The Great Thorpe Railway Disaster

At Norwich Thorpe Station on the evening of 10th September 1874, a momentary misunderstanding between the Night Inspector and young Telegraph Clerk resulted in an inevitable head-on collision between two heavily laden steam trains.

The residents of the picturesque riverside village of Thorpe-Next-Norwich, were shocked by a ‘deafening peal of thunder’, sending them running through driving rain towards a scene of destruction.  Surgeons were summoned from the city, as the dead, dying and injured were taken to a near-by inn and boatyard. Every class of Victorian society was travelling that night and for many months local and national newspapers followed the story, publishing details of subsequent deaths, manslaughter trial and outcomes of record-breaking compensation claims. The Board of Trade Inquiry concluded that it was ‘the most serious collision between trains meeting one another on a single line of rails […] that has yet been experienced in this country.’

Using extensive…