The Man in the

Quaker Hat

»*
By
W. 0. GAY

*

Just a Hundred Years Ago a Message Carefully Tapped Out on Cooke &
Wheaitstone’s “Electro-Magnetic Telegraph” Signalized a New Era in Police

Communication Methods—From the English “Police Journal”

MODERN FACILITIES FOR rapid trans-
port and the speedy transmission of infor-
mation are taken for granted, and we are
apt to forget that communications only be-
came an important factor in the prevention
and detection of crime, as well as in its
development, at a period that is historically
quite recent. Little more than a century
ago, when the steam locomotive superseded
the lumbering stage coach, criminals soon
took up the new mode of travel—as a way
of escape from the scene of their activities
and as a means of access to new opportuni
ties. In this way, for a time, they were able
to outstrip the law even more easily than
before, and could move from place to place,
always ahead of the news of their misdeeds
and out of the jurisdiction of an efficient
police system into an area where none

existed at all. Then, on January Ist, 1845,
the creaking machinery of justice received
a new impetus and was, in the true sense
of the term, ‘galvanised’ into action.

Some months previously John Tawell, an
elderly ex-Quaker, who had served a term
at Botany Bay in his younger days, had
made an unsuccessful attempt to poison his
mistress, a former servant, living at Salt
Hill, near Slough, in Buckinghamshire. On
this New Year’s Day he was more success-
ful—this time with prussic acid introduced
into a glass of stout. The woman had been
pressing Tawell for money, and he had
found it necessary to silence her, not only
to relieve his financial embarrassment, but
to prevent his wife, who thought him a
wealthy, respectable, philanthropic City
gentleman, from discovering his infidelity.
The background of the crime was common-
place enough, but the sequel provided a
sensation of the first order.

As Tawell left the cottage where the
victim lay in agony, he was seen by a
woman neighbour, who had been startled
by a stifled scream. This woman noticed
that he was wearing the characteristic dress
of a Quaker, including, in particular, a
broad-brimmed hat, and she gave this des
cription to the police and other persons,
among them a local clergyman, who came
to render assistance after the discovery of
the crime. The clergyman thought (it does
Not seem to have occurred to the police)
that the suspect would make for the railway
Station at Slough, and he went there to in-

FOURTEENTH EDITION

Account of the Epic Occasion.

tercept him. At the station he saw a man
wearing a Quaker hat book a ticket for
London. The London train came in soon
afterwards, and Tawell stepped into a first-
class compartment—and into history.

In 1843 a new ‘Electro-Magnetic Tele-
graph,’ devised by Cooke and Wheatstone,
had been put in operation between Padding-
ton and Slough on the Great Western Rail-
way. In August the following year the in-
strument won considerable fame by the
prompt despatch to London of the news of

the birth at Windsor of Queen Victoria’s

second son. But the story of the arrest of
the Queen’s reprehensible subject caught
the imagination of the public and became
a topic of conversation for years.

When Tawell boarded the train the
astute clergyman told the stationmaster of
his suspicions, and a historic message was
sent from ‘Telegraph Cottage’ at Slough to
Paddington: ‘A murder has just been com:
mitted at Salt Hill and the suspected
murderer was seen to take a first-class ticket
for London by the train which left Slough

Comes This

at 7.42 p.m. He is in the garb of a Quaker
with a brown great-coat on, which reaches
nearly down to his feet; he is in the last
compartment of the second first-class car-
riage.”

The telegraph worked by a system in
which the letters of the message were re-
corded by the swings of a needle.* The code
did not include the letter Q, but the clerk,
with a flash of inspiration, spelled the vital
word, ‘Kwaker.’ His colleague at Padding-
ton understood what was meant and passed
the message immediately to Sergt. Williams
of the Railway Police. The sergeant ‘put a
plain coat over his police dress’ and met the
train in. A few minutes later a reply was
sent to Slough: ‘The up train has arrived

*A needletelegraph was later adopted by the
police and remained in use at police stations,
particularly in the Metropolitan area, until the
turn of the century. Some provincial forces
adopted the more efficient telephone long before
the London forces. The City of London Police
installed the telephone in 1899, Scotland Yard
in 1903. It was not in use throughout the Metro-
politan Police area until 1906.

Vancouver by night—from Grous

on ey

aS

e Mountain—the city’s 4000-ft. Alpine Playground,
overlooking the city.

Page Ninety-nine