Just as the Great Train Robbers needed a lawyer to help launder the money, so did the First Great Train Robbers, writes James Morton. They removed gold intended to pay soldiers in the Crimea from an apparently secure van on the London to Folkestone train on 15 May 1855. This time it was not a solicitor’s clerk but the short, sturdily built, suave and polished James Saward.

 On the surface Saward was a well-thought-of barrister of 15 years’ standing. He had a decent practice by day but by night he turned his talents to forgery and receiving. Through a former client about one-fifth of the stolen gold coins passed through his hands.

Although the principals in the robbery were caught and sentenced they did not give up Saward. His downfall came when he was caught forging signatures on cheques. At the time of his arrest he claimed to be a labourer, but Sir Frederick Thesiger, prosecuting, soon put that right, sanctimoniously telling the judge that Saward was a member of Inner Temple ‘to which I have the honour to belong and I need hardly say how gratified I should be if it could be made out that the prisoner is not guilty of the serious offence that is alleged against him’.

This was a bit rich, because earlier Thesiger had opposed a 15-minute adjournment so an apathetic Saward could be represented. Accomplices gave evidence against him and Saward, who was entitled to make an unsworn statement and call witnesses, did neither. He and his co-accused were convicted in five minutes and the chief baron had his equally sanctimonious say: ‘I lament that you must have been, at one period in your life, in circumstances far different from those in which the court has found you involved. I deeply regret that the ingenuity, skill and talent which has received so perverted and mistaken a direction has not been guided by a sense of virtue and directed to more honourable and useful pursuits.’

His lordship found it impossible ‘to stop short of the utmost limit to which the law permits punishment to proceed’. This was transportation to Australia for life. There is no record that Saward ever returned, but his name lived on. For years any forger of note was given the sobriquet ‘Jim the Penman’ in tribute to Saward’s skills.

 James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor