Tragedy At Deepdale Station
IN the early days of the Preston and Longridge Railway the motive power was supplied by means of horses. The carriages were drawn from Preston to the terminus at Longridge, by horses. On the return journey, owing to the downward gradient, the carriages ran by their own momentum to an area near Grimsargh Station and were afterwards horse-drawn to Preston. In connection with the Longridge line there were two stations at Preston, one in Deepdale Road and the other in Maudland Road. Both of them were of a very insignificant character, especially the latter, which consisted of nothing more than a narrow platform and a wooden, sentry-like box, from which the tickets were issued.
Steam was first used on this line in 1848. On 12th June of that year, a special inaugural train ran from Preston to Longridge and back. The engine was named "Addison" after Thomas Batty Addison, Esq., the chairman of the company and about 150 persons invited and accompanied by the directors, were in the train.
The railways were always of interest to the town's residents and spectators often visited the stations to watch the steam engines go by. The Deepdale Station of the Longridge Railway Company had its share of visitors. Often children would gather on the platform to await the arrival of a schedule train. Such an occasion was on Sunday 16th December, 1866. That afternoon a number of girls waited on the platform for the train from Longridge due at about three o'clock.
When the train arrived at Deepdale Station, a passenger named Henry Whittaker, a woolstapler, from Haslingden, saw a man smoking and held his hand out for a light. The train was stopped at the platform for about four minutes and the girls —about eight in total, had been dancing and chattering as it drew into the station.
As the train moved off, the girls walked along the side of the platform and it was there that tragedy struck. First one girl appeared to grab for Whittaker's outstretched hand and then another, who was 15-year-old Margaret Banks, the daughter of Mr. Thomas Banks, Secretary of the Spinners and Minders' Association. Whittaker's and the girl's hands were clutched together as the engine gained speed. Her friend, Mary Flynn, shouted "Maggie, Maggie, leave loose; but she did not free herself from Whittaker's grasp. The girl then appeared to twist round with her crinoline becoming hooked up to the carriage. She fell on her side, then slipped down between the platform and the wheels of the carriage and was killed instantly. The train passed over her head and also over one of her legs and arms. Immediately she was removed from the rails to the Station Tavern and a doctor was sent for. Her friends were in a state of great agitation and felt that the train passenger had been responsible for the tragedy, having held on to the teenager's hand for an instant too long.
When the Inquest was held on the Monday afternoon at the police station, the father of the deceased girl was present, as was the passenger on the train Henry Whittaker. The girl's friend, Mary Flynn, was the first witness called and she stated how her friend had struggled to get away from Whittaker, and had told the man: "Leave go", or something of that sort.
Rawstorne Whittaker, brother of Henry Whittaker, was in the same carriage and told the Inquest that he did not see his brother put his hand out, but had heard him asking for a light or a match. He was sat at the other side of the carriage and did not see what developed. When he heard the scream he thought his brother was sitting down in the carriage.
Henry Whittaker himself said the deceased got hold of his hand and she afterwards let go, how she got under the wheels he could not tell. He was also asked if when his hand was out of the carriage he had used the words: "Who'll have it". His response was that he never spoke a word to anyone.
The Coroner, in summing up, pointed out to the jury that the evidence was of a contradictory nature and said if Whittaker got hold of the deceased's hand and stuck to it, he would be guilty of manslaughter, but if the girl got hold of his hand and stuck to it, then he would not be answerable for her death.
The jury subsequently returned a verdict of "Accidental Death" and they then asked that some caution ought to be given to the railway company that they ought not to allow girls to go about playing on the station platform.
Mr. Walmsley, secretary of the Preston and Longridge Railway responded by saying that the booking office was on the platform; that the gates were closed until a short time before the trains arrived, that it was impossible to keep persons out of the station. Two out of three witnesses who gave evidence, he pointed out, had stated they went to the station for the purpose of going to Maudlands, and as the ticket office is on the platform we have no chance of preventing them from going there.
He continued by stating that the guard had distinctly told him that he had looked the length of the platform, and that everything was clear when he gave the signal to go on. If people will after that, when all the doors are locked, and when the signal to go on has been given, deliberately rush to the carriages, you cannot blame the Company for the consequences. The proceedings then terminated.
That was not the end of the matter, however, as in the first week of January, 1867, Henry Whittaker appeared in Preston Police Court charged with having caused the death of Margaret Banks, the 15-year-old power loom weaver. Once again the events of the tragic afternoon were related and varying accounts were given of the incident. Police Constable John Bennett told the court that on the Sunday afternoon he was on duty in Deepdale Road, and was standing on the bridge when the train came in. He said: "I saw the train stop and a man put his hand out of the carriage window. 1 saw some girls on the station, and one of them moved towards it and then Margaret Banks pushed her away and put her hand towards the hand that was out of the carriage window; I do not know which got hold. The train afterwards started and Margaret Banks was dragged about three yards and then she fell down between the train and the platform. 1 ran down to the platform and found the girl on the rails dead".
After the submissions of various witnesses who once again gave evidence of a contradictory character, the magistrates retired to consider their verdict. Ten minutes later they returned to inform Henry Whittaker that the evidence had been well weighed and considered and they felt it was not sufficient to commit him for trial. He was then discharged.
Keith Johnson