Shooting on a Train

On the afternoon of 9 June 1910, 50-year old business man William Samuel Frost left his office in Bishopsgate to return to his home in Ruislip. At Baker Street station he got into an empty first-class carriage on the Metropolitan express train which did not stop between Baker Street and Kilburn. A few minutes later a man got into the carriage and sat opposite.

When the train entered a tunnel, without any warning, the man suddenly pulled out a Colt revolver and fired two shots at Frost which fortunately missed him. Frost grabbed the man and fought for his life. A third shot hit him in the chin and in the fierce struggle the gun fell to the floor. The man had opened the carriage door and Frost was able to kick the gun out of the door. He shouted for help as the man attempted to push him out of the train, and Frost tried to pull the communication cord but there wasn’t one.

As the train slowed on the approach to Swiss Cottage station, the assailant jumped out and ran back down the line into the tunnel towards Marlborough Road station. (This was on the corner of Queen’s Grove in St John’s Wood and was closed in 1939.)

A porter at Marlborough Road station had seen the open carriage door and the fight, and the train was stopped at Swiss Cottage station where Frost was given first aid and taken to hospital. Thankfully, the bullet had only struck a glancing blow and Frost made a satisfactory recovery with no permanent injury, except a scar.

The West Hampstead police were called and sergeants Avory and Bex arrived. With railway staff and using acetylene flare lamps they cautiously searched the tunnel from both ends but found nothing. Then in a second hour-long search they found the man crouched down in a recess in the tunnel.

His clothes were torn, and he was covered in blood and thick black grease from crawling along the line trying to avoid the live electric rail. He gave up without a fight, saying he had fallen out of the train after Frost had pushed him. He was arrested and taken by train to the West Hampstead police station in West End Lane where he said he was William Simpson, a clerk aged 32. A search found he had a leather revolver case, cartridges, three lengths of window blind cord and a bottle of chloroform. The revolver was later found on the railway line.

Simpson was tried at the Old Bailey on 6 September and charged with shooting and intent to murder.

Witnesses from a gun shop and a chemist told how Simpson had bought the Colt revolver for 35 shillings, 50 cartridges and chloroform which he said he wanted to make a pain tincture.

Thomas Pope, an errand boy aged 16, was called as a witness for the prosecution. He had been a prisoner at Marylebone police court charged with housebreaking and was in the same holding cell as Simpson.

Simpson told him he had followed Frost to Baker Street and got into the first-class carriage. After the train started, he pulled out the revolver and shot him from under his newspaper; two shots missed, and the third shot hit him in the chin. If he had overpowered him, he would have gone through his pockets and put him underneath the seat. If the people in the other carriages had tried to stop him, he would have shot them. Simpson said that he had got out of the carriage door on to the line and got an electric shock as he was going through the tunnel.

William Simpson in the Old Bailey dock

The jury soon found him guilty, and specifically wanted the fact there was no communication cord in the train carriage to be recorded.

It was revealed he had several previous criminal convictions for burglary and had spent time in an asylum, suffering from mental delusions. The medical officer at Brixton prison said he had repeatedly observed Simpson and found no signs of insanity.

The judge took a hard line, saying Frost could have been killed and describing Simpson as a desperate character. He was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. Simpson later appealed, but rather than reducing the sentence, the judges increased it to 15 years.

Shootings on a train are very rare. The most famous case occurred in 1864 when Thomas Briggs was murdered by Franz Muller on a North London Railway train bound for Hackney. The story is told by Kate Colquhoun in her 2011 book, ‘Mr Brigg’s Hat: a sensational account of Britain’s first railway murder’.

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History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

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