The Great Train Robbery (37 page)

In August, 1857, Burgess, the railway guard, pleaded the stresses of his son’s illness, claiming that it had so warped his moral inclinations that he fell in with criminals. He was sentenced to only two years in Marshalsea Prison, where he died of cholera that winter.

The screwsman Robert Agar was sentenced to transportation to Australia for his part in The Great Train Robbery. Agar died a wealthy man in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, in 1902. His grandson Henry L. Agar was the Lord Mayor of Sydney from 1938 to 1941.

Mr. Harranby died in 1879 while flogging a horse, which kicked him in the skull. His assistant, Sharp, became
head of the Yard and died a great-grandfather in 1919. He was reported to have said he was proud that none of his children was a policeman.

Mr. Trent died of a chest ailment in 1857; his daughter Elizabeth married Sir Percival Harlow in 1858, and had four children by him. Mr. Trent’s wife behaved scandalously following her husband’s demise; she died of pneumonia in 1884, having enjoyed, she said, “more lovers than this Bernhardt woman.”

Henry Fowler died of “unknown causes” in 1858.

The South Eastern Railway, tired of the inadequate arrangements of London Bridge Station, built two new terminals for its line: the famous vaulted arch of Cannon Street in 1862, and Blackfriars Station soon after.

Pierce, Barlow, and the mysterious Miss Miriam were never heard from again. In 1862, it was reported that they were living in Paris. In 1868, they were said to be residing in “splendid circumstances” in New York. Neither report has ever been confirmed.

The money from The Great Train Robbery was never recovered.

Michael Crichton
’s novels include
The Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery, Congo, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure,
and
The Lost World
. He was also the creator of the television series
ER
. Crichton died in 2008.