A gang of three shopliftering three sisters operated in Stamford on market days. There were many such gangs in London the victorian era. The fashion for long, voluminous skirts and cloaks made for easy concealment.
“Shocking cases of shop-lifting by three sisters, daughters of a man at Edithweston, and all married women, were investigated at the Town-hall in Stamford on Monday and Tuesday last, as noticed in another column of our paper. It seemed that the three women, residing in parishes several miles apart, have long been in the habit of meeting at Stamford on market days, and, dressed in large cloaks, going together to drapers’ shops, and stealing whatever articles they could secrete amongst them. They were all three in the shop of Mr. Knight in the afternoon of Friday, last, when one of them, named Webber, of Baston, was detected in stealing a roll of cotton print; and other stolen goods (as well belonging to Mr. Knight, as to Mr. Brown, draper) were found upon her. Her two sisters (Woods, or Collyweston, and Broughton, of Edithweston) escaped from the shop before the relationship was known, but joining Webber afterwards when she was in custody at the station-house, sufficient passed between them to authorise their detention also, and warrants were granted to search the houses of their husbands. At Baston and at Edithweston an immense quantity of drapery goods of all descriptions were found concealed under beds and in boxes. Woods, being far advanced in pregnancy, was allowed to go home on Friday evening before the search-warrant was executed at Collyweston, and nothing was afterwards found there; but from confession since made, in which each sister charges the others, it seems that all three were in the habit of partaking of the plunder, which in one instance consisted of a whole piece of linen cloth, containing 68 yards and weighing more more than 30 lbs! this they stole from the door of Mr. Brown, in the High-street, in the middle of a Friday. The practice was, after stealing goods, to go together to a public convenience under the market portico, and there to make a dividion of them, each sister taking a share, or selecting articles of most use to her. – The scene at the Town-hall on Tuesday night, when the women ascertained that each had separetly made a confession implicating the others, can hardly be conceived. Each attributed to the ill counsel of her sisters her own criminality, and one laid her melancholy situation to the want of care of her education and habits of a dissolute father! They were all committed to gaol, for trial at the quarter sessions in April. – Besides drapery goods, stolen shoes, ironmongery, and other articles were found on executing the search-warrants.”
The Stamford Mercury, 23rd February, 1838.
The trial of the three sisters was later reported and also another woman who stole from her employer.
“All the four women tried at Stamford sessions on Saturday last were sentenced to transportation. The three shop-lifting sisters, from Baston, Collyweston, and Edith Weston, were all married women, and one of them has a family of six children: there were 17 indictments against them. – Against Frances Elsom, for robbery at Mr. Lumby’s in St., Martin’s, where she lived as servant, there were four indictments: the plunder she has committed is supposed to be the extent of more that a thousand pounds! about half of which has been recovered by the representatives of Mrs. Holman. On the day before her trial, Elsom made an assignemnt of her property to a person at Stretton, in Rutland, on whgose premises some of the stolen articles were found secreted, when the chief-constable of Stamfor executed a search-warrant on Friday afternoon. The most melancholy proof arising from this trial is, of the facility with which the convict found persons to purchase and to conceal stolen property of all kinds.”
The Stamford Mercury, 13th April, 1838.