The South Eastern Railway Folkestone to London boat train derailed while crossing a viaduct where a length of track had been removed during engineering works, killing ten passengers and injuring forty.

[5][4] The Board of Trade report, published on 21 June 1865, found that for the previous eight to ten weeks a team of eight men and a foreman had been renewing the timbers under the track on viaducts between Headcorn and Staplehurst railway stations.

However, on 9 June the foreman, John or Henry Benge,[6] had misread his timetable as to the schedule that day of the tidal boat train, which ran at a different time depending on the tide in the English Channel.

Another reported trapped bodies inside the wreckage, hearing "the groans of the dying and wounded, the shrieks of frantic ladies and the shrill cries of young children".

[11] The directors of the South Eastern Railway presented him with a piece of plate (i.e. a silver-plated trophy) as a token of their appreciation for his assistance in the aftermath of the accident.

[13] The experience affected Dickens greatly; he lost his voice for two weeks and was two and a half pages short for the sixteenth episode of Our Mutual Friend, published in August 1865.

[...] I remember with devout thankfulness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever than I was then, until there shall be written against my life, the two words with which I have this day closed this book: — THE END.