Crime City: Manchester's Victorian Underworld (11 page)

Yet crime was by no means the preserve of the young. Many criminals continued to offend well into their seventies. Perhaps the best example of the habitual, incorrigible criminal of this period was Mary Ann Williamson who, by the 1880s, had racked up 104 convictions for theft, prostitution and drunkenness. Ann Welsh, Ann Davis – who crowned her criminal career by murdering her husband Paul Davis in 1885 – and Annie Kelly also made regular appearances at the police courts, interrupted only by frequent terms of imprisonment. All three were inept offenders, incapable of working for a living. They operated at the bottom of the criminal hierarchy.

At the other extreme were the cracksmen, the elite of Manchester’s criminals.

5

Criminals

Cracksmen

He hurtled down the Victoria Station footbridge and dived over the parapet into the filthy waters of the River Irwell. His pursuers, panting in the warm night air, peered down into the darkness. Bob’s legs disappeared into the tunnel running under Chetham’s School, Walker’s Croft and Hunt’s Bank and emerged where the Irwell meets the Irk, near Moreton Street, Strangeways. It was a feat worthy of any circus acrobat and contributed greatly to Bob Horridge’s mythical status among Manchester cracksmen.

Cracksmen, or burglars, were the aristocracy of the criminal world. They were well dressed and walked with a swagger, envied by the criminal fraternity, loathed by the police who knew that short of catching them in the act they were unlikely to get a conviction. For the best burglars immediately converted their haul into cash and were rarely found with anything to link them to their crimes. Sometimes referred to as ‘attic thieves’ or ‘garret thieves’, a reference to their preferred method of entry, the best specialised in fashionable houses in the most desirable suburbs. The dining hour, between seven and eight in the evening, when family and servants were most likely to be at supper on the ground floor, was when most struck. No such careful timing was needed with empty or closed-up houses, lock-up shops and warehouses. Information about the layout of a target was, however, always valuable as it reduced the considerable risk that was an unavoidable part of even the most carefully planned burglary.

Providing such information was the role of the ‘putter-up’, who watched houses and cultivated servants for details of the domestic routine. A cooperative window-cleaner, glazier, plumber or decorator was likely to have valuable information about the layout of prospective targets. It is hardly surprising that the victims of a burglary invariably suspected servants and tradesmen. No one did more to pollute the image of the domestic servant than the ghoulish Kate Webster. A thief, drunkard and abandoned wife, she had a volcanic temper that erupted into frenzied violence. Having failed as a thief, when she was thirty she turned her hand to domestic service in London. Her unsuspecting employer, Mrs Julia Thomas, was a woman in every respect, the antithesis of her employee. Even Mrs Thomas’s closest friend conceded that she was a stern taskmaster. In fact, she delighted in humiliating servants. Before long, her mistress’s vitriolic tongue lashed Kate into a fever of seething hatred. Yet, though she managed to keep her trembling fists under her apron, Kate’s mask of deference cracked. What Mrs Thomas saw through the split put her in fear of her life.

Terrorised in her own home, she told Kate to get out. The maid implored a few days’ grace: surely Mrs Thomas would not see her on the street? The employer relented – but only two days. Mollified, Kate seemed resigned to her fate. Then Mrs Thomas disappeared. A day later Kate tried to sell several jars of ‘best dripping’. She tried to sell Mrs Thomas’s furniture. Wherever Kate went, she clutched a large black bag.

A trunk washed up on the bank of the Thames. At first the police thought it was a carcass from an abattoir. But when the doctor placed the parts together it formed the body of a woman. The flesh, however, was as white as fresh lard. And the head was missing. They identified the body from the trunk. When they caught up with Kate, she denied everything. When confronted with the blood stains she had failed to erase from Mrs Thomas’s kitchen and the remains of the victim’s charred entrails, she blamed others – a fictitious lover and the second-hand furniture dealer. It was only while she was waiting for the hangman that she confessed and told how she’d thrown her employer down the stairs, disembowelled her with a razor, boiled her body and then butchered her. They never found the black bag. Or Mrs Thomas’s head.

The trial, which opened on 2 July 1879, made Kate the object of national odium. All the major nationals and many regional papers gave it saturation coverage. The execution of a woman for murder was a rare occurrence. Prior to this the standing of domestics was low. It was assumed they were lazy and dishonest. But now many an employer thought twice before scolding a clumsy skivvy or admonishing a careless domestic. Employers turned their attention to improved security. The wise among them stored their valuables in a Chubb and Milner safe, the most advanced of its day. The company claimed, with justification, that no cracksman could pick its locks and no drill pierce its metal.

To make matters worse for the poor burglar merely trying to make a dishonest living, 1865 saw the appearance of the first burglar alarm connected to a police station. But, fortunately for the cracksman, few invested in these expensive state-of-the-art safeguards. Internal shutters and iron bars on windows were the usual precautions against burglary. And no self-respecting burglar found these anything more than a minor inconvenience. A rope and a sturdy stick made a simple tourniquet powerful enough to bend bars. The more sophisticated used the jack-in-the-box, a device very much like a modern car jack. Once the bars were sufficiently bent to squeeze through, it took the average burglar no more than fifteen seconds to cut a hole in the glass big enough for his hand.

A safer alternative was the ‘treacle plaster’ – similar to the ‘star-glazing’ plaster used by children to steal from shops. The burglar cracked the glass by applying pressure and then unpicked the plaster, leaving a hole in the pane big enough to put a hand through and open the latch. Internal shutters proved even less of an obstacle. The blade of a knife was sufficient to flick the catch. If he made a noise, the experienced burglar stopped and clamped his ear to the window frame, listening intently for any sound that told him he had disturbed the householder.

James Bent, a Manchester policeman renowned for his charitable work for the poor, knew burglars so audacious that when they suspected they had disturbed someone they simply went to the front door and knocked, claiming to have got the wrong address. The burglar then gave the householder time to get back to sleep before resuming. Once inside the safe breaker relied on the traditional tools of his trade – jacks, jemmies, crowbars and wrenches. Specialists, many based in Manchester, made these safe-cracking tools. Their new specialities, available from the 1870s, included diamond-tipped drills at £200 apiece – almost four years’ wages for a policeman guaranteed to cut through the lock of any safe. Only the most accomplished cracksmen could afford such implements.

Yet until the introduction of dynamite in 1867, the cracksman’s skill was in his fingertips. Even then, British cracksmen were loath to abandon their old ways and slow to take advantage of developments.

No innovations, however, reduced the demand for undersized boys, supple and brave enough to squeeze between bars and through small windows. These invaluable assets were known as ‘snakesmen’. Superannuated climbing boys, having spent their apprenticeship scaling chimneys, made excellent snakesmen. Even more useful was a cooperative servant.

In the mid-century census of 1851, almost eight per cent of the entire population were servants. For women and girls the figure was thirteen per cent. To put this in context, this was twice the number of women employed in textiles, Britain’s biggest employer, in which the majority of workers were women.

The temptation to take advantage of their employers was ever present. Most servants were badly paid, even by the standards of the day. Their accommodation, even in the most sumptuous houses, was Spartan. Many regarded the trifles they pilfered a perk of the job. If a servant who dealt with tradesmen could reach an agreement by which she made a few extra shillings, she felt entitled to do so. Cooks, in particular, often made mutually beneficial arrangements with grocers and butchers. Not surprisingly the consequences of being caught were serious. Any employer who suspected a servant of dishonesty was likely to resort to summary dismissal, which meant being turned out onto the street without a reference or ‘a character’ and therefore no hope of getting work. For a country girl brought into a strange city where she was friendless, this was a daunting prospect that led many into prostitution.

In the absence of a cooperative servant, deception was necessary. As with many things, the simple ruses were the most effective. The cab at the kerb scam seldom failed. This involved hiring a cab in which a respectable-looking lady sat outside the chosen house. An accomplice knocked on the door and concealed himself. When the domestic opened the door, the lady beckoned her to the kerb. Invariably the servant left the door ajar behind her. While her attention was distracted, the lady’s accomplice slipped into the house. This scam worked several times during the 1879 spate of burglaries in Moss Side. Bent stationed a number of his men there but to no effect.

There was obviously a limit to how often this scam would work in a particular area, therefore, the prolific cracksman had to be mobile. Unknown to the local police, he avoided the danger of informers by moving on as soon as he did a job. Likewise with his swag – many Manchester burglars disposed of it in Liverpool. The most successful lived in good neighbourhoods far from their places of work. Provided they did not live an extravagant lifestyle and did nothing to attract attention to themselves they might continue accumulating money and retire in comfort. Charlie Peace, the most infamous criminal of his day, came closest to achieving this ideal. But every good burglar had to be professional and extremely careful if he were to join the happy ranks of those who retired without having seen the inside of a prison cell. As today, information was key.

A burglar who knew the household routine could avoid unpleasant surprises. By patiently watching a house, noting comings and goings, the time the beat policeman passed, when lights came on upstairs and when servants went to the shops, it was possible to discover when the house was empty. Doing this without attracting attention, however, was extremely difficult and required a degree of patience found among only the most professional burglars. Getting the necessary tools to the house and removing them, together with the proceeds of the burglary, was a hazardous operation. No professional would risk doing this himself. The best ‘canary’ was usually a woman, as she was less likely to attract attention. After the burglary the canary and the burglar made off by different routes. A speedy escape was important as every minute spent at the scene increased the likelihood of detection.

The great advantage of commercial premises was that they afforded the cracksman more time. This made them attractive to burglars. By the second half of the nineteenth century warehouses filled a large part of both Manchester and Salford city centres. But large warehouses were invariably difficult to break into. A common way round this was simply to walk in. A respectable-looking businessman and his colleague would visit the warehouse shortly before closing time. One left while the other concealed himself on the premises and came out when the staff had gone home. Even with the warehouse to himself, a Manchester burglar of this period was often armed. Small double and single barrel pistols were readily available. However, the availability of weapons also created problems for the burglar, because those seeking to protect their property were also likely to arm themselves. An inept burglar might find an irate householder waiting for him with a cocked gun and no qualms about using it.

Incidents in which burglars came to grief attracted considerable media coverage, specifically to discourage others. Two renowned cases took place in London in the 1850s. In the first instance two infamous London thieves, Edgar and Blackwell, tried to burgle a prestigious furrier’s shop on Regent Street. Clearly their approach was not very professional as they were unaware that the owner lived on the premises. To be precise, he slept in the attic, the window of which they prised open – only to find the owner waiting for them with a gun. Edgar fell to his death. Blackwell jumped to the street, dislocating his ankle. The police found him writhing in pain. On another occasion three burglars broke into the Regent’s Park home of a rich American, whose butler was in the habit of sleeping in the back parlour, snuggled up to his sporting gun. Two of the intruders surrendered after the butler peppered their colleague with buckshot.

The best burglars avoided violence and eschewed the use of firearms. Using a gun immediately catapulted their crime into a far more serious level and guaranteed a long sentence if caught. Bob Horridge, however, had no qualms about using violence. Though the most infamous Manchester burglar, he was in no way typical of his kind. Though Horridge was the product of the Rochdale Road rookery, he came of decent parents. Despite this lack of criminal breeding he was, in Caminada’s words, ‘one of the most accomplished and desperate thieves that ever lived in Manchester’.

By the age of thirteen Horridge was out of control. His first offence led to a six-month sentence. Immediately after his release he burgled again. This time it was eighteen months. When Horridge left prison his father resolved not to let the boy out of his sight. He set about training him in his own trade as a blacksmith and maker of fenders. The young miscreant showed remarkable aptitude and everyone who saw him working swore he was as productive as any two men. But by 1869 he was back to his old ways. Accounts of errand boys being robbed flooded into the Manchester detectives’ office. Eventually one of the culprits, Ned, was caught in the act. Ned was Horridge’s constant companion so Caminada decided to search the blacksmith’s house, as a result of which it came to light that he had deposited a stolen watch with a jeweller. This time he got seven years’ penal servitude, the most severe form of imprisonment.