Ronnie Biggs

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Lore & Background

Ronald Arthur Biggs was born in Stockwell, London, on 8 August 1929. As a child during the Second World War, he was evacuated to Flitwick, Bedfordshire, and then Delabole, Cornwall. In 1947, at age 18, Biggs enlisted in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He was dishonourably discharged for desertion two years later after breaking into a local chemist shop. One month after that, he was convicted of stealing a car and sentenced to prison. On his release, Biggs took part in a failed robbery attempt of a bookmaker's office in Lambeth, London. During his incarceration in HM Prison Wandsworth, he met Bruce Reynolds. After his third prison sentence, Biggs tried to go straight and trained as a carpenter. In February 1960, he married 21-year-old Charmian (Brent) Powell in Swanage, the daughter of a primary school headmaster. They had, in total, three sons together. In 1963, needing money to fund a deposit on a house, Biggs was working on the house of a train driver who was about to retire. The driver has been variously identified as "Stan Agate", "Old Pete", or "Pop"; his real name is unknown since he was never caught. Biggs introduced the driver to the train robbery plot, which involved Reynolds. Biggs was given the job of arranging for Agate to move the Royal Mail train after it had been waylaid. On the night of 8 August 1963—Biggs's 34th birthday—the gang stopped the mail train. The driver of the intercepted train, Jack Mills, was coshed with an iron bar and forced to move the engine and mail carriages forward. Biggs's main task had been to get Agate to move the train, and when it became obvious that the two were useless in that regard, they were banished to a waiting vehicle. The robbery yielded £2.6 million; Biggs's share was £147,000. His fingerprints were found on a tomato sauce bottle at Leatherslade Farm by Metropolitan Police investigators. Three weeks later, he was arrested in South London. In 1964, nine of the 15-strong gang, including Biggs, were jailed; most received sentences of 30 years. Biggs served 15 months before escaping from Wandsworth Prison on 8 July 1965, scaling the wall with a rope ladder and dropping onto a waiting removal van. He fled to Brussels by boat before sending a note to his wife to join him in Paris, where he had acquired new identity papers and was undergoing plastic surgery. In 1966, Biggs fled to Sydney, then moved to Glenelg in Adelaide, South Australia. By then, they had spent all but £7,000 of his £147,000 share: £40,000 on plastic surgery in Paris; £55,000 as a package deal to get him out of the UK to Australia; and the rest on legal fees and expenses. In October 1969, a newspaper report revealed he was living in Melbourne; he fled on a passenger liner from the Port of Melbourne, using the altered passport of a friend. Twenty days later, the ship berthed in Panama and within two weeks Biggs had flown to Brazil. In 1970, Brazil did not have an extradition treaty with the United Kingdom. In 1974, Daily Express reporters confirmed he was in Rio de Janeiro, but he could not be extradited because his girlfriend, nightclub dancer Raimunda de Castro, was pregnant. Brazilian law at the time did not allow a parent of a Brazilian child to be extradited.

Reader's Guide

Ronnie Biggs's significance lies primarily in his association with the Great Train Robbery of 1963, one of the most infamous heists in British history, and his subsequent 36-year life as a fugitive. His escape from Wandsworth Prison in 1965 and his ability to evade capture for decades—aided by plastic surgery, multiple moves across continents, and Brazil's lack of an extradition treaty—made him a folk anti-hero in some circles. His later publicity stunts, including recording vocals on two songs for The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) with the Sex Pistols, cemented his status as a pop-culture figure. "No One is Innocent" was released as a single in the UK on 30 June 1978 and reached number 7 in the UK singles chart. However, his role in the robbery itself was relatively minor; his main task had been to get a retired train driver to move the train, and when that failed, he was banished to a waiting vehicle. The lasting legacy of Biggs is that of a symbol of the romanticized outlaw, though his actions caused real harm, including the assault on train driver Jack Mills, who was coshed with an iron bar. His return to the UK in 2001, subsequent imprisonment, and release on compassionate grounds in August 2009 brought a final chapter to a story that had captivated the public for decades.

Did You Know?

• Biggs's fingerprints were found on a tomato sauce bottle at Leatherslade Farm, leading to his arrest three weeks after the robbery.
• He escaped from Wandsworth Prison on 8 July 1965 by scaling the wall with a rope ladder and dropping onto a waiting removal van.
• Biggs recorded vocals on two songs for The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) with the Sex Pistols; 'No One is Innocent' reached number 7 in the UK singles chart.
• In 1974, Biggs could not be extradited from Brazil because his girlfriend was pregnant; Brazilian law did not allow extradition of a parent of a Brazilian child.
• Biggs's share of the Great Train Robbery was £147,000, but by 1966 he had spent all but £7,000 on plastic surgery, a package deal to flee the UK, and legal fees.

A Man on the Periphery of the Inner Circle

Ronnie Biggs occupied a distinct tier within the Great Train Robbery's criminal architecture. Instead, Biggs was categorised as an "associate," a man Reynolds had previously encountered in a jail cell. As the operation expanded from a small planning cell into a sixteen-man raiding party, figures like Biggs were folded into the roster. His inclusion speaks to the pragmatic, layered structure Reynolds built: a tight inner circle handling strategy, a specialist group handling the technical railway work, and a wider ring of trusted contacts filling out the manpower needed for the night's assault on the Royal Mail train.

The Intelligence Behind the Heist

The Great Train Robbery was never a spontaneous act of violence; it was the product of months of careful orchestration built on stolen institutional knowledge. Because the core team had virtually no prior experience in halting and robbing trains, Reynolds made the strategic decision to recruit the South Coast Raiders, a group already well-versed in railway crime. As the plan matured and the roster grew to sixteen men, additional associates such as Ronnie Biggs were incorporated, each adding manpower to what had become a meticulously layered operation targeting a single, extraordinarily lucrative night.

The Night the Train Stood Still

The robbers had rigged the lineside signal—covering the green light with a glove and powering a red light with a battery—to force the stop. Driver Jack Mills, fifty-eight and from Crewe, obeyed the signal. Mills himself was struck from behind with a metal bar while grappling with one of the attackers, suffering serious head injuries. No firearms were drawn. Sixteen men, including Ronnie Biggs, carried out the operation.

Leatherslade and the Unfinished Ledger

In the days following the robbery, the gang retreated to Leatherslade, a farm situated twenty-seven miles from the crime scene, where they attempted to lie low and distribute their haul. That sanctuary proved short-lived. Police located the hideout and seized incriminating evidence, including a Monopoly board bearing fingerprints that would later help secure the arrest and conviction of most of the sixteen-man gang. The ringleaders received sentences of thirty years' imprisonment. Yet the most enduring shadow of the event was financial: the bulk of the £2.61 million stolen from the Royal Mail train was never recovered, leaving a permanent gap in the public ledger. Meanwhile, driver Jack Mills, though he eventually returned to light duties, never fully escaped the psychological trauma of the attack. He retired in 1967 and died in 1970 of an unrelated illness.