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Bonneville, Alexander [alias Richard the Englishman] (d. 1336), criminal, was named from the Surrey village of Godstone, in the diocese of Winchester, from which he fled to France in 1335. His antecedents are otherwise unknown. He knew French, and the name by which he was known was his own rendering of ...

Bradshaw, John (b. 1658/9), convicted criminal, was born in Maidstone, Kent, the son of Alban Bradshaw, an attorney. He matriculated on 23 February 1674, aged fifteen, from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and was admitted as a scholar on 20 April.

It was later charged that early in the morning of 13 July 1677 ...

Cockburn, William, of Henderland (d. 1530), criminal, enjoyed a laird's status in the Scottish borders, holding the twenty-pound land of Henderland and Sunderland in Peeblesshire and Selkirkshire, with tower and chapel. He preferred, however, to make his living from theft, blackmail, and collusion with Englishmen during the minority of ...

See Croft, Sir James

Cunningham, Andrew Willshire [Andy] (1910–2010), trade unionist, local government politician, and criminal, was born on 8 June 1910 at Summerside Place, Felling Shore, Heworth, co. Durham, the eldest of nine children of Albert Cunningham, foreman coal trimmer, and his wife, Margaret Jane, née...

See Sabini, (Charles) Darby

Field, James (d. 1751), pugilist and criminal, was probably born in Ireland; his parents are unknown. Since he was often referred to in the press of the period as Field the Sailor, it may be presumed that some of his early life was spent at sea. His first major fistic contest in ...

Hanratty, James Francis (1936–1962), petty criminal and convicted murderer, was born on 4 October 1936 in the County Hospital, Farnborough, near Orpington, Kent, the eldest of four sons of James Hanratty (1907–1978), labourer and dustman, and his wife, Mary Wilson.

He attended St James's Roman Catholic school...

See Kray brothers

See Kray brothers

See Kray brothers

See Leslie, George, first earl of Rothes

Manning, Edgar [Eddie] (1889/90–1931), criminal, was born in Jamaica and had settled in London by 1916. Employed in a wartime armaments factory and then in the entertainment business, he achieved long-lasting fame from newspaper reports of his criminal career. Metropolitan Police files identified him variously as ...

McNaughtan [McNaghten], Daniel (1802/3–1865), criminal lunatic, born in Scotland (probably in Glasgow), was a wood-turner and political radical in Glasgow prior to the events of 20 January 1843 which earned him a place in the legal history of the plea of insanity, as the eponymist of the ...

Moleyns [Molyns, Molines], Sir John (d. 1360), administrator and criminal, was the son of Vincent Moleyns and his wife, Isabella; he came from Hampshire, where his father had stood surety for a knight of the shire returned to parliament in 1301. His recorded career began in the royal household, as an adherent of the ...

Montagu, Edward Wortley (1713–1776), traveller and criminal, was born in London on 16 May 1713, the elder child and only son of Edward Wortley Montagu (1678–1761), MP, diplomat, and entrepreneur, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (bap. 1689, d. 1762), writer and traveller. In 1716 ...

Poulson, John Garlick Llewellyn (1910–1993), architect and criminal, was born on 14 April 1910 at Hill Top, Knottingley, near Pontefract, Yorkshire, the elder of the two sons of Charles Ernest Austrick Poulson, an earthenware manufacturer and lay Methodist preacher, and his wife, Sarah Garlick...

Scott, John (1632?–1704), adventurer and spy, may have been born at Ashford, Kent, in 1632, the son of a royalist colonel, John Scott, but his origins and early life are uncertain. According to his own later account, having committed some misdemeanours against parliamentary soldiers ...

Skeffington, Clotworthy, second earl of Massereene (1742–1805), landowner and debtor, was the son of Clotworthy Skeffington, sixth viscount and first earl of Massereene (d. 1757), and his second wife, Anne, daughter of Henry Eyre of Rowter, Derbyshire. He was born on 28 January 1742 in ...