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 ...
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William Chester Jordan
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Stephen Wright
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 ...
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Cakebread, Jane (1827/1828–1898), inebriate and subject of medical enquiry, was born in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, the daughter of James Cakebread (1783/4–1852), a carpenter and carter originally from Clavering, Essex, and his wife, Susan (1793/4–1863) of Sawbridgeworth. The eldest surviving daughter in a large family, ...
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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 ...
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Bill Lancaster
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...
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Kathleen Chater
Duck, Ann (bap. 1717, d. 1744), criminal, was baptized on 22 July 1717 in Cheam, Surrey. Her father, John Duck, was a black man and her mother, Ann Brough, was white; they married on 12 August 1717 in St Clement Danes, Westminster. John Duck...
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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 ...
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Gordon, Aloysius Lincoln [Lucky] (1931–2017), petty criminal, singer, and cook, was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on 6 May 1931, reputedly one of twenty-one children of Alfred Gordon, cook. He earned his nickname because his mother had a small ‘pools’ win on the day he was born. Few who encountered him outside his extended family counted themselves lucky to have done so....
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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...
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Richard Hobbs
Kray brothers (act. 1926–2000), criminals, became icons of a very British form of criminality inextricably linked with memories of the 1960s. There were three brothers, Kray, Charles James (1926–2000), born on 9 July 1926 at 26 Gorsuch Street, Shoreditch, London, and the twins ...
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See Leslie, George, first earl of Rothes
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See Henry Frederick, Prince, duke of Cumberland and Strathearn
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Jeffrey Green
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 ...