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Thomas Taylor

Age: 25

Sex: male

Date: 29 Dec 1909

Place: Lordship Lane Station, London Road, East Dulwich, London

Thomas Taylor was found dead in a railway tunnel a few yards from Lordship Lane Station.

He had been on the 11.42pm train from Victoria and was heading home to Sydenham Park.

When the train arrived at Crystal Palace the side window of the carriage compartment was found smashed and the window bar had been wrenched off.

Thomas Taylor was a member of the Alhambra orchestra and a partner in the firm of Wells & Taylor, florists, in Sydenham. He had no worries, was a teetotaller and had never threatened suicide.

He had been paying money for some time to members of the orchestra and had a bag of money on him at the time and when he was found he had £18 in gold, £1. 16s. 6d. in silver and 7.5d in copper on him.

A platform porter said that he remembered having shut the carriage door to the second class compartment that he had been sat in after another man had got out and said that Thomas Taylor had been seated with his back to the engine. The tunnel was about a quarter of a mile from the station.

A man who had been sitting in the next compartment said that he had heard a big crash when the train had gone into the tunnel and when he got out at Crystal Palace he saw that the window had been smashed.

It was noted that if the train had pulled up to the place where his body was found and the carriage door opened fully there would still have been 6 inches between it and the brickwork of the tunnel.

The bar on the outside of the door across the window had been wrenched off as though someone had been holding onto it.

Lordship Lane Station was later closed in 1954. It had been off Lordship Lane off London Road. The site now has housing on it.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

see Dundee Evening Telegraph - Wednesday 29 December 1909

see Disused Stations

see Wikipedia