DEATH IN THE LINE OF DUTY: THE SECRETS BENEATH PLATFORM 1, ST. PANCRAS STATION
Some say that PC Joseph Graham’s last words, as he lay dying on the ground, were to ask who would look after his elderly widowed mother. She was, after all, the reason he had joined the police in the first place.
In trying to break up a fight between two drunken workmen, one of them had turned on him, landing a tremendous punch to his head. As he fell to the floor, his skull smashed on a paving stone. His attacker proceeded to kick him in the groin and abdomen as he lay dying on the ground.
PC Grantham had been a police officer for just 138 days.
Original Met Police warrant register - PC Grantham was no. 3170 / The National Archives
On 28 June 1830, he became the very first Metropolitan Police officer to be killed on duty, less than twenty weeks into his new career.
He had joined the police on 10 February 1830. He was in good health, aged thirty years old, and at 5 feet 8 inches tall, he had just scraped through the eligibility criteria which stipulated men had to be over 5’ 7’’ and under the age of thirty five. He was assigned warrant number 3170 and posted to S. division which covered the Hampstead and Camden area, where he was given the collar number 169.
Detail of Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bt, by Henry William Pickersgill / Public domain
Joseph Grantham was among the very first Constables of the so called ‘new police’, those of the newly formed Metropolitan Police, the first modern professional police service in the world, created in 1829 by Home Secretary, Robert Peel.
Historically, constables and justices of the peace had worked voluntarily and were not typically paid for their services; it had been the military who had been called upon to quell large public riots. But unlike the military, these new police officers were not armed. All they were equipped with was a wooden truncheon, handcuffs, and a rattle to signal their need for assistance.
To appear neutral, and win the public’s trust, it was decided that the uniform of the new police would be blue. Red was perceived as threatening because the public associated it with soldiers’ uniforms.
These ‘bobbies’ and ‘peelers’ in blue, as they were known in tribute to their founder, were the world's first professional paid law enforcement agency. Yet, despite the fond-sounding nicknames, distrust and animosity of this new force were rife among the public. PC Grantham had to be careful in his new role.
St Pancras Station / David Videcette
Michael Gavin, the man who had attacked and killed PC Grantham in a drunken rage, was arrested shortly after the assault, by one of Grantham’s colleagues from the new police. And one would have assumed that justice for this crime, against those simply trying to uphold the law, would have been both swift and fair in late Georgian England?
Alas, it was not to be. Worse still, due to a cruel twist of fate, he was dealt a second dose of injustice posthumously.
Let me explain.
Standing in St Pancras Station today, you would have no clue about the ancient and gruesome past lurking beneath your feet. But research now shows that underneath the end of Platform 1, where the trains depart for Bedford, is exactly where Joseph Grantham was cruelly murdered by Michael Gavin on that day in 1830.
St. Pancras Village, 1746 / from ‘The London Burial Grounds: Notes on their history from the earliest times to the present day’ / John Rocque’s Map of London / The British Library / No restrictions
St Pancras is the name of the local parish church and where the station’s name derives from. Records show that in 1776, St Pancras Parish, one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in England, was home to just 600 people, living in a collection of agricultural hamlets. However, by 1830, with the imminent arrival of the railways, the population of the parish had ballooned to nearly 130,000. Much of the large transient population of labourers, builders, servants, and service workers were housed in overcrowded, cheaply built tenement blocks and houses on short leases.
Old St Pancras Church and the Adam & Eve Tavern, with Sandell's Tile Kilns in the distance / Edward Henry Dixon, 1830 / Public domain
The Vicar of St Pancras is said to have noted that the houses in the area were “more fitted for the occupation of wild beasts than for human beings” and the area “is one of extreme and almost unmitigated poverty.” Residents would also have to do battle with outbreaks of cholera, influenza, typhus, dysentery and typhoid.
None of this could have made it easy for the new police of the area to deal with?
It was nonetheless assumed that the area could be safely patrolled by the new police during the hours of daylight. And with sunset on that summer’s evening in 1830 still some hours away, Grantham likely saw no reason to be afraid.
But on that last Monday in June, PC Bennett, one of Grantham’s colleagues from the police’s newly created S division, had been flagged down by a child:
“Come quickly, for God’s sake! One of your men is knocked down by a lad,” screamed the child, grabbing PC Bennett’s hand.
The streets were busy. Many Londoners were in mourning. King George IV had just died, but others saw this as a time for merriment and celebration; the death of the monarch would trigger a general election.
Thornley Place next to St Pancras Church, 1830.
PC Bennett followed the boy into what was then known as Skinner Street, and onto Thornley Place at the top of the road, located within a stone’s throw of St Pancras churchyard and burial ground.
There, he found his colleague, PC Grantham, laying on the ground, motionless. Grantham had apparently been struggling to arrest Michael Gavin for some time, but had failed in his endeavours and ended in the assault. PC Bennett advised Gavin to give up and submit to police. In response, Gavin was said to have ‘used a very coarse expression’ and replied that he ‘would not be taken by any policeman’.
Eventually, PC Bennett wrestled Gavin to the ground and arrested him. But, by then, his colleague, PC Joseph Grantham, was dead.
On the Tuesday morning, following PC Grantham’s death, The Morning Post carried the story of what had led up to the attack, and there seemed to be some optimism that justice would indeed be done:
“CRUEL MURDER OF A POLICE CONSTABLE IN THE EXECUTION OF HIS DUTY”
“Last evening between seven and eight o’clock, Joseph Grantham, a police constable, was savagely murdered while in the execution of his duty in endeavouring to quell a disturbance in Thornley’s-place, Skinner-street, Sommers-town, occasioned by a fight between two Irish bricklayers. The fight continued for some minutes, when some of the neighbours called for the assistance of the Police, and Grantham, on whose beat it was, came up and endeavoured to part the combatants; but he had no sooner attempted to interfere, than Michael Gavin, the most furious of the combatants, turned his vengeance upon him and knocked him down with a tremendous blow with his fist. His head coming in contact with a large paving stone, he was stunned, and while in that state, Michael Gavin, who was perfectly outrageous, kicked him in the groin and the left side several times with great violence. The poor fellow uttered a groan or two, and then was to all appearance dead. Further assistance was called, and Bennett, another policeman of the same division, No. 87, came up, and seeing what had occurred, rushed at once upon the prisoner and after a desperate struggle, succeeded in securing him with handcuffs. The man who was fighting with him ran away. Grantham was taken up on some men’s shoulders, and conveyed to Mr. Wakefield’s, a Surgeon, at the corner of Skinner-street and New-road, but that Gentleman immediately pronounced him to be quite dead. The body of the unfortunate man was then conveyed to the Boot public-house, in Cromer-street and Michael Gavin was taken to the police station in Albany-street, New-road, until a Coroner’s Inquest can be summoned.”
But by Wednesday, the public mood appeared to have wained, with the Morning Chronicle starting to offer excuses for Grantham’s death, which was no longer being called a murder:
“POLICE - MARY-LA-BONNE - Yesterday MICHAEL GAVIN was remanded on the charge of having killed Joseph Grantham, a police constable, No. 169, Division S... The deceased entered the Police on the 10th of February last, and was of a very good character. He maintained an aged mother out of his salary. The prisoner is a bricklayer, and his apprenticeship expired on the day of the melancholy catastrophe. In celebrating it he got intoxicated, and afterwards committed the act which killed the deceased. - He appears extremely afflicted.”
Justice in eighteenth and nineteenth century London was a hit and miss affair – especially when it came to trials involving medical evidence from a dead body.
At the time of PC Grantham’s death, inns and taverns were the only readily-available, large indoor space where public events could be held - and all sorts of events were held in them, including local court petty-sessions and inquests into deaths. As Charles Dickens, who’d been to a number of inquests himself and was no stranger to crime in London, wrote in Bleak House: ‘The Coroner frequents more public-houses than any man alive.’
Inquests were not trials, though their proceedings resembled them. Inquests were presided over by a coroner - men who were mostly lawyers or had experienced some form of legal training.
Interior of St Pancras / Booking Office Bar, St Pancras Renaissance Hotel / David Videcette
Exterior of St Pancras Station / David Videcette
The coroner was required to establish the circumstances of a sudden or suspicious death, and inquests were held quickly. The coroner would select twelve local men to form a jury, with the body ‘viewed’ before the evidence was heard. Jurors had the right to question witnesses directly. If the jury decided on a verdict of murder or manslaughter, then the case would then be brought before one of the criminal courts.
Medical journalist, Samuel Squire Sprigge, said of the oddity of these inquests: ‘The taint of the tavern-parlour vitiated the evidence, ruined the discretion of the jurors, and detracted from the dignity of the coroner. The solemnity of the occasion was too generally lightened by alcohol… where the majesty of death evaporated with the fumes from the gin of the jury.’
So an inebriated, locally sourced jury, would be called to preside over PC Grantham’s killing. And this was made worse in PC Grantham’s case by the inquest’s location: The Boot public house, a few hundred metres south of the murder scene. The premises were especially well known for being anti-establishment and none too keen on law and order. In fact, fifty years earlier, it had been the headquarters of the anti-Catholic Gordon rioters of 1780.
The Gordon Riots by John Seymour Lucas / Project Gutenberg eText 19609
The Gordon Riots were some of the worst in the country’s history, and severely damaged Britain's reputation across Europe at a time when (much like today) the country's style of government and constitutional monarchy were being questioned by both our enemies and allies alike.
The army was eventually called in to quell the riots, as the local yeomanry and volunteer forces were unable to cope. The troops were given orders to fire upon groups of four or more who refused to disperse. Some 285 people were shot dead, 200 wounded, and around 450 were arrested. Twenty or thirty people were later tried and executed for their involvement in the riots, some of whom hailed from the area around The Boot pub.
St Pancras Station by Daniel Cortezo, 1886 / "Estación de San Pancracio" / Fondo Antiguo de la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Sevilla from Sevilla, España / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
While the primary cause of the riots was said to be anti-Catholic feeling, there were other issues driving the turmoil. Wars on distant shores had meant a loss of trade, falling wages, rising food prices, and unemployment. Britain was in a perilous economic state. The riots eventually caused the collapse of peace talks with Spain, which in turn blamed Britain for not deploying a professional police force to quell the riots.
But this was to be PC Grantham’s fate, and on the Wednesday evening, two days after his untimely death, the inquest was convened at The Boot pub. The London Courier and Evening Gazette later reported the verdict:
“The death of the policeman was caused by an extravasation of blood upon the brain, produced by over exertion in the discharge of his duty.”
Burial Register at St Pancras Old Church / The London Metropolitan Archives
Perhaps it wasn't surprising, given the pub’s history, that the jury decided upon such a perverse cause of death or that they claimed Grantham’s killing was a ‘justifiable homicide’ on the part of the prisoner?
Joseph Grantham was buried on the 3rd of July 1830, the Saturday morning following his inquest, at St Pancras Parish Church on Pancras Road. His burial site was immediately next to Thornley Place where he had been killed. The sites of both his killing and his burial now reside under Platform 1 at St Pancras Station.
Enlarged section of burial register at St Pancras Old Church
Just days later, some justice in the matter was served, with a trial at Middlesex Old Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green.
The London Evening Standard reported:
“Michael Gavin was charged with assaulting Grantham and Bennett, two of the new police. The unfortunate man Grantham died on the spot, and as it was supposed his death was the result of the injuries he received from the prisoner, the latter was fully committed by Mr. Griffiths, of the Mary-la-bonne Police-office, for wilful murder; but the superintendent surgeon of the police being decidedly of opinion, after a post mortem examination, that the deceased died of apoplexy, [unconsciousness or incapacity resulting from a cerebral haemorrhage or stroke] brought on by the exertion and excitement of the moment, all idea of proceeding for murder was abandoned, and the present prosecution substituted instead.
It appeared that the prisoner was seen by Grantham, in Skinner-street, Somers-town, in a quarrelsome state of drunkenness, and was advised to go home. The policeman then left him, and the prisoner went to the house of a person named Mitchell, in Smith’s-place, in that street, and knocked, and asked Mitchell if his two sons were at home, saying he wanted to fight them. Mitchell advised him to go home to bed, and in return was knocked down. Mitchell’s wife then interposed, and was also knocked down. By this time a person who had ran off for a policeman at the commencement of the affray had returned with Grantham, who seeing the woman knocked down, went up to the prisoner, and said, “I must take you into custody now,” and was about seizing him by the collar, when the prisoner closed with him, and after a scuffle got him down, and kicked him both on the head and abdomen while down. Bennet, who by this time and come up to the assistance of his companion, was also struck down, and it was not till after a desperate struggle that the prisoner was secured. Grantham expired almost immediately on the spot where he had been struck down; his death, however, as has been already observed, was found to have arisen from apoplexy, and not from the violence used towards him; at least there was no internal appearances which would warrant the surgeon in declaring otherwise. The jury found the prisoner Guilty upon both indictments. The chairman, after an impressive address, in the course of which he told the prisoner he had a very near chance of taking his trial to murder, sentenced him to six months imprisonment for the assault on Grantham, and six weeks additional imprisonment for that on Bennett.”
A six month sentence for killing a police officer by any standard is incredible, but the sorry tale of injustice does not end there.
St Pancras Old Church / David Videcette
Twenty four years after Joseph Grantham was laid to rest in the churchyard of St Pancras Old Church, the site was closed to burials. In 1859, the adjacent St Giles cemetery was also closed. The area had been used for burials for nearly two hundred years, and contained well over 100,000 individuals; Joseph Grantham among them.
Hardy’s Tree at St Pancras Old Church / David Videcette
Gravestones at St Pancras Old Church / David Videcette
But ‘Railway Mania’ had gripped the country. These souls, and the 3,000 homes nearby, were of little consequence to the railway companies.
The Midland Railway company was smarting from agreements that had allowed its rivals at the Great Northern Railway and the London and North Western Railway Company to reach London with goods and passenger traffic at Kings Cross and Euston. Midland Rail had failed to reach agreement over the use of a London terminus with either company. So, with an Act of Parliament that was passed in 1863, the Midland Railway Company set about building its own London terminus, the third major train terminal in a half-mile stretch of land.
The grandest, and arguably the most architecturally stunning of the three train stations, the new St Pancras Station, opened in 1868. But during its construction, the Midland Railway company would clear large swaths of St Pancras parish of housing, businesses, and desecrate the graveyard of St Pancras Old Church in its wake.
Before turning to writing full time, the poet Thomas Hardy was given the task of overseeing the dismantling of the churchyard's tombs and the disinterment of those resting there. He also presided over their re-internment into an unmarked, mass grave pit in the grounds of the nearby St Giles, close to the walls of St Pancras Workhouse. Almost immediately, St Pancras Coroner's Court was constructed on top of the mass grave and still stands on the site today.
Then in 1996, permission was given to extend St Pancras Station and build High Speed 1, the new railway line to the Channel Tunnel. The station was substantially enlarged and the remaining graves in St Pancras Old Church were exhumed in 2002; refugees from the French Revolution and three aristocrats were among them.
There is no record of Joseph Grantham’s body being among those removed in 2002, so it can only be assumed that he was among those moved by Thomas Hardy in 1865, thrown into the mass pit with thousands of others, and now sits below the coroner's court.
St Pancras Station / BritainfromAbove.org.uk / Historic England
It is rather ironic that Britain's first professional police officer ever to be killed on duty, whose own medical inquest in a pub led to the injustice of his killer's sentence, sits below a coroner's court. But it is also terribly sad. Joseph Grantham received no official recognition, no justice, and now lies in complete anonymity in a mass grave with thousands of others.
The desecration of the St Pancras churchyard and the demolition of the thousands of homes of the poorer working classes for the extension of the Midland Railway remains a largely forgotten part of London’s history.
The Meeting Place, Sculpture by Paul Day at St Pancras Station / David Videcette
Today, London has no fewer than 12 main-line terminal stations, the result of the many railway companies fighting to run their own routes into the capital. Each carries with it a forgotten history beneath.
A considerable part of St Pancras Parish was wiped from the map, and along with it, the stories and physical history of the area, in pursuit of yet another railway line and station.
Joseph Grantham’s story is just one of those that is long since forgotten
So, if you ever find yourself standing on Platform 1, waiting to go to Bedford on the train, remember that Joseph Grantham’s fight with Michael Gavin, his untimely death on the cold paving, his burial, and the dreadful desecration of his grave - all took place beneath your feet.
