The police in Birmingham were one of the first police forces to make extensive use of prisoner mugshots in England. Starting in 1853, they kept a detailed photographic record of every person they arrested.
This was part of the area being policed at the time.
The local policemen posing for a photo in the 1880s.
Emma Griffiths. At the age of 64 she was arrested for theft in 1906.
Ella Newman aged 41. She was imprisoned for forgery in 1909.
Henry Mercy, aged around 65. He was arrested for forgery in 1903.
Sarah Lowe aged 23. She was jailed for multiple offences of shoplifting in 1903.
Ada Launders aged 44. Jailed for three years for forgery in 1909.
Thomas O’Neil. Jailed for fraud in 1903, he was only 30 years old but looked much older.
Ellie Cole, aged 72. She was jailed in 1906 for stealing a pair of boots.
Emma Brown, aged 51. She was also charged with stealing one pair of boots.
Chester Laughton, aged 60. He was jailed for forgery in 1906.
beetleypete 
As Robbie says, life must have been hard for all of them. I am not sure prison would be any better, but perhaps it wasn’t much worse.
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At least they had regular meals in prison.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Charles Laughton’s pinhole pupils make me wonder if he had a laudanum habit to support!
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That’s a distinct possibility, Annabelle. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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you could tell these people are hard up. so sad.
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Most ordinary people had a daily struggle to survive at that time, Wilma. I’m sure it was much the same in big cities in America.
Best wishes, Pete.
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HI Pete, the women, in particular, looked like they lived hard lives, poor things.
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Most people except the rich had hard lives back then. No holiday entitlement at work, no benefits for unemployment, and no free medical care. Nothing changed in the UK until after WW2.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Wow … 2/3 were women! I love the expression on Chester Laughton’s face … made me “Laugh a ton”! I wonder, though, if women were really the worst criminals, or just the easiest to capture.
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Female criminals were common at the time. Many worked for large gangs, and because women did all the shopping, they were also often caught shoplifting. In those days, they called it theft, the term shoplifting hadn’t been invented. They also used women to pass forged cheques and counterfeit cash in shops and businesses.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Naturally, since we women were expendable if we got caught! 😉
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Birmingham was foresighted. These photos look as sad as the photos of criminals today.
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Life was very hard for poor people at the time. Crime was often seen as the only option when jobs were scarce.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Yes.
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Lots of forgers. I wonder what they were forging. Bank drafts? Titles?
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Cheques, mainly. Also banknotes and coins. Many of the women worked for big gangs, passing fake money and cashing forged cheques.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Thanks! Crime has worn a lot of hats.
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I think it was how many of them got around being poor
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Very much so, Beth. There were no free medical treatments or social security benefits at the time.
Best wishes, Pete.
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And to think some peopled want to return to those good old days. Warmest regards, Ed
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If our current government could get away with it, they would love to return us to such living conditions. I have no doubt about that, Ed.
Best wishes, Pete.
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(1) Emma Griffiths should never have stolen that hat!
(2) Ella Newman was not an Oldwoman, but she looked it.
(3) The police showed Henry no Mercy.
(4) Sarah was so Lowe on cash she had no choice but to engage in shoplifting.
(5) “Ada Launders her neighbors’ clothes, but they never pay her much for the service. So she might have to find another way to pay the bills.”
(6) Thomas O’Neil’s birth certificate is a fraud. He’s actually 55 years old.
(7) Ellie Cole stole a pair of boots from Emma Brown.
(8) Emma Brown stole a pair of boots from Ellie Cole.
(9) “The police are bumbling fools! I’ll sure to get the last laugh!” (Chester Laughton)
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7) & 8) It would have been poetic justice if that had been the case. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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The only three who seem less than defeated, Thomas O’Neil who looks as if he’ll go right out and do it again, Emma Brown looks angry and Henry Mercy’s expression “Me? Nonsense!” Sending old ladies to Jail for taking a pair of boots…how sad. Didn’t know forgery was such a fad…money?
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Forgery might have involved all sorts of things. Fake signatures on cheques, passing counterfeit coins or notes, misrepresenting yourself as someone else, and so on. Some people worked for large gangs, the forerunners of what we now call organised crime.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Forgery and boots seem to be a popular theme back in the day….great collection as usual chuq
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People would always buy stolen boots because they had to walk everywhere when they were poor, and passing fake or dud cheques was considered as forgery.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Some of these people were perhaps so poor that they had to break the law to survive.
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Very much so, Stevie. There was no welfare state, no pensions in employment or retirement, and no benefits for the poor except commital to the workhouse.
(The last workhouse in England didn’t close down until 1948)
Best wishes, Pete.
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Most of them looked older than their years too. It must have been a hard life back then.
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Every day was a struggle, I’m sure.
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That was my immediate thought, too, Stevie.
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That was very forward-thinking of the police at that time. Unfortunately, it’s been proven that poverty breeds crime, out of desperation, but I’m not sure if knowing that the police had their photographs would have deterred the most desperate of law-breakers? At least we’d moved beyond transportation & hanging for petty crimes. Cheers, Jon.
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Because crime was so rife, and as you say, driven by poverty, repeat criminals were becoming a major problem. The photos obviously helped to identify those who had been arrested many times previously, and had often given false names.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Sad looking lot.
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Most lived hard lives. No old-age pensions or free healthcare back then. They did what they could to survive, I suppose.
Best wishes, Pete.
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What amuses me is back in those times, after an execution, they made a mask from (wax I guess) of their faces – believing it would show their guilt.
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They had some strange ideas in the ‘old days’, Gavin. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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I didn’t know that about the death masks of the executed.
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