. Leaving his dinner he did so, and on arriving at Scots’ Gap, from a similar unaccountable impulse, determined to walk on, instead of waiting for the train back from Morpeth.

“He had not gone far on the road when he heard the crash of the falling carriages and making direct for the spot was there within a quarter of an hour after the accident occurred. ... People took directions from him, and things generally were properly looked after.”

The Origins of Morpeth, £7, and The Early Christian Landscape of the Wansbeck Valley, £6, both copiously illustrated, are available at Newgate News.