13th September 1906
Soldier is killed picking flowers from a train
Flowers frequently grow alongside train lines, but few are picked because they’re kept safely out of harm’s way thanks to locking doors, sealed windows and fencing along the trackside. That wasn’t always the case and, in 1906, The Leeds Mercury reported that a soldier had been killed in Jersey while attempting to pick flowers from a moving train.
“The feat can be performed with safety on certain English lines,” it explained. However, “the more usual method… is to stroll ahead of the train and, having gathered a bouquet, either to walk back to meet it or wait for it to come up.”
One can only imagine how the timetables would have accommodated the need for trains to pick up such amateur horticulturalists as and when they appeared.
The soldier’s death came four years after a bishop’s daughter had lost her life on Jersey’s tracks.
FREE Jersey history newsletter
Don't miss our weekly update on Jersey's fascinating history. We promise never to sell your data to anyone else, and there's a super-easy unsubscribe link on the bottom of each email so you can leave whenever you want.
Other events that occured in September
A young girl is stabbed to death
- A young girl was stabbed to death in Jersey in September 1965, and her body left to be discovered in a field.
- Read more…
Sportsman and soldier Robert Copland-Crawford is born
- Born in Elizabeth Castle in 1852, Robert Erskine Wade Copland-Crawford was destined to be notable for several reasons, not all of them good.
- Read more…
The first meeting of the Royal Jersey Agricultural and Horticultural Society
- The Society set out to promote modern farming ideas, advance the cause of agriculture, provide better housing for farmers.
- Read more…
Local priests campaign to declare a man insane
- Local priests campaigned for a Jersey man to be declared insane so that he would not be executed for killing his wife.
- Read more…