John Alexander Dickman (17 May 1864 – 10 August 1910) was an Englishman hanged for murder. He was convicted of the murder of John Innes Nisbet, which took place on a train travelling between

Newcastle railway station Newcastle Central Station (also known simply as Newcastle and locally as Central Station) is a major railway station in Newcastle upon Tyne. It is located on the East Coast Main Line, around north of . It is the primary national rail station ...

and

Alnmouth railway station Alnmouth (also known as Alnmouth for Alnwick) is a railway station on the East Coast Main Line, which runs between and . The station, situated north of Newcastle, serves the villages of Alnmouth and Lesbury and the neighbouring market town of ...

, on 18 March 1910. Nisbet had been carrying a bag containing the wages for a

colliery Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

. His body was discovered in a train compartment in a full-width compartment carriage (with no aisle and no corridor); he had died of five gunshot wounds to the head and his bag had been stolen along with over £300 of colliery wages that were never recovered although the near empty bag was found in a local mineshaft with only a few coins inside. On 6 July Dickman was convicted by a Jury of the murder of Nisbet, Dickman's legal team launched an immediate but failed Court of Appeal July appeal. The

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national ...

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

refused to intervene and Dickman was hanged in Newcastle Prison on 10 August, the last man to be hanged in a Newcastle jail. There was some doubt over the conviction, as it appeared to some people to rest on inconclusive identification evidence. There was a campaign for him to be reprieved, with leaflets distributed in stations. The writer C. H. Norman was among those who were convinced of John Dickman's innocence. It has also been claimed that Dickman's defence lawyer was incompetent. The case is not widely remembered today. However it did figure in the 1976 BBC television series ''

Second Verdict ''Second Verdict'' is a six-part BBC television series from 1976. It combines the genres of police procedural and docudrama, with dramatised documentaries in which classic criminal cases and unsolved crimes from history were re-appraised by ficti ...

'', the 2008 television programme ''Nightwatch'' and the 2018 BBC television series ''

Murder, Mystery and My Family ''Murder, Mystery and My Family'' is a BBC One series featuring Sasha Wass KC and Jeremy Dein KC., which examines historic criminal convictions sentenced to the death penalty in order to determine if any of them resulted in a miscarriage of ...

'' (and ''Case Closed?''). The latter programmes suggested that two witnesses who said they saw Dickman and Nisbet entering the same compartment may even have been the real killers. In 2021, the case was the subject of episode 4 of ''

Railway Murders ''Railway Murders'' is a documentary series narrated by Nicholas Day. It debuted in May 2021 on Yesterday. In September 2021 it was broadcast on ZDFinfo. Regular contributors include Donald Rumbelow, Judith Rowbotham and Alan Moss. Episode ...

''. Two episodes of the radio show ''

The Black Museum ''The Black Museum'' is a radio crime-drama program produced by Harry Alan Towers, which was broadcast in the USA on the Mutual network in 1952. It was then broadcast in Europe in 1953 on Radio Luxembourg, a commercial radio station, and was not ...

'' hosted by

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

were based on Dickman's case. One, "The Tan Shoes" featured Sir

John Gielgud Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Briti ...

and Sir

Ralph Richardson Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor who, with John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, was one of the trinity of male actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. He wo ...

. However it has been suggested that Dickman was also guilty of two previous murders, of

Caroline Mary Luard Caroline Mary Luard (''née'' Hartley; 1850 – 24 August 1908) was the victim of an unsolved murder, known as the Seal Chart Murder, after she was mysteriously shot and killed at an isolated summerhouse in a heavily wooded area near Ightham, Ke ...

at Ightham, Kent in 1908 and Hermann Cohen in

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

in 1909.

References

Bibliography

* Diane Janes ''Edwardian Murder: Ightham and the Morpeth Train Robbery'' (2007) * John Eddleston ''The Murder of John Alexander Dickman'' (2012)

External links

Trial Of John Alexander Dickman
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickman, John 1864 births 1910 deaths 1910 murders in the United Kingdom 20th-century executions by England and Wales English people convicted of murder Executed English people People convicted of murder by England and Wales

See also

References

Bibliography

External links