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The Forty Elephants: London’s All-Female Jewel Thieves · Ridiculous History

0:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Let's start today's
0:27
Speaker 1: episode off with a question, a favorite topic of conversation
0:31
Speaker 1: for those of us here at how stuff works when
0:33
Speaker 1: we're just hanging out off the air. Have you ever
0:37
Speaker 1: wanted to perpetrate a heist like Ocean's eleven style? And
0:42
Speaker 1: if so, did you ever envision yourself having a specialty?
0:45
Speaker 1: You know how all the heist teams always have their specialists, right, Well,
0:50
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to be the bagman. The bagman? Yeah, yeah,
0:55
Speaker 1: what does that entail? It's it's the coolest title. Yeah,
0:57
Speaker 1: it's up there. The bagman je generally, And someone right
1:01
Speaker 1: in and correct us if I'm off base here, but
1:03
Speaker 1: the bagman generally is a term describing the person who, actually,
1:07
Speaker 1: when you're physically stealing currency or jewelry or precious metals,
1:12
Speaker 1: the person who physically holds the back. You see, I'm
1:15
Speaker 1: known for my grip, Is that true? Yeah? Yeah, they
1:18
Speaker 1: say Noel Brown, that kid's got a good grip. They
1:22
Speaker 1: usually refer to me Ben Boland in my past heist
1:26
Speaker 1: as either the the inside man or the uh, the
1:30
Speaker 1: shady government liaison. I would have called you the brain.
1:34
Speaker 1: That's very kind. That's very kind. And I guess by
1:37
Speaker 1: virtue of his position on the show, our super producer,
1:42
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram would probably be And I don't want to
1:46
Speaker 1: pigeonhole you. Hear Casey our computer expert. You gotta have
1:49
Speaker 1: a hacker. Yeah, you know, it's actually funny. There was
1:51
Speaker 1: a character in one of the Grand Theft Auto games
1:53
Speaker 1: that reminded me a lot of Casey and Casey if
1:55
Speaker 1: you if you, if you take this as an insult,
1:57
Speaker 1: and you know the character I'm talking about, please don't,
1:59
Speaker 1: because I'm more talking to out his his very intelligent demeanor,
2:02
Speaker 1: not not not his look. He was a little bit
2:04
Speaker 1: of an odd looking fellow. But he's the guy that
2:06
Speaker 1: ran the warehouse where they planned all the heist and
2:08
Speaker 1: they had the big chalkboard and they you know, drew
2:10
Speaker 1: the maps and they had the Remember that guy. Yeah, Um,
2:13
Speaker 1: as long as you're not Trevor Phillips, Casey is he is?
2:18
Speaker 1: He like the meth head guy, uh, Trevor Trevor Phillips
2:22
Speaker 1: is the unhinged head guy. Yeah. He lived kind of
2:25
Speaker 1: out in the salt and Sea type area of of
2:28
Speaker 1: what's the name of the fake l a San Andreas. Uh. Yeah, well,
2:33
Speaker 1: I want to say there's definitely a sant Andreas. It's
2:35
Speaker 1: gotta be sant Andreas. I have a segue. It's actually
2:37
Speaker 1: gonna work here bad, all right, go for it. We're
2:39
Speaker 1: talking about video games. You ever heard of the Assassin's
2:41
Speaker 1: Creed video games? Yes? I played them all. Actually, is
2:44
Speaker 1: there is this one out? Yeah? I just saw this video.
2:45
Speaker 1: It's called Assassin's Creed something legacy or something, but it's
2:49
Speaker 1: agin or maybe it's about London gangs. Oh yeah, I
2:52
Speaker 1: don't know if that one's out yet. Okay. Then then
2:54
Speaker 1: I saw a preview of this game and it's about
2:57
Speaker 1: London gangs. And in this game, the topic of today's
3:01
Speaker 1: episode was paid homage to Oh Wonderfully. They talked about
3:05
Speaker 1: the forty Thieves, the Farty Thieves, the fart Elephants gang. Yeah. Yeah,
3:10
Speaker 1: remember the Gangs of New York. Wasn't there a gang
3:12
Speaker 1: called the Farty Thieves? Uh? And Irish gang Irish gang. Yeah,
3:16
Speaker 1: And just to be clear, we're saying four zero with
3:18
Speaker 1: an Irish acts and not not the flagelent Elephants or
3:21
Speaker 1: the Flatulent for the flatulent thieves. Yeah, that's awesome. I
3:25
Speaker 1: want to check that game out. I mean, have you
3:28
Speaker 1: played a Susands Degree before? I have not. Oh, it's
3:30
Speaker 1: it's funny, it can be repetitive at times. It's a
3:32
Speaker 1: mixture of some really cool fighting and then some at
3:36
Speaker 1: times incredibly frustrating jump around solve the puzzle sequences. Isn't
3:40
Speaker 1: there a lot of like stock kind of like from
3:42
Speaker 1: a distance, keep your distance and then moving for the
3:44
Speaker 1: kill kind of stuff? But I mean, who hasn't done
3:47
Speaker 1: that totally just in regular life. So so, there was
3:53
Speaker 1: a real life gang of thieves, jewel thieves specifically that
3:59
Speaker 1: we're known for their successful, very well planned out heist.
4:04
Speaker 1: They were active for more than two hundred years. See
4:07
Speaker 1: I thought that was a typo when I first saw
4:09
Speaker 1: it was someone added an extra zero, right, No, two
4:13
Speaker 1: hundred years. And this gang was made entirely of female criminals,
4:19
Speaker 1: operating out of the Elephant and Castle area of London,
4:23
Speaker 1: which I find to be a magnificently whimsical name for
4:27
Speaker 1: an area London, and you know the UK in general.
4:31
Speaker 1: They have they're very they have wonderful names for places
4:36
Speaker 1: in streets and neighborhoods. But I gotta say I'm not
4:39
Speaker 1: a fan of British names for food, probably just because
4:42
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up there, But like barley water, spotted dick,
4:46
Speaker 1: bubble and squeak bubble and squeak, bubble and squeak, isn't
4:49
Speaker 1: even that egregious, sounds like fun whatever it is. But
4:53
Speaker 1: barley water, that just that sounds like a punishment, right,
4:57
Speaker 1: I don't think it is not. I think it's It
5:00
Speaker 1: sounds like it would be a good euphemism for beer.
5:03
Speaker 1: But barley water is a um it's just boiled grain
5:07
Speaker 1: in water that hasn't you know, it still doesn't have alcohol.
5:11
Speaker 1: It seems like if there's no alcohol, why would you bother? Right,
5:13
Speaker 1: why would you bother consuming barley? So when when did
5:18
Speaker 1: the forty thieves really? When we're what were their glory days,
5:24
Speaker 1: we talked about that they were also called the forty Elephants. Yes, yeah,
5:27
Speaker 1: so that's that's what I'm going to refer to them
5:29
Speaker 1: as because they lived in this Elephant and Castle district.
5:32
Speaker 1: They were also they were self contained and they were
5:35
Speaker 1: an all female band of um heisters. I don't know
5:39
Speaker 1: what you want to call it, criminals, um, but they
5:41
Speaker 1: were backed up by another gang of kind of really
5:45
Speaker 1: rough and tumbled dudes who are the Elephant and Castle
5:48
Speaker 1: Gang and kind of like we're almost like their muscle um.
5:51
Speaker 1: But yeah, so they were active possibly as early as
5:56
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds, based on police records. A lot of
6:00
Speaker 1: this comes from a book called the Gangs of London
6:03
Speaker 1: by a guy named Brian McDonald, and he says that
6:07
Speaker 1: the forty Elephant gang um was probably the most active
6:11
Speaker 1: between the eighteen seventies and the nineteen fifties, but again
6:16
Speaker 1: go back as far as possibly the seventeen hundreds, right,
6:19
Speaker 1: they may have been operating without being recognized. Brian also,
6:23
Speaker 1: Brian McDonald also has a book specifically about the forty
6:27
Speaker 1: Elephants and one of their most notable leaders, who will
6:30
Speaker 1: get to in a moment, but the book is called
6:32
Speaker 1: Alice Diamond and the Forty Elephants. I appreciate that you
6:36
Speaker 1: mention the Elephant and Castle Mob. They were in a
6:39
Speaker 1: way the muscle. They were headed by these guys called
6:44
Speaker 1: the McDonald brothers, and while they were allied together, they
6:51
Speaker 1: differed widely in their methods. So the Elephant Castle Mob
6:55
Speaker 1: they were more kind of bruisers. But the forty the
7:00
Speaker 1: Eaves or the forty elephants were much more calculated in
7:04
Speaker 1: their crime. They would they would play the long game.
7:09
Speaker 1: At times, they would masquerade as housemaids for wealthy families.
7:14
Speaker 1: They would use false references and back up the references
7:17
Speaker 1: as well. And during the early twentieth century they were
7:22
Speaker 1: led by someone called Alice Diamond, known variously as the
7:27
Speaker 1: Queen of the forty Thieves or as Diamond Danny. That's
7:31
Speaker 1: the thing. Then. They were a very very militaristically run organization.
7:36
Speaker 1: From their inception, they operated in a series of like cells,
7:40
Speaker 1: almost like a terrorist group, and they always were led
7:42
Speaker 1: by a queen. This Annie Diamond was just kind of
7:45
Speaker 1: the most notorious and influential one. Yeah, that's correct. There
7:50
Speaker 1: were many because again this gang was active for around
7:54
Speaker 1: two hundred years, far surpassing the lifespan of the average
7:58
Speaker 1: person at the time. And in their heyday. It's strange
8:02
Speaker 1: because they were romanticized a bit by papers of the
8:07
Speaker 1: of the time. In one paper they were referred to
8:09
Speaker 1: as amazons, who were handsome women about six ft tall.
8:14
Speaker 1: We we can walk through maybe some of their methods
8:16
Speaker 1: because I know we made them sound like, uh, they
8:19
Speaker 1: only did disguise work, but that was that was just
8:22
Speaker 1: one of their many strategies for bilking people out of
8:27
Speaker 1: jewelry and valuables. They did a shoplifting method that is
8:31
Speaker 1: actually still common and in practice and parts of the
8:34
Speaker 1: world today, which is overpowering the store through the sheer
8:38
Speaker 1: volume of people participating. All of the gang members would
8:41
Speaker 1: rush into a store from various entrances, and then since
8:45
Speaker 1: there were too many people to apprehend, they would just
8:47
Speaker 1: grab everything they can and then they would flee out
8:50
Speaker 1: of the store, heading in multiple directions, knowing that not
8:54
Speaker 1: all of them could be caught. Not only that they
8:56
Speaker 1: had like reserve funds for when they had to bail
9:00
Speaker 1: out the one or two stragglers that did get caught,
9:02
Speaker 1: and they basically were considered like untouchable because they had
9:07
Speaker 1: deals running with the police. And this is a very
9:09
Speaker 1: corrupt period in English history. You have to remember. This
9:12
Speaker 1: is like on the tail end of the Industrial Revolution.
9:15
Speaker 1: Things were changing really really quickly, and it was kind
9:19
Speaker 1: of like just a free for all as far as
9:21
Speaker 1: these street gangs, of which there were many, and I
9:24
Speaker 1: just wanted to rattle off a few other ones in there.
9:26
Speaker 1: You know, in this part of the country is huge,
9:29
Speaker 1: You've got gangs like the Scuttlers, the High Rip Gang,
9:33
Speaker 1: the Peaky Blinders in Birmingham, you've got the cock Road
9:37
Speaker 1: Gang and other such amazingly absurd and beautiful names. Um.
9:41
Speaker 1: But the forty Elephants had an incredible reputation for being
9:48
Speaker 1: ruthless and being cunning and being, like I said before,
9:51
Speaker 1: practically untouchable because of the way they ran their operation
9:56
Speaker 1: in these cells and like you're saying, been the way
9:58
Speaker 1: they were able to kind of scatter. Yeah, kind of
10:02
Speaker 1: a hydra organization. Cut off one head and two will
10:07
Speaker 1: rise in its place. I don't think we mentioned that
10:11
Speaker 1: Diamond Annie was ruling during the interwar period, so she's
10:15
Speaker 1: around nineteen ten or the late nineteen tents, so World
10:21
Speaker 1: War one has already started. She and her lieutenant, baby
10:26
Speaker 1: Faced Maggie, which I love these nicknames. Everybody's got a
10:30
Speaker 1: great nickname. Uh. They're the ones who reputedly had the
10:35
Speaker 1: idea of partnering with the Elephants and Castle Mob to
10:41
Speaker 1: make sure that they had enforcers. There's an excellent article
10:45
Speaker 1: about this gang written by Amelia Hill for The Guardian
10:50
Speaker 1: called Girl Gangs Grip on London Underworld Revealed, and it
10:54
Speaker 1: dives into some of the work of Brian McDonald. But
10:58
Speaker 1: it also gives us a good context for the time
11:03
Speaker 1: in which this gang existed, or this this Glory Day era,
11:07
Speaker 1: because they were taking advantage of the misogynistic chauvinistic attitudes
11:13
Speaker 1: of the time. You know, people thought, oh, a woman
11:17
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly be a criminal if she's dressed well. Yeah,
11:20
Speaker 1: and I heard this somewhere, Ben and um, let me
11:23
Speaker 1: know if you did, or if you think this is
11:25
Speaker 1: complete lea bogus, But I heard that they sort of
11:28
Speaker 1: had an advantage because women weren't allowed to do very
11:32
Speaker 1: much on their own in this time. But one thing
11:35
Speaker 1: they were allowed to do was shop right on their own.
11:38
Speaker 1: And it may have even been that they were not
11:42
Speaker 1: paid as close attention to because of the fact, like
11:45
Speaker 1: you're saying that they're wearing nice clothes and that they're
11:47
Speaker 1: on their own, unaccompanied without a chaperone. You want to
11:50
Speaker 1: respect their privacy. You don't want to be forward in
11:54
Speaker 1: this very repressed age. So there were some upsides here
11:59
Speaker 1: which we can explore later. But there there are some
12:03
Speaker 1: other organizational things that they were very talented at. They
12:08
Speaker 1: had their own territory like most gangs do, but they
12:12
Speaker 1: demanded a percentage of all crimes committed in their territory.
12:18
Speaker 1: So if there's another gang, will make up a gang.
12:20
Speaker 1: Let's say the Devin rye On Sandwich gang steals uh something.
12:25
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what they steal, they still get winded,
12:28
Speaker 1: they still hats yeah, and then the forty thieves or
12:30
Speaker 1: the forty elephants find out about it, they will demand
12:34
Speaker 1: a percentage from that haberdasher's robbery because it happened on
12:39
Speaker 1: their turf. And then if someone refused to pay up
12:42
Speaker 1: get a bit too big for their bridges or perhaps
12:45
Speaker 1: their trousers, then the gang would send their elephant and
12:50
Speaker 1: castle mob to beat the snot out of them or
12:54
Speaker 1: kidnap their notable members or their family members until their
12:58
Speaker 1: percentage was paid. And that's to say that the female
13:01
Speaker 1: members of this gang weren't bruisers in and of themselves.
13:05
Speaker 1: Diamond Annie, for example, got her name because she had
13:08
Speaker 1: a fistful of diamond rings that if she clocked you
13:11
Speaker 1: in the face with you probably lose an eye or
13:14
Speaker 1: you know, you would not be doing very well. And
13:17
Speaker 1: they were known for wriggling out of tight situations with
13:21
Speaker 1: the law with violent methods. They'd carry blackjacks, straight razors,
13:25
Speaker 1: and all kinds of concealed weapons. But for the big stuff,
13:29
Speaker 1: like you said, the door to door, you know, give
13:31
Speaker 1: give us our what do you call it? Are big
13:33
Speaker 1: or whatever you know? Or like the what do they
13:35
Speaker 1: call in the Sopranos when they getting collections right and
13:38
Speaker 1: going to the door, they sent left that to the
13:41
Speaker 1: big burly dudes. Yeah, there might also be the matter
13:44
Speaker 1: of protection fees or something like that, exactly. They also
13:49
Speaker 1: did something that may surprise people. They diversified their crime,
13:55
Speaker 1: which makes it more ma FiOS and less just street
14:00
Speaker 1: they were. They were very into blackmailing men, seducing married
14:07
Speaker 1: men or men of note, and then forcing them to
14:10
Speaker 1: pay either a huge lump sum or a continuing almost
14:15
Speaker 1: the service fee not to reveal their carnal predilections. Yeah,
14:20
Speaker 1: and we're kind of leaning on some of the most
14:22
Speaker 1: well known members of this gang, like Diamond Annie In particularly,
14:25
Speaker 1: Like you said, I mean that book um that McDonald
14:28
Speaker 1: wrote focuses a lot on her. But there's a lot
14:31
Speaker 1: of periods in this gang history that we don't know
14:34
Speaker 1: a whole lot about other than that they did exist
14:37
Speaker 1: right right, because they were also successful at functioning away
14:42
Speaker 1: from the spotlight. It's weird because for almost two hundred years,
14:48
Speaker 1: you know, they were playing a very dangerous game. If
14:50
Speaker 1: any of them were caught, they could be sentenced to
14:53
Speaker 1: somewhere between three and twelve months hard labor or three
14:57
Speaker 1: years in prison and hard labor. At the time, and
15:00
Speaker 1: we've talked about this on previous episodes, was absolutely no joke.
15:04
Speaker 1: You know, you're like, what is it. You're unraveling rope.
15:07
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things you had to do, uh,
15:10
Speaker 1: you digging ditches. And despite these high risk and these
15:14
Speaker 1: serious consequences, a lot of the gang members, maybe even
15:18
Speaker 1: the majority, were long timers. Maggie Hughes or baby Face.
15:21
Speaker 1: Maggie had shoplifting convictions that went back to the age
15:25
Speaker 1: of fourteen. And when these as as I think we
15:30
Speaker 1: said earlier, when these women or members of the gang
15:33
Speaker 1: were caught, they did have their own independent support systems.
15:38
Speaker 1: So your family members or your you know, your dependence
15:43
Speaker 1: would be taken care of, or they would help you
15:46
Speaker 1: fight the system get out of jail. But another I
15:50
Speaker 1: like that you mentioned the fact that there were many
15:53
Speaker 1: other people who were lost to history that were members
15:56
Speaker 1: of this gang. We know a few. There's for example,
15:58
Speaker 1: Adah Wellman, who was convicted of shoplifting from army and
16:03
Speaker 1: navy stores in Victorian ne and she was we know
16:09
Speaker 1: she was still an active member of the gang almost
16:11
Speaker 1: twenty years later because she shows up in police reports
16:15
Speaker 1: eighteen years after her arrest when she got jailed for
16:19
Speaker 1: four months due to another crime. So these are career criminals.
16:23
Speaker 1: It's not like a side job. It's it doesn't sound
16:27
Speaker 1: like they were doing that thing so common in heist
16:29
Speaker 1: movies where we'd say, you know, Casey Noel, let's get
16:34
Speaker 1: the gang back together for one last score. No, this
16:37
Speaker 1: is a premise score. This is a life. I mean,
16:39
Speaker 1: this is a generational thing. If we're talking about two
16:41
Speaker 1: hundred years of this, um, I'm going to call it
16:43
Speaker 1: an organization because that's clearly what it was, and it
16:46
Speaker 1: was maintained that way for quite a long time. You know,
16:50
Speaker 1: this this stuff, these tricks of the trade would be
16:52
Speaker 1: passed down, you know, like I mean, it's it's really fascinating.
17:00
Speaker 1: So they had one, I guess, great problem that any
17:06
Speaker 1: shoplifting network will run into if they are successful, And
17:10
Speaker 1: the problem was had abundance of stolen riches. What how
17:14
Speaker 1: do they get rid of this? How do they take
17:17
Speaker 1: something that they have stolen, for instance, a unique piece
17:20
Speaker 1: of jewelry right, or very high quality clothing and translate
17:25
Speaker 1: that into cold, hard cash. This meant they had to
17:29
Speaker 1: create a distribution network so that they would you know,
17:34
Speaker 1: because if they stole something and then just waited a
17:37
Speaker 1: week and started wearing those clothes or selling diamonds on
17:41
Speaker 1: the street, boom, They're back to hard labor again. So
17:44
Speaker 1: they instead relied on a network of fences and then
17:48
Speaker 1: unaffiliated street market traders and of course pawn shops. So
17:53
Speaker 1: part of the clothing they stole would be just sold
17:57
Speaker 1: to a clothing store. In the clothing store just to
18:00
Speaker 1: make some scratch, all they would do is replace the labels,
18:04
Speaker 1: so you would say, oh, that's not a Hertfordshire Blackfoot boost,
18:10
Speaker 1: I'm just making Some were close though. I think one
18:12
Speaker 1: of the big stories they robbed had a very similar
18:14
Speaker 1: name to that. And just like the gang itself, this network,
18:18
Speaker 1: while being fluid, also prospered for a long time. The
18:22
Speaker 1: forty Thieves seem to have been at their glory days
18:26
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, so that's why
18:30
Speaker 1: we know uh so much about Alice Diamond or Diamond
18:35
Speaker 1: Annie the woman with the punch to be aware of. Oh,
18:39
Speaker 1: I guess we could talk a little bit about her
18:40
Speaker 1: background if you want, just briefly. Oh, we absolutely should.
18:43
Speaker 1: Ben By Dad dude, just want to point out the
18:45
Speaker 1: names of some of the biggest retail stores in London
18:47
Speaker 1: on the high Street that they hit. It was because
18:50
Speaker 1: you made up a beautiful one and it made me
18:52
Speaker 1: think of it wasn't that far off, Ben, We've got
18:54
Speaker 1: Debonham and Freebody. Oh what do they sell? You know,
18:57
Speaker 1: Ladies Lingerie is more of a department store still at all,
19:03
Speaker 1: you know, it's just sort of like a like a
19:05
Speaker 1: serious type situation imag department department store kind of Herod's exactly. Okay,
19:11
Speaker 1: So since we are lucky enough to know a little
19:14
Speaker 1: bit about the notorious Alice Diamond, let's let's look into
19:19
Speaker 1: her background. She was born in eighteen nine six in
19:23
Speaker 1: June of eight in Lambeth Workhouse Hospital, and Diamond was
19:29
Speaker 1: her real name. It wasn't just a cool moniker. Her
19:32
Speaker 1: father was named Thomas Diamond. Her parents had applied for
19:36
Speaker 1: a maternity birth under the name of Black before they
19:39
Speaker 1: married because at the time, Alice would have been an
19:43
Speaker 1: illegitimate child because she had been born out of wedlock. However,
19:47
Speaker 1: since they decided instead to marry shortly before Alice was
19:51
Speaker 1: born to avoid the problem. Her father had at least
19:55
Speaker 1: three criminal convictions, including one where he assaulted the son
20:00
Speaker 1: the Lord Mayor of London by punching his head through
20:02
Speaker 1: a pane of glass in a door, and Alice turned
20:07
Speaker 1: out to be the eldest of seven children. One of
20:10
Speaker 1: her younger sisters also joined the Forty Thieves gang, and
20:15
Speaker 1: one of her brothers, Tommy, became a member of the
20:18
Speaker 1: Elephant and Castle Gang. Ben, Can I just point out
20:21
Speaker 1: really quick then that I have seen it as Alice
20:24
Speaker 1: and also Annie. Yes, yeah, just real quick, because I
20:27
Speaker 1: was confused for a second. I was about to cop
20:29
Speaker 1: to uh to saying the wrong name. That now I'm
20:32
Speaker 1: looking back over our sources and it's definitely said. Both
20:35
Speaker 1: are said. Like many criminals, she added Ann and Alice
20:39
Speaker 1: to her name, or referred to herself as that multiple
20:41
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense. It's like an alias, so she can
20:44
Speaker 1: there you go, just like sometimes I'll be Max Powers
20:47
Speaker 1: astronaut with a secret or Chris from Boston, who again
20:50
Speaker 1: is retired. We mentioned him on a previous episode. People
20:53
Speaker 1: love Chris from Boston. He just, you know, the brightest
20:57
Speaker 1: lights shine briefest. So here's to you. Chris's sad. It's good,
21:02
Speaker 1: It's it's okay. We've got to move on, you know,
21:05
Speaker 1: circle of life and all that, as far as aliases
21:07
Speaker 1: and ak s go. Alice's or Anne's criminal career began
21:12
Speaker 1: in nineteen twelve because she was caught stealing chocolate. In
21:19
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, she was officially named the Queen of the
21:23
Speaker 1: Forty Thieves. The previous queen was someone named Mary Carr,
21:28
Speaker 1: also known as Polly car. But we don't know a
21:33
Speaker 1: ton of stuff about Mary. We mostly know when it
21:37
Speaker 1: goes to who was the Queen of the forty Thieves,
21:39
Speaker 1: we mostly know about Alice or Anne. And when you
21:43
Speaker 1: think about it, it sounds like a swashbuckling life, or
21:47
Speaker 1: it sounds like a maybe a romanticized thing. But it
21:51
Speaker 1: was a brutal life. And they believed that the only
21:55
Speaker 1: alternative to this would be a crushing existence in poverty,
22:01
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, or possibly crushed under the
22:03
Speaker 1: thumb of some man. And they did live it up.
22:07
Speaker 1: They were well known for their parties. They would really
22:11
Speaker 1: throw down at pubs and social clubs. And I think
22:15
Speaker 1: the fact that they also because of their reputation, I
22:18
Speaker 1: would imagine they were allowed and permitted to do things
22:20
Speaker 1: that you know, other women would not be because people
22:24
Speaker 1: were scared of them and they didn't want to like
22:26
Speaker 1: raise up right, because that wouldn't have been proper for
22:29
Speaker 1: a group of women to have a big old, you know,
22:32
Speaker 1: drunken to do right. And then also gives them some support.
22:37
Speaker 1: That kind of lifestyle gives them some support in parts
22:40
Speaker 1: of the population, right because you know, if the forty
22:45
Speaker 1: thieves or the forty elephants are coming to the restaurant
22:48
Speaker 1: or the club or something, that it's gonna be a
22:50
Speaker 1: wild night. I mean you can part You might get
22:54
Speaker 1: blackmailed later, but you could party right. I mean, they
22:56
Speaker 1: were getting the equivalent, the equivalent of like bottle service.
23:00
Speaker 1: You know, they were really really dropping some some cash.
23:04
Speaker 1: And we do have to thank McDonald. We can't think
23:07
Speaker 1: of it enough because Brian McDonald uncovered a lot of
23:12
Speaker 1: this previously unknown information by hitting the bricks, scouring official
23:17
Speaker 1: birth and death records, perusing marriage indexes. UH local newspaper
23:24
Speaker 1: reports hunting down out of print books at the British
23:27
Speaker 1: Library to read contemporary accounts, and everything he found was verified.
23:34
Speaker 1: There's there's a thing where like imagine you grow up
23:38
Speaker 1: in a very impoverished situation and you say, well, I
23:42
Speaker 1: can slave away at a minimum wage job until I
23:46
Speaker 1: get ill, at which point I have to be consigned
23:48
Speaker 1: to the poorhouse or workhouse or something and probably die
23:52
Speaker 1: early of a disease that may well have been preventable.
23:56
Speaker 1: Or I can break social norms. I cannot only become
24:01
Speaker 1: a criminal, but I can do it well. According to McDonald,
24:05
Speaker 1: they idolized glamorous movie stars and the decadent living of
24:09
Speaker 1: the nineties flapper society. So they read about the the scandalous,
24:15
Speaker 1: salacious behavior of people born into privilege or celebrity, and
24:19
Speaker 1: they wanted to emulate them in a way. It's in
24:21
Speaker 1: a way it is very similar to the stories we
24:26
Speaker 1: hear now about modern drug dealers. You know. I mean,
24:30
Speaker 1: Atlanta is full of strip club They want the chains,
24:33
Speaker 1: they want the grills, they want all this stuff, the
24:35
Speaker 1: status symbols or whatever. But ultimately they're living a very
24:38
Speaker 1: risky and potentially short existence in order to have those things.
24:43
Speaker 1: Did I ever tell you about that excellent freakonomics report
24:48
Speaker 1: that broke down how much per hour drug dealers actually
24:52
Speaker 1: make on average. You were saying it wasn't great. No,
24:55
Speaker 1: it's the op unless you're like the distributor or whatever. Yeah,
24:59
Speaker 1: the high level individual that's really pulling the strings. That's
25:02
Speaker 1: where you know, make the big money. Right, it's a
25:04
Speaker 1: it's a very unfairly distributed hierarchy typically, So if you
25:10
Speaker 1: want to learn more about that, and it is tangentially
25:13
Speaker 1: related to this episode, but it's it's fascinating information. Nonetheless,
25:17
Speaker 1: I'd like to recommend a TED talk by the author
25:21
Speaker 1: Stephen Levitt, who presents the data he found on the
25:25
Speaker 1: finances of drug dealing. These folks are not living the
25:29
Speaker 1: high life. It is much more. Um, what's the best
25:33
Speaker 1: way to say it. No, it's just terrible. There's not
25:35
Speaker 1: a good way to say it. It's it's a terrible,
25:37
Speaker 1: terrible life. Don't sell drugs. I mean, if you're looking
25:40
Speaker 1: to make a lot of money off of it, don't
25:42
Speaker 1: expect to. Well, how about performing a very organized cell
25:47
Speaker 1: based gang and doing smashing grabs for a living. That
25:51
Speaker 1: would be there's an interesting topic there too, Knel, because
25:54
Speaker 1: that would be much more difficult, at least here in
25:57
Speaker 1: the US in the modern day, and definitely in the
26:00
Speaker 1: United Kingdom. The United Kingdom for a few years running
26:03
Speaker 1: now has had the largest amount of closed circuit television
26:07
Speaker 1: cameras CCTV cameras per capita, I believe, in the world.
26:13
Speaker 1: So you're much more likely to get caught on film, right.
26:17
Speaker 1: You're also much more easy to track if you have
26:21
Speaker 1: a cell phone, since we all have those GPS locators
26:24
Speaker 1: on our phones. It was easier to get away with
26:27
Speaker 1: crime back then. Oh absolutely, I mean like that, it
26:30
Speaker 1: was just rampant. I can't imagine who who would want
26:32
Speaker 1: to go into business. Have you seen the ballot of
26:35
Speaker 1: buster scrugs yet? Yeah, I've seen it, seen it several times.
26:38
Speaker 1: It makes me think of the bank teller kind of
26:40
Speaker 1: situation where you're just constantly on the ready with like
26:43
Speaker 1: guns loaded and pointed at every potential person that's going
26:47
Speaker 1: to walk on that door and rob you. I would
26:49
Speaker 1: just think that some of these shopkeepers must have been
26:51
Speaker 1: quite foolish for at least a minute, you know, with
26:54
Speaker 1: to to allow this kind of stuff to keep happening.
26:57
Speaker 1: I don't know, I wonder it well. And also what
26:59
Speaker 1: can you do if you have if you have a
27:02
Speaker 1: small shop, are you supposed to continually employ five people
27:07
Speaker 1: just for security on the off chance that something happens
27:10
Speaker 1: one day? I mean, you're throwing money in a hole
27:13
Speaker 1: until the robbery happens, and maybe wondering, well, Ben, well, no, well, casey,
27:26
Speaker 1: this sounds like quite an adventure and it would make
27:28
Speaker 1: for a great film, Like you guys are doing a
27:32
Speaker 1: history show. Are the forty elephants still around today? No? No,
27:37
Speaker 1: they're not. And then again, you don't even really hear
27:39
Speaker 1: much about them at all until this book came out.
27:42
Speaker 1: But in the mid twenties, there was a member of
27:45
Speaker 1: the gang named Marie Britton who kind of on her own.
27:49
Speaker 1: Through her actions in this kind of chain of events
27:53
Speaker 1: led to the dissolution of this crime dynasty. I'm gonna
27:56
Speaker 1: call it, to go so far as to call it dynasty.
27:59
Speaker 1: I think it's a dynasty. Um, so, yeah, she had
28:02
Speaker 1: fallen for a dude who was not a part of
28:06
Speaker 1: this CD underworld, and you know, it's a network and
28:10
Speaker 1: it's sort of like West Side Story, you know, where
28:12
Speaker 1: it's like the Jets and the Sharks or whatever. You
28:14
Speaker 1: fall in love with a shark. It's not okay with
28:17
Speaker 1: the Jets, right, it was a little different. This person
28:19
Speaker 1: was neither a shark nor a jet. This person was
28:21
Speaker 1: outside of the world entirely. They were a square of
28:24
Speaker 1: civilian exactly because Marie had fallen in love with uh,
28:30
Speaker 1: someone outside of London's underworld. She had also broken one
28:34
Speaker 1: of the gang's many internal rules thou shalt not date
28:39
Speaker 1: a square. So she was called up to see Alice
28:43
Speaker 1: and baby Face Maggie, and Marie was scared. She brought
28:47
Speaker 1: along her father to protect her as her own muscle essentially,
28:52
Speaker 1: and they, you know, we can speculate on the the
28:56
Speaker 1: essence of their conversation. Alice and Maggie say, hey, you've
28:59
Speaker 1: got to drop this guy. He's lame. He's not in
29:02
Speaker 1: the he's not one of us. It's not one of us.
29:05
Speaker 1: He's not in our our crime sororities or affiliated crime
29:09
Speaker 1: fraternity e's and Marie says, no, I'm not gonna do it,
29:14
Speaker 1: at which point Maggie whips out her aforementioned straight razor
29:18
Speaker 1: and attacks Marie's father and they escape. Marie and her
29:22
Speaker 1: father managed to escape, but Alice is not gonna let
29:26
Speaker 1: this go. Alice sounds like a real tough cookie. She's
29:30
Speaker 1: not not for the for the better necessarily. I mean,
29:33
Speaker 1: I guess if she's she's the kind of person you
29:35
Speaker 1: probably want in your corner. But if you make an
29:37
Speaker 1: enemy of her, she she's gonna come at you with
29:39
Speaker 1: a straight razor, right, and she's gonna come to your
29:43
Speaker 1: house and start hurling rocks through the windows, uh and
29:46
Speaker 1: then force entry into the home and search, um manically
29:51
Speaker 1: for you. I'm I'm speaking of myself as though I
29:55
Speaker 1: were Marie uh and and my father, and they're you know,
29:59
Speaker 1: gonna ransack the play, um and in doing this attract
30:02
Speaker 1: the attention of the police because they became a riot
30:07
Speaker 1: basically not not stinging the police. They weren't on the
30:12
Speaker 1: scene yet. So what what happens? What happens? Well, I mean,
30:15
Speaker 1: they slashed their way through this house looking for Marie
30:19
Speaker 1: and her father and ended up injuring some of the
30:22
Speaker 1: other folks that were around, and the cops came. The
30:25
Speaker 1: fuzz showed out because this is a whole mel a,
30:27
Speaker 1: you know, and um, the ringleader of the forty Elephants,
30:33
Speaker 1: Alice Diamonds Diamond, Alice Annie Diamonds Diamond, Annie was it
30:38
Speaker 1: was arrested and it didn't go well for her, No,
30:41
Speaker 1: it didn't. They went to trial. They were easily convicted
30:47
Speaker 1: Alice and Maggie. That is because you know, this is
30:50
Speaker 1: baby face Maggie, baby face Maggie, because they clearly did this.
30:54
Speaker 1: But the prosecution, despite the fact there were multiple members
30:58
Speaker 1: of the gang attacking Marie's house, the prosecution only convicted
31:03
Speaker 1: or only even charged Alice and Maggie because you see,
31:07
Speaker 1: according to the rumors in the speculation, certain gentlemen in
31:11
Speaker 1: high places of society did not want the details of
31:15
Speaker 1: the black mail activities to come to light. So maybe
31:20
Speaker 1: we can conjecture with a fair amount of certitude, maybe
31:24
Speaker 1: there were a couple of people in the government or
31:27
Speaker 1: high in business who said, look, you can convict the
31:30
Speaker 1: two ringleaders, but Um Graytooth Desdemona can't go to court,
31:37
Speaker 1: my wife can't find out. That's right. And you know, subsequently,
31:42
Speaker 1: there was a vacuum left behind because Annie Diamond, Annie Diamond,
31:46
Speaker 1: Alice whatever you wanna call her, the Diamonds, that um
31:51
Speaker 1: was put away and sentenced to hard labor for how
31:53
Speaker 1: many years? Well, let's see, she was imprisoned in nineteen
31:57
Speaker 1: twenty five and the power vacuum has has a pretty
32:03
Speaker 1: swift effect on the gang. By n thirty, they're falling
32:08
Speaker 1: out of power, but people are still claiming membership of
32:11
Speaker 1: the gang, and they're still shoplifting up into the nineteen fifties.
32:16
Speaker 1: But it sure seems like Diamond Annie is the one
32:19
Speaker 1: who kind of had that iron fisted control over the
32:23
Speaker 1: organization to the point where they existed almost as a
32:26
Speaker 1: central power in the London crime world. So when she
32:30
Speaker 1: went away, it kind of reverted back to this more
32:32
Speaker 1: petty fevery and they sort of lost their grip on
32:36
Speaker 1: the underworld in general, right, right, And by the nineteen
32:42
Speaker 1: fifties the gang had just lost too much power. Maggie
32:48
Speaker 1: Hill ended up dying in nineteen forty nine. Don't know
32:53
Speaker 1: where she was buried, but her best friend was Alice Diamond, obviously,
33:00
Speaker 1: And who's the in Casino? Is it Joe Pesci? Who's
33:04
Speaker 1: the wild card hys character? Okay, so Maggie Hill, by
33:09
Speaker 1: way of comparison, is kind of the Joe Pesci of
33:12
Speaker 1: this group, And there's not really Robert de Niro. If
33:16
Speaker 1: there is, it's Alice. But she in court attempted to
33:20
Speaker 1: attack members of the Court during the trial with a
33:24
Speaker 1: pen who knows, who knows. She was like a like
33:28
Speaker 1: a real life cartoon Tasmanian devil. But I also read
33:32
Speaker 1: that she did not keep her composure when sentenced, that
33:36
Speaker 1: she freaked out and like oh yeah, but like got
33:39
Speaker 1: really upset. Was not stoic at all. It was very
33:41
Speaker 1: like emotional and railed against the court. Yes, probably because
33:47
Speaker 1: she saw more than a few people associated with their
33:51
Speaker 1: crime ring in court. On the other side, they're pious
33:55
Speaker 1: wigs on. We know that Alice Diamond passed the A
34:00
Speaker 1: in a place called Southwark, close to the eastle Market
34:05
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty two. So this gang pretty much pretty
34:12
Speaker 1: much exposed. It's death Knell is the last imprisonment, and
34:15
Speaker 1: then later the death of Diamond Dallas or Diamond. And
34:19
Speaker 1: and that's not to say gangs don't continue in London today,
34:24
Speaker 1: Oh no, for sure, but it's you know what the
34:26
Speaker 1: thing about London too is you always hear about how
34:29
Speaker 1: gangs there don't use there's not as much gun violence
34:32
Speaker 1: because they're a lot harder to get. So you gotta
34:34
Speaker 1: wonder if like the gang culture has kind of like
34:37
Speaker 1: been influenced by this more kind of crafty gang culture
34:41
Speaker 1: where it's more about like figuring stuff out and and
34:44
Speaker 1: being sharp on your feet, you know what I mean,
34:46
Speaker 1: as opposed to just like running in and blasting up
34:48
Speaker 1: the place. Because you just don't hear about a lot
34:49
Speaker 1: of gun violence in London, not not near as much
34:52
Speaker 1: as there is in the US or some other countries.
34:55
Speaker 1: But knives we have to keep in mind. One of
34:57
Speaker 1: my old instructors used to always try to hammer this
35:00
Speaker 1: into our heads that knives up close are more dangerous
35:03
Speaker 1: than gotten so they they're probably walking around with some blades,
35:08
Speaker 1: a blade or two. That's what I'm saying, though, to
35:10
Speaker 1: wheeld a knife, you gotta be a little more brave
35:14
Speaker 1: and a little more clever, and I'll have a little
35:16
Speaker 1: more training kind of you know, you gotta know what
35:18
Speaker 1: to do with it. Well said, Well said, And for
35:20
Speaker 1: the record, I agree. So I guess I'm saying, way
35:23
Speaker 1: to go London crime world at a little less lazy.
35:28
Speaker 1: I don't know if I if I agree with that,
35:31
Speaker 1: of man, It's it's true though, while gangs still exist
35:36
Speaker 1: and even thrive in some parts of London, there's not
35:40
Speaker 1: really at this moment in time, something like the forty Elephants,
35:46
Speaker 1: unless you want to say the banking cartels or gangs,
35:49
Speaker 1: but they robbed people in a different way very much.
35:52
Speaker 1: Do you like how I had to walk around the
35:53
Speaker 1: block to throw that little piece of shade in it?
35:56
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, man, the city of London and what
35:58
Speaker 1: it's sketchy, the whole sketchy. But that is the story
36:03
Speaker 1: of the forty Thieves, the forty Elephants, Alice Diamond Diamond,
36:07
Speaker 1: Alice Annie Diamonds, Diamond Annie, the all female crime syndicate
36:14
Speaker 1: or dynasty which we think is appropriate here, who ran
36:18
Speaker 1: shoplifting and somehow got away with it for almost two centuries.
36:23
Speaker 1: I want to see their like internal records, you know,
36:29
Speaker 1: for that two years, Like I want to see the
36:31
Speaker 1: turnover of like who who was in charge? If any
36:33
Speaker 1: of that was on paper, it probably wasn't It was
36:35
Speaker 1: probably all just like oral. I wonder, yeah, because it's
36:40
Speaker 1: it's a huge liability to have that laund but it's
36:44
Speaker 1: prestigious and it would be It would also really help
36:46
Speaker 1: out Marnie Dickens, who as of seventeen was developing a
36:52
Speaker 1: series on the Forty Elephants for Forty Thieves for the BBC,
36:56
Speaker 1: and it has the potential to be a Peaky Blind
37:00
Speaker 1: Jers kind of thing. Did you ever see that show?
37:01
Speaker 1: I started watching and I watched the first season and
37:04
Speaker 1: I like it. Yeah, I saw I guess all the
37:06
Speaker 1: first episode and I started wondering whether I should also
37:11
Speaker 1: carry a razor around in my hat. Our boss Connall
37:14
Speaker 1: really likes it a lot. I could see that. That's
37:16
Speaker 1: classic Connal. Have you ever seen Peaky Blinder's casey No,
37:20
Speaker 1: I don't think I've even heard of it. It Scott
37:22
Speaker 1: Silly and Murphy in it. It's about a gang in Ireland.
37:26
Speaker 1: I want to say, though, right, wasn't an Irish gang
37:28
Speaker 1: like around the same time in the early twenties. Um,
37:32
Speaker 1: I don't know that they were around for two years though?
37:34
Speaker 1: So would you would you guys watch a show based
37:37
Speaker 1: on this, uh this crime Syndicate? Yes? I would too.
37:41
Speaker 1: I'm wondering who they would cast. Let us know who
37:44
Speaker 1: you think would play an excellent Alice or Annie Diamond?
37:48
Speaker 1: And who is unhinged enough to be a baby face
37:51
Speaker 1: Maggie in your book? You know how I could pictures
37:53
Speaker 1: being baby face Maggie. Who's that? Um? Melissa McCarthy, like
37:58
Speaker 1: she's got some acting shot Man. She does all these
38:01
Speaker 1: kind of goofy comedy movies. But I I think she's
38:04
Speaker 1: got the she got the range. I think she's got
38:06
Speaker 1: it man. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I'm gonna I'm
38:09
Speaker 1: gonna think about this and come back. It is the
38:12
Speaker 1: end of the episode, which means that if we are
38:14
Speaker 1: still carrying on this tradition, my friend, it is time
38:17
Speaker 1: for us to give a comic book recommendation or two. Wow,
38:20
Speaker 1: we're gonna keep them keep going with this. Huh, well,
38:22
Speaker 1: we said we would, we give it a shot. I
38:24
Speaker 1: like it. Have you read Saga? Yes, by Brian Cavan.
38:28
Speaker 1: I've only read a little bit of it, And again,
38:29
Speaker 1: I'm not as much of a comic head as you are,
38:32
Speaker 1: but I have enough of an idea of what's out
38:35
Speaker 1: there to give a recommendation for a couple episodes. But yeah,
38:38
Speaker 1: check out Saga by Brian Cavan. He Uh, it's sort
38:41
Speaker 1: of a sci fi star crossed space adventure. Was that
38:45
Speaker 1: in a good way of a frank Yeah, that's great. Yeah,
38:48
Speaker 1: it breaks a lot of genre rules. I think you'll
38:51
Speaker 1: really enjoy it. He also wrote Why the Last Man,
38:54
Speaker 1: which I did read every moment of About the Last Man?
38:57
Speaker 1: On Earth after a disease kind of wipes out male
39:00
Speaker 1: population and this one dude still around everyone else's female.
39:03
Speaker 1: That's a good recommendation for this episode. Actually, um, that
39:06
Speaker 1: was actually my way. Oh no, my bad. I only
39:09
Speaker 1: said it because this and I believe that's being adapted
39:13
Speaker 1: into a big old series right right right, And for
39:16
Speaker 1: people who have yet to read it, this won't spoil
39:19
Speaker 1: in anything. There is a character in Why the Last
39:23
Speaker 1: Man named Agent three fifty five, and that comes from
39:28
Speaker 1: a real and mysterious part of early US history. So
39:32
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about the real life
39:34
Speaker 1: Agent three, check out our other shows. Stuff. They don't
39:38
Speaker 1: want you to know. That was just recent one. Yeah yeah, yeah,
39:42
Speaker 1: And I don't want to ruin it, but check it
39:44
Speaker 1: out please. Uh. And in the meantime, always always want
39:49
Speaker 1: to thank Casey Pegram, our superproducer. I don't know where
39:52
Speaker 1: we'd be without you. We would we would sound like fools,
39:54
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Um, So thank you to Casey, Thank
39:57
Speaker 1: you to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Yes, and
40:00
Speaker 1: thank you to Christopher hasiotis our research associate for this episode.
40:05
Speaker 1: Thanks also to our other research associates, Eaves and Gabe,
40:09
Speaker 1: Thank you knowl and thank you for listening. Folks. Hope
40:13
Speaker 1: this I don't know. I don't want to say. I
40:16
Speaker 1: hope this inspires people because I don't want us to
40:19
Speaker 1: get characterized as the inspiration behind a new gang of
40:23
Speaker 1: jewel thieves. You know what you do, you people out there,
40:25
Speaker 1: whatever you think me to be the change you want
40:27
Speaker 1: to see in the world. So also let us know
40:30
Speaker 1: if you have found a story of another crime ring
40:37
Speaker 1: this successful, because regardless of your opinions about the internal
40:41
Speaker 1: workings or the consequences or their own strategies, there's no
40:45
Speaker 1: arguing with it. They were very, very successful. You can
40:49
Speaker 1: tell us about this on Instagram. You can find us
40:51
Speaker 1: on Twitter. You can visit us on Facebook, where we'd
40:55
Speaker 1: love to introduce you to your fellow Ridiculous historians on
40:58
Speaker 1: our community page ridicul Hillis Historians