GREAT, GREAT GRANDMOTHER PRUDENCE DAINTER/DAINTY GOES TO JAIL...

 Great, Great Grandmother Prudence Dainter/Dainty Shoplifts Her Way To Stafford Gaol In November 1851…

The Birmingham Journal reported on the apprehending of Prudence and her accomplices on Saturday November 22nd, 1851 and the article was, er, strangely entertaining…

Prudence, my great, great grandmother was part of a gang, described as a ‘bevy’ of young female thieves, all apparently having two or three aliases. Margaret Gibbons was the alleged ‘leader’ of the gang, ably supported by Maria Hill (alias Gill), Catherine Dalton and our Prudence…

The newspaper reporter wrote that the shoplifters had been ‘lifted into Stafford Gaol…’ which likely brought a smile to his editor’s lips…

STAFFORD GAOL...

Inspector Dew (clearly more effective in the mornings) reported that the girls had robbed shops in the High Street, West Bromwich on the previous day, namely those owned by Charles Newbery, a draper, Miss Harris, a milliner and two more draperies, one owned by Mr E.C. George, the other by Mr H.W. George. 

Socks, silk handkerchiefs, gown pieces and furs, etc, had been lifted and a police constable had the thefts reported to him but unbelievably, he was called P.C. Ray, which would of course eventually be the married surname of Prudence’s daughter, Ann… 

WEST BROMWICH HIGH STREET...

Gibbons was taken into custody with a basket beneath her cloak, inside which almost all of the stolen goods were stashed. Sub-inspector Rowe (not of the river squad) took the other girls into custody, finding all but two pairs of socks which had already been chucked over a Dartmouth Park wall, owned at that time by the 5th Earl of Dartmouth, William Walter Legge, before the girls, er, legged it back to Birmingham.

DARTMOUTH PARK...

Gibbons, the oldest of the bevy, had waited outside the shops and in one of them, the other three girls asked to match a plaid or pink dress and whilst the assistant reached up for prints, the nicking began, or should I say, the robbery was effected…

The trio then left the shop having made no purchases, saying that they would call again with a pattern.

The prisoners had nothing to say about their crimes and they were committed to trial. 

Dew and Rowe went into Birmingham, the usual haunts of the gang, who were apparently linked to a gang from Inkley Street, ‘The Inkleys’ and when they inspected one home, they discovered the new, chic method of shoplifting…

Sheets of thin paper, such as handbills, or theatre advertisements were smeared with a thick, white substance like birdlime. A girl would hold a piece of the paper concealed in her hand and place it upon the inanimate prey, so that the soft item would stick to it, leaving little chance of being spotted stealing.

Pledge tickets for articles were found in the girls’ homes too, straight from the pawnbrokers’ shops at which they sold their stolen goods…

So, not such a prudent activity for our Prudence…

She was sentenced to a 6 month stint in Stafford Gaol for two counts of theft…

She had already served a sentence in the gaol in Moor Street, Birmingham previously, for she appears on the census list there in 1851!