Staplehurst rail crash participant Charles Dickens
The Staplehurst rail crash was a derailment at Staplehurst, Kent, on 9 June 1865 at 3:13 pm. The South Eastern Railway Folkestone to London boat train derailed while crossing a viaduct where a length of track had been removed during engineering works, killing ten passengers and injuring forty. In the Board of Trade report it was found that a man had been placed with a red flag 554 yards (507 m) away but the regulations required him to be 1,000 yards (910 m) away and the train had insufficient time to stop.
Charles Dickens, 53 years old at the time, was travelling with Ellen Ternan and her mother on the train; they all survived the derailment. He tended the victims, some of whom died while he was with them. The experience affected Dickens greatly; he lost his voice for two weeks and afterwards was nervous when travelling by train, using alternative means when available. Dickens died five years to the day after the accident; his son said that he had never fully recovered.Witnesses
The accident had several witnesses. One described the derailment as "two terrible jolts and in an instant ... all became darkness ... and chaos". Another reported trapped bodies inside the wreckage, hearing "the groans of the dying and wounded, the shrieks of frantic ladies and the shrill cries of young children".Charles Dickens was with his mistress Ellen Ternan and her mother, Frances Ternan, in the first-class carriage which did not completely fall into the river bed and survived the derailment. He climbed out of the compartment through the window, rescued the Ternans and, with his flask of brandy and his hat full of water, tended to the victims, some of whom died while he was with them. Before he left with other survivors in an emergency train to London, he retrieved the manuscript of the episode of Our Mutual Friend that he was working on.Although several passengers recognised Dickens, he did not make himself known to the South Eastern Railway, possibly because he did not want publicity about his mistress. The directors of the South Eastern Railway presented him with a piece of plate as a token of their appreciation for his assistance in the aftermath of the accident. The experience affected Dickens greatly; he lost his voice for two weeks and was two and a half pages short for the sixteenth episode of Our Mutual Friend, published in August 1865. Dickens acknowledged the incident in the novel's postscript: