Category crime

Christopher Marlowe death

The mysterious death of Christopher Marlowe

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Christopher Marlowe was the Quentin Tarantino of Elizabethan theatre. His plays were laced with ultra-violence and audiences often left shaken by what they’d witnessed on stage. And maybe it’s not surprising that this shocking playwright came to a grisly end. On 30 May 1593, Marlowe was murdered at a house in Deptford, south London. But are accounts of his death a tissue of lies circulated by enemies?

Marlowe should be as famous today as Shakespeare, his contemporary. And yet he’s eclipsed by the Bard. But in his own time, his plays packed theatres with their blood curdling scenes. One commentator has compared his work to the surrealist Theatre of Cruelty – a belief that in order to create impact on an audience, a drama has got to be a little bit nasty.

In his plays, when a character gets stabbed, he lingers on stage and discusses what he’s feeling. His famous dramatisation of the life of murdered medieval king Edward II has left us with all the graphic details of the hapless monarch having a red hot poker shoved inside him. I’ll spare you the details! But Marlowe doesn’t. To him, the violence was an essential part of the plot and a way of ramming home the moral of the story.

So when it comes to the untimely and violent death of Marlowe, plenty of commentators down the centuries have shrugged and said in so many words: he had it coming. As if creating violent fiction necessarily results in it leaping off the page at you. And Marlowe’s death has been variously ascribed to his drinking, whoring, alleged spying and his homosexuality. All convenient ways of trivialising a great talent – and almost excusing his murderer.

It’s often stated that the death of Marlowe was the result of a drunken brawl at a tavern called the Bull Inn. Marlowe and a friend, Ingram Frizer fell out over the tab – as we’ve all done at some point in our lives. Though without murdering one of our fellow drinkers!

However, this account is hotly disputed by The Marlowe Society, which says that there was no tavern involved. In fact, they claim, Marlowe was at a ‘respectable house‘ owned by a certain Dame Eleanor Bull having dinner. The other diners included the aforementioned Frizer and they all had links to Thomas Walsingham, a spymaster at the court of Queen Elizabeth the first.

Thomas was the cousin of the now deceased Francis Walsingham who created the queen’s spy network to protect her from assassination attempts orchestrated by the Pope and the King of Spain. Marlowe was undoubtedly keeping interesting company. And he was going to need help from people of influence because ten days before he’d been arrested on a charge of atheism. And this in itself is a bizarre story.

Another playwright and close friend, Thomas Kyd, had been arrested on the same charge after being found to be in possession of an ‘Arian’ tract. Arianism was an ancient heresy going back to the fourth century AD. While being stretched on the rack, Kyd screamed that Marlowe was the real heretic and that furthermore…..he’d stated that Jesus Christ was homosexual. In a document held today at the British Library, Marlowe also apparently joked that holy communion should be smoked in a pipe and that the New Testament was so badly written, he could have done a better job.

This document, known as the “Baines note”, is disputed with some seeing it as an attempt to damn Marlowe’s reputation. Though Marlowe seems more than capable of having uttered such sentiments. And he moved among people who saw themselves as being at the vanguard of a new movement that questioned tradition and divinely sanctioned authority.

So what’s the official account of Marlowe’s death? In the Coroner’s report at the time, it’s claimed a row broke out between Frizer and Marlowe over the cost of the dinner. Marlowe grabbed a dagger and in the heat of the moment stabbed Frizer. He then retaliated “in defence of his life” and struck the playwright just above the right eye, driving the blade in and killing Marlowe instantly.

Not many people believe the coroner’s account. For a start, the evidence came from three men described as ‘slippery’ by one modern expert. Frizer walked free and spent the rest of his life in Walsingham’s service. The owner of the house, Dame Bull, doesn’t seem to have been interviewed for her version of events. And while Marlowe may have been tense, as he contemplated his possible torture and trial for heresy, was he really about to start a murderous brawl over an unpaid bill?

One theory that carries weight is that Marlowe was involved in the queen’s spy network or at least had access to privileged information. He was about to face the rack and a public appearance in court. What might he say in those circumstances? As Shakespeare once noted, a man will say anything under torture. To silence Marlowe, did these rather shady characters lure him to a house in south London and finish him off?

Another view is that he was part of an underground group of freethinkers and humanists known as The School of Night led by none other than the intrepid Sir Walter Raleigh. These gentlemen were creatures of the Renaissance and foreshadowed the Age of Enlightenment. But not everybody in 16th century England thought being enlightened was a good idea – especially the church. Could dark forces have targeted Marlowe to make an example of him?

And then the boldest theory is that Marlowe wasn’t murdered at all. He was a valued espionage asset and had to be disappeared. The whole murder was concocted to make that possible. Some or other corpse was tossed into the unmarked grave while the playwright slipped abroad.

highwaymen London

Highwaymen in the middle of London!

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Highwaymen were those masked thieves on horseback with 18th century three-cornered hats who held up carriages. The most famous was Dick Turpin. We often picture them carrying out their robberies in the countryside but actually, they were often to be found in the middle of central London.

So let me introduce you to some of the most unbelievably audacious highwaymen whose cheek and daring will amaze you! They terrorised London but also gave people a rather cheap thrill.

LONDON HIGHWAYMEN: Isaac Atkinson

He operated around Lincoln’s Inn Fields about the year 1640. I worked at an office overlooking this large and beautiful square for ten years. One side of the square has been dominated by barristers and lawyers for centuries going right back to Henry VIII.

Atkinson, after being apprehended, said that his conscience was perfectly clear as he had only robbed lawyers – who were bigger rogues than himself. Well, I think we can all agree with that (except you lawyers of course).

LONDON HIGHWAYMEN: Dick Banff

We would think of Dick as more of a cat burglar than a highwayman. His name is also spelt Dick Bauff. He used rope ladders and hooks to rob the houses of rich merchants in Lombard Street – near the Bank of England.

As a young man, he was involved in one extremely violent robbery in his native Ireland alongside his criminal parents. They murdered the occupants of the house and seized the goods. After being caught, Dick was given leniency on condition that he agreed to hang his own parents!

LONDON HIGHWAYMEN: Tom Buckley

Also called Tim Buckley. You tend to find spelling mistakes in names either because the individual concerned was illiterate or census takers were just sloppy. Or some criminals operated under multiple names. Anyway, Tim or Tom held up people on Drury Lane – and that really was slap bang in the middle of London

Buckley developed something of a personal vendetta against a “stock-jobber” (somebody who worked at the stock exchange). This man had got Buckley arrested on one occasion and branded on the hand. Our highwaymen seems to have sought him out and relieved the stock-jobber of a whopping forty-eight Guineas.

Incredibly, the two men then met by accident in central London and the stock-jobber got Buckley arrested – again. The highwayman was sentenced to death but then somehow got a reprieve. After which….he went to Hackney and attempted to burn down the stock jobber’s house.

After going on the run to the Midlands, he was eventually caught and hanged in 1702.

LONDON HIGHWAYMEN: William Cady

This highwayman found his victims in Hyde Park. One woman swallowed her own wedding ring to stop him getting hold of it. So Cady – who was a particularly unpleasant character – ran her through with his sword and then cut her open to get the ring.

Other London highwaymen included William Davies – “The Golden Farmer” – who only stole gold. Dick Low was the youngest highwayman aged just eleven! William Page used to dress in the height of fashion and hold people up around Grosvenor Square before being hanged in 1758.

The source for this blog is a book in my archive of material going back 300 years. The book in question is An Encyclopaedia of London, edited by William Kent and published in 1937. Here I am with it. I also used The Complete Newgate Calendar – also in my collection.

Tragedy as Jews expelled from England 700 years ago

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This is a curious and terrible story I heard about years ago and found again in an old book on London history dating from the 1870s in my library. The story goes that when King Edward I of England expelled all the Jewish people from his kingdom, one ship captain deliberately murdered a group of Jews on the river Thames in London.

Under King Edward I in medieval London a terrible murder of a group of Jewish people took place on the river Thames as retold by historian Tony McMahon
Jewish people faced discrimination in medieval London

The book is called Old and New London and dates from about 1875. It details how Jewish people at that time still spoke in hushed terms about a terrible event that occurred near London Bridge in the 13th century.

After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, Jewish families were protected by the Norman kings and prospered. But things started to turn two hundred years later and then Edward I – famous as the king who executed Braveheart – decided to expel every Jew from England.

A group of Jewish Londoners hired a “mighty tall ship”, loaded all their possessions and sailed off down the Thames to an uncertain exile abroad. Accounts vary as to what happened next. One report claimed that at a place called Queenborough – near the mouth of the river Thames as it meets the sea – the captain set down the anchor.

They were on dry sands and the captain popped over the side to take a walk. Then he suggested that the Jewish exiles might want to join him and stretch their legs. And so they did. But without noticing that as the tide rose, the captain shot off back to the ship and was hauled up quickly by a rope.

This took the Jewish group by surprise. As the water rose rapidly, they cried out to him for help. And he gave them a sarcastic response:

He told them that they ought to cry rather unto Moses by whose conduct their fathers passed through the Red Sea

“Raging floods” then gradually engulfed them and the captain with his crew made off with their goods. In some accounts, the captain and his fellow mariners went to see King Edward I and were rewarded for their murderous cruelty. But another account claims they were hanged for their “fraudulent and mischievous dealing”.

In the 1875 book I have, it claims that “the spot in the river Thames where many of the poor exiles were drowned by the perfidy of a master-mariner is under the influence of a ceaseless rage”. That no matter how calm the Thames was elsewhere, this stretch of water was always “furiously boisterous”.

And some tellings of the tale had this unusual river current occurring under London Bridge, for some reason. Apparently it became a point of pilgrimage with young and old Jews rowing out to the supposed location to see if the river really did rage non-stop as a constant reminder of the killing.

typhus jail fever

Prisoners infect judges with typhus – jail fever!

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Eighteenth century courtrooms were a dangerous place. For the convict there was a good chance you’d dangle from a rope. But even for the judge – the risk was high. The prisoners were so filthy and disease ridden that you might catch jail fever. Or what we call typhus these days.

Judges catch jail fever from typhus ridden accused

The year was 1750 in London at England’s top criminal court – the Old Bailey. Three judges were trying a group of prisoners and the death sentence was anticipated.

Capital punishment applied to a whole range of crimes at this time – not just murder but also theft and violent attack.

Unfortunately for the judges, the grubby criminals were seated right in front of the dock. And not only did they stink to high heaven but there had been an outbreak of jail fever within Newgate prison. The place was rife with typhus.

Typhus, by the way, was also referred to as hospital fever, camp fever and ship fever. It was and is caused by poor hygiene, normally when lots of people are grouped together in insanitary conditions. For example, military camps, ships and….prisons.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is newgat0.jpg

The agent of transmission is the humble louse, which gets infected by a sick person and then shares the disease with anybody nearby. So, the judges were infected because of their proximity to the accused. And it’s not a disease that spares the rich and privileged.

One of the judges was Sir Samuel Pennant (pictured with a louse) – who was also the Lord Mayor of London. The other two judges were Sir Thomas Abney and Baron Clarke. And they all died – infected by the very prisoners they had been sentencing to hang.

Another little fact about Sir Samuel – apart from being Lord Mayor and dying of typhus – was that he was a prolific slave owner. The 18th century was the height of British activity in the trade and he was actually born in Jamaica on his father’s plantation. I’m shedding less tears about his fate now.

Today, the Old Bailey – or Central Criminal Court – is still standing, though a more recent building. There’s no prison nearby. It was demolished at the turn of the 20th century when Londoners decided they’d rather not have large prisons in the middle of town.

But in 1750, Newgate prison was located right next door to the courthouse.

Jail fever brings typhus straight from prison to courtroom

Prisoners were therefore brought a relatively short distance from the squalid and overcrowded conditions at Newgate, straight into the courtroom of the Old Bailey. And along came the lice and fleas with them.

Therefore, if typhus was raging through Newgate, it was brought direct into the courtroom. Not that anybody fully understood the risk. And certainly not the esteemed judges who were carried off to meet their maker.

French Brexit

London hated the French long before Brexit

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If you think Brexit is making Britain more xenophobic, then you need to get a time machine and go back to Georgian London. Because two hundred years ago, a French person walking around London might not only endure abuse but come to an unfortunate end!

Eighteenth century London was a dangerous place to walk around if you were French. As England was in an almost constant state of war with France, Londoners often sought out a Frenchman in the city to pick on or worse.

If you think Brexit has made people more xenophobic about the French – eighteenth century London would be a huge shock.

There are several accounts of unpleasant abuse meted out by London folk against the French in the 1940 history book The Streets of London by Thomas Burke. He details one appalling incident where a French servant went to see a public hanging at Tyburn and nearly got executed himself!

The hanging of two criminals had just finished when three people in the crowd, realising the servant was French, began pulling at his coat-tails and powdered wig (this is the 18th century after all).

At which point the hangman was going past in the cart, in which he’d brought the condemned in to die, and began joining in the harassment by taking to the French servant with his whip.

He began to wonder if his time was up when three other Frenchmen came to his rescue. They beat the English thugs back and got him into a nearby tavern.

The narrator of this story then pointed out that should a Frenchman find himself in this predicament, he should single out one of his assailants and fight him with his fists. If he wins, the typical English crowd would then declare him a good sport and parade him around in a chair!

No matter how bad things are with Brexit – no French person to my knowledge has faced such a terrible threat today in London. But correct me if I’m wrong.

The gang that terrorised Georgian London!

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So you think urban gangs are a modern phenomenon? Well, 18th century Georgian London was horrified by the activities of the Black Boy Alley gang who showed no mercy to their victims but came to a pretty gruesome end themselves!

Let me take you back to the early 18th century and the wickedness of a group of criminals known as the Black Boy Alley gang. They operated very near to what is now Holborn Circus – or “midtown” as estate agents like to call it. I worked around this part of London as a journalist for many years and it’s a kind of intermediate zone between the City of London in the east and the bustling shops of the West End.

The story of this gang turned up in a book published in 1817 from my large collection of old London related volumes going back three hundred years. The book is called A History and Description of London and was probably written around ten years before by David Hughson – whose real name was Edward Pugh.

It consists of a series of walks through the city that includes some really nasty areas. Hughson seemed determined to expose his readers to the sleazier side of London life! The streets he mentions once led off what is now Holborn Circus roundabout towards the meat market at Smithfield. Saffron Hill is still there but Chick Lane and Black Boy Alley have gone – and maybe not surprisingly!

Black Boy Alley was where a gang operated from in Georgian London

Because under the reign of King George II (reigned 1727 to 1760), Black Boy Alley was “the terror of the whole city” – according to Hughson. The Black Boy Alley Gang used prostitutes to lure passers-by into the grubby tenements. These hapless individuals were then gagged, robbed and murdered. Their bodies were unceremoniously thrown into a ditch with all the city rubbish.

Women played a prominent role in the crimes and three were executed in 1743. These included Ann Duck and Ann Barefoot (I’m not making these names up!!). A man called George Cheshire survived an attack by both of them in nearby Chick Lane. Duck and Barefoot beat Cheshire giving him some severe cuts and bruises. In total, they stole four pence. And for that crime – both women were hanged.

Sarah Bartlet and Martha Ewers were sentenced to transportation for luring a man called Robert Copperthwait into a house on Black Boy Alley and relieving him of his watch. Lucky for him he wasn’t murdered but inexplicably decided to return and they mugged him again – this time taking his money.

The gang included a 21-year-old local lad known as Gugg (real name William Billingsley). He had gone to the free school to learn to read and write but crime was way more attractive than working as a lamp lighter. Then there was Thomas Well, reputed to be the husband of Ann Barefoot mentioned above. At his trial, he was said to have been “much addicted to vile women and drinking, swearing, gaming and every other destructive vice”.

Then there was Dillsey (real name William Brister) and a fourteen-year-old called Scampey (real name Henry Gadd). At his trial, Scampey was asked who was his Redeemer and instead of saying “Jesus”, he scandalised the court by yelling “the Devil!”. Another gang member was a Frenchman called Sulspice du Clot who was a Roman Catholic, as was an Irish gang member, Patrick Bourk.

The Black Boy Alley gang also had two Jewish members: Benjamin David Woolfe who was born in Prague, then part of Bohemia and now the capital of the Czech Republic. And Hannah Moses was from Frankfurt. She had seen her husband executed in February 1743 in London for robbing a silversmith.

The law eventually caught up with the gang and a staggering nineteen were executed on a single day at Tyburn gallows – near where Marble Arch is today at the end of Oxford Street. The mass hanging took place on Christmas Eve 1744. Gugg, Dillsey, young Scampey, the Frenchman Sulspice and the two Jewish gang members all swung from the end of a rope in front of a large, festive crowd.

And so ended the terror of the Black Boy Alley gang!

Priests and prostitutes in Southwark

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Priests and prostitutes may not seem an obvious combination but in the Middle Ages – nobody would have batted an eyelid. It was well known that men of the cloth and women of the night were having fun down in Southwark!

Last week, I got my hands on an 1814 guide to London. There’s one page that made me chuckle, describing the way in which priests and prostitutes had fun together.

On the south bank of the river Thames, in the borough of Southwark, every other house seemed to be a brothel. Londoners strolled across the bridge linking their city to this playground and paid for sex in one of the many “stews” – a delightful word for a brothel.

Stewholders – brothel keepers – rented their premises from powerful landowners. These included the Lord Mayor of London Sir William Walworth (died 1385). These enterprising women were often from across the English Channel in modern Belgium and the Netherlands. They were referred to as the “bawds of Flanders” or “Froes”.

The authorities took a surprisingly lenient view of their activity provided certain rules were obeyed. Stews were not to open on a Sunday – after all the priests who formed a goodly part of the clientele would be busy in church.

Married women could not work in them and female criminals who had been branded for their crime were forbidden to get involved. These were moral establishments after all!

Catholic priests and bawdy prostitutes

My book, dating from 1814, takes a typically anti-Catholic line. The Middle Ages is depicted as a time of dark superstition and cruelty. When it comes to the stews, the author thinks that brothels were so prevalent because so many Catholic priests before the Protestant Reformation had taken vows of celibacy. It was a vow few of them could keep.

Perhaps in days when thousands were tied up by vows of celibacy, these haunts might have been necessary, for neither cowl nor cope had virtue sufficient to annihilate the strongest of human passions.

The signs for these stews didn’t hang off the building but were painted on the walls. The author thinks it’s hilarious that one brothel was called The Cardinal’s Hat. The involvement of the clergy weren’t just as potential clients. The bishop of Winchester – who ran much of Southwark – didn’t bat an eyelid as he taxed the prostitutes. It was good money. He wasn’t going to forego his cut.

In fact, his taxation became a subject of ribald gossip among Londoners. As they arrived over London bridge, the prostitutes would squawk and cackle at them – looking for business. They became known as the “Winchester Geese”. Let’s hope the bishop saw the funny side.

The Debtor’s Doom – the grim fate for London’s penniless

Tony McMahon 2 Comments

Grim business being in debt in the old days – a debtor could expect to end up behind bars!

London had its fair share of prisons located very centrally and one of them was the Fleet – where debtors were flung. The location is quite hard to imagine now but it would have been roughly where Limeburner Lane and Fleet Place are today – bordered by Ludgate Hill, Old Bailey and what is now Farringdon Street. That street was originally the Fleet river, which still runs underneath channeled into the sewers.

Fleet Prison

Fleet Prison in 1691 – note the inmates begging for passing charity

The prison was pulled down in 1846 after 700 years of banging up criminals. The site was sold off to the London, Chatham and Dover Railway company and there’s still a City Thameslink station nearby. I can remember in the 1970s when there was a now removed railway bridge across the road. All traces of the miserable prison disappeared long ago but it was a notorious place in its heyday. A poem in 1738 summed up the horror:

A starving life all day we lead; No comfort here is found; At Night we make one Common bed; Upon the boarded ground

And the prisoners often grumbled that there were plenty in high society who were committing worse crimes than they had but got away it because of their social position:

Thus, we Insolvent debtors live; Yet we may Boldly say; Worse Villains often Credit give; Than those that never pay

For wealthy knaves can with applause; Cheat on, and ne’er be try’d; But in contempt of human Laws; In Coaches Safely ride

The Fleet was mainly a debtors prison from the 17th century onwards and run by a warden who had almost dictatorial powers. He also had the right to “farm” the prisoners – that is, extort fees from them for their upkeep. This may seem unusual to us now, but prisoners on arrival at the Fleet had to cough up six shillings, bring their own bedding or hire some or sleep on the floor. Conditions were appalling and abuse was rife. One warden, Thomas Bambridge, was notorious for holding prisoners in irons and refusing to let them leave after their sentences had expired.

Fleet Prison in 1830 - note the racket court

Fleet Prison in 1830 – note the racket court

During the Gordon Riots of 1780, the Fleet was burnt down but after repairs, it carried on in business. Prisoners would beg passers by for charity. Raising some money was their only forlorn hope of escaping this four storey hell with its high walls, chapel, coffee-room and tap-rooms. It was badly lit and a countless number of doors opened up onto rooms averaging 14 by 12 feet. Walking down the dark corridors, you would have heard an endless clanging of doors to jar your nerves. If the prisoners were lucky, a wealthy passer-by clutching scented herbs to their nose, would approach the barred windows and press a coin in to their hands.

There was a recreation yard that included a racket court. Every year, the prisoners elected a Racket Master to run the sports activities here and this was apparently a hotly contested position. In 1841, three

people were running against each other to win the position. One candidate noted that the “health of my fellow inmates is in some measure placed in the hands of the person appointed”.  Skittle Master was another bitterly contested post among the prisoners!Fleet prison

In 1842, parliament agreed to proceed with the demolition of the Fleet and transfer of all prisoners to the Queen’s Bench Prison. Some prisoners weren’t happy about this, especially as the Queen’s Bench ran a tougher regime. A song went thus:

To racquets, skittles, whistling shops; We must soon say farewell; The Queen’s assent to her prison bill; Has rung their funeral knell

Who was the notorious London Monster?

Tony McMahon Leave a comment

Everybody knows about Jack the Ripper but there have – regrettably – been other men who have attacked women in the metropolis. And they had equal notoriety.

One such was the London Monster.

He didn’t actually murder women, unlike the Ripper, but slashed at them in the face or backside. The knives or daggers were reputedly strapped to his knees – as the illustration shows – or concealed in other ways to take his victims by surprise.

London Monster

The London Monster at work – note knives attached to his knees!

Most of the women he attacked seemed to have been ladies of substance – unlike the prostitutes targeted by Jack the Ripper.

And he appears to have suffered from some psychopathic condition that necessitated this curious lashing out.

Eventually, a man, Rhynwick Williams, was apprehended after allegedly attacking a spinster called Ann Porter. It seems to have been his intention to rip at her clothes more than the person inside them.

The court proceedings stated:

RENWICK WILLIAMS , was indicted, for that he, on the 18th of January last, with force and arms, at the parish of St. James, Westminster, in the king’s highway, in a certain public street there, called St. James’s-street , unlawfully, wilfully, maliciously, and feloniously, did make an assault on Ann Porter , spinster , with an intent to tear, spoil, cut, and deface her garments and clothes; and on the same day, with force and arms, in the same public street, wilfully, maliciously, and feloniously, did tear, spoil, cut, and deface her garments: to wit, one silk gown, value 20 s. a pair of stays, value 5 s. a silk petticoat, value 5 s. one other petticoat, value 5 s. a linen petticoat, value 5 s. and a shift, value 5 s. her property, part of her apparel which she had on her person, against the form of the statute, and against the king’s peace, &c.

The opening of the trial was full of hyperbole. The Monster had captured the jaded imaginations of Londoners who had feigned terror at being set upon by this madman. Here’s the opening comments from the trial (source: Old Bailey online):

It is an unpleasant task to call your minds to a scene so new in the annals of mankind; a scene so unaccountable: a scene so unnatural to the honour of human nature, that it could not have been believed ever to have existed, unless it had been demonstrated by that proof which the senses cannot resist: but while we are trying the prisoner at the bar, for this unnatural, unaccountable, and until now, unknown offence, we should not forget that he is our fellow being, and give him an attentive hearing.

The attacks, the prosecution railed, had been against women who were “the most beautiful! the most innocent! the most lovely!” But what puzzled the court was that William didn’t seem to be after their money or any riches.

His attack on Ann Porter had occurred as she returned from a ball in St James’s, Westminster. Unfortunately for Williams, having torn at her clothes, he then paused to stare at her. As a result, his face was etched on her mind. A little later, she spotted Williams in St James’s Park and a male friend chased him to his dwellings. From there he was arrested and put on trial.

Only some historians cast doubt on whether Williams was the London Monster or indeed if such a person even existed. Was it an example of a kind of urban hysteria? Was Ann Porter leaping on the bandwagon of other reported attacks? Or was Williams just mistakenly identified?

Whatever the truth – he got six years in prison.

A woman who made a living stealing clothes from children

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Mall Floyd was a wicked woman who developed an unpleasant line in criminal activity. She would steal or kidnap children, take them somewhere far from their parents or guardians and then relieve them of their clothes and valuables. They’d then be left to fend for themselves as best they could.

In 1674, Mall Floyd found a girl of about eight years of age in Shoe Street. I may be wrong but I think Shoe Street now corresponds to what’s called Shoe Lane in Farringdon. In the seventeenth century, that thoroughfare would have been just outside the ancient city walls.

The road ran parallel to the Fleet River, which is now hidden away in a sewer. It was there then that Mall Floyd chanced upon this refined girl who looked very finely dressed. Our thief figured the girl’s clothes would make a pretty penny or two.

Approaching the eight year old, she claimed to be from her mother and then carried off the child as far as St Giles.  That was a pretty run down village where Centre Point stands, at the top of Tottenham Court Road. The parish church of St Giles is still there behind Centre Point. St Giles was a notorious slum that contributed a great number of villains to the hanging tree at nearby Tyburn.

So, Mall Floyd took the child to an ale house and seeing that it was about to rain, suggested that the girl should remove her expensive laces and linens as they would be spoilt. Now with her hands on the goodies, Mall Floyd took the girl to the churchyard of St Giles. Luckily for our villain, there was a burial going on with a big crowd. Without a second thought, Mall Floyd simply dumped the girl in the crowd and melted away.

Tyburn gallows

Mall Floyd was lucky not to end up here

The distressed kid burst into tears and a charitable individual took pity and very gallantly escorted her back to the house of her parents.

The girl recounted everything that had happened – the women claiming to be a friend of her mothers, taking her to a pub, removing her pricey garments and then disappearing. The family were furious but what could they do? Then a remarkable thing happened.

The child’s mother was walking through Holborn when she saw her daughter’s lost clothes hanging up for sale in a shop window. She raised hell with the shopkeeper and after some investigating – there were no police in those days remember – the family found the culprit. Mall Floyd was dragged before the courts.

Incredibly, she confessed everything and was sent to Newgate prison. When she returned for sentencing, Mall Floyd might have expected to dangle from a rope for the amusement of the crowd at Tyburn. Instead, she was “transported to some of the plantations beyond the seas”. Most likely the Americas where Mall Floyd, if she survived the journey, undoubtedly breathed her last.