QSR1890/3/5/5/b

Letter written by William Roger Titmas from Auction & Estate Agency Office, 28 High Street Swindon to the Midland Railway Company. Evidence in the case of William Roger Titmas accused of stealing a portmanteau, a handkerchief case, a jewel case, a button hook and other items to the value of £153 2s 6d.

23 January 1888

From: 1888 To: 1890

Letter titled “Portmanteau & Gun Case”. The writer came from St Pancras to Bedford and there changed for the Hitchin line. He put in his luggage, of about 9 parcels and a gun case, in with the porters help. They were no other luggage in there except his. At Shefford station the luggage was put out and the porters there loaded it on to a fly. When they got home to Gravenhurst they had a portmanteau which resembled his but was not his. It had a Paddington ticket on it and came with his luggage from St Pancreas. On Monday evening the Shefford station master wrote a letter to him but instead of sending it by a porter he sent it by a villager. It asked if he had the gun case and portmanteau. He told the boy that he did have a portmanteau and asked him to take it back by barrow. The boy refused. That night it snowed and froze and to go to Shefford by horseback would have been dangerous. His father was going to Hitchin market and so he went with him to Hitchin station at 11am and went to the Midland Office. No one was there and he waited half an hour. He took the portmanteau to the ordinary room near the book stall and opened it. He took it to the little office where the Inspector of telegrams was and then went to town in search of the station master. He saw him in the High Street and said he had been waiting to see him about lost luggage. He told the station master he had the portmanteau at the station as it had come with his luggage from Paddington and it contained grooms articles. The station master said ‘very well’ and at his request said he would telegraph the Shefford station master saying he had seen Mr Titmas. The portmanteau had no address inside and so he put in his name and said he had opened it. He sent it off to Lost property. He paid no carriage and it was put on a London train and had since arrived at Paddington. This was all the information he had on the portmanteau. The writer states he had seen the Inspector that day and he had said that Titmas had sent off more luggage which he had traced and found. He had not been asked about sending it before. He had given information voluntarily and declined to give further information about his own private business. He considered an apology due to his father, who was a shareholder in the company, for the Inspector going to his house and searching his sister-in-laws portmanteau. That was the sole reason he had been short with the Inspector. He had paid £5000 to go into business and he believed affairs to be assuming a peculiar aspect with people talking about having luggage searched. He had laid the whole case before them and he would, with the greatest pleasure supply detail of what he had done from the Saturday before Christmas until the Thursday, if they would give him sufficient reason. He thought he would write and tell them the whole history of the portmanteau business which had upset his Xmas holiday and made his father’s house very disagreeable. This mother was very old and it was a great shock to her to have detectives searching property in their house.

4 pages

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SHEFFORD, Shefford station, Hitchin, Hitchin Station, Paddington, St Pancras Cromer Street, Upper Gravenhurst, railway porter, station master, Midland Railway Company, stealing, clothing