'The Stool of Repentance'

[This portrait does not appear in the Silvy daybooks in the archives of the National Portrait Gallery.]

An inked inscription verso in a period hand reads; 'The Stool of Repentance, or, Young Muller with Old Briggs' hat! Contemplating in solitude what he has done.'

This is a humorous reference to a sensational murder which occurred on the evening of 9 July 1864. A senior bank clerk by the name of Mr Thomas Briggs boarded a train at Fenchurch Street station on his way home to Hackney. When the train reached its destination, however, there was no sign of Mr Briggs. The now blood-soaked compartment contained only his ivory-topped walking stick, his empty leather bag and a battered hat that wasn't his. The unconscious Mr Briggs was later found by the rail tracks, and died a short while later. The search for his own hat - and his pocket watch - led detectives to a young German tailor named Franz Müller, who had by now absconded to New York. He was pursued, brought back for trial and convicted of murder, the first on a British train. He was publicly hanged outside Newgate Prison on 14 November 1864.

For a full account of the murder and subsequent investigation see Kate Colquhoun's Mr Briggs' Hat, 2011.

[EDIT: the boy in this portrait has now been identified as Brook Pakenham Bridges Taylor. Another pose from this sitting appears on page 128 of this section. The role that photography played in the case is in my book, Cartomania: Photography and Celebrity in the Nineteenth Century.]