Women’s fashion in Victorian England was known for a heavy emphasis on modesty, convolution, and unwieldiness over characteristics such as practicality, style, or even the ability to breathe properly. The dresses had bustles, petticoats, hoops, crinolines, and a million other undergarments that made the women look like they were walking around wearing miniature tents.
For many, this fashion was a source of frustration, but the Forty Elephants saw in it an opportunity to steal everything that wasn’t nailed down. After all, what better place to stash your ill-gotten goods than a dress big enough to hide a small pony?
But who were the Forty Elephants? They were one of London’s most infamous criminal gangs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and they were comprised entirely of women. Some of you might be familiar with them thanks to the new TV drama A Thousand Blows, and today we will take a look at the true story behind the Forty Elephants.
Beginnings
Let’s start off with the name – why was a gang of women thieves called the Forty Elephants? The “Elephants” part is fairly straightforward – the group operated out of an area in South London known as Elephant and Castle, which, in turn, got its unusual name from an eponymous pub and coaching inn that had been around since 1765. Why “Forty” is a bit more unclear, although the most obvious answer suggests that there were 40 members in the gang…at least at one point. At its height, the criminal group was active all throughout London, not just Elephant and Castle, and even in other cities, so it is unlikely that its membership remained limited to just 40 people for its entire existence, which stretched from the late 19th century to the mid 20th century.
The Forty Elephants were also sometimes referred to as the Forty Thieves, but that name doesn’t really have the same ring to it. The first mention of either moniker appeared in newspapers in 1873, but it is impossible to know how long before they had been around. It could have been a century earlier. Police records suggest the existence of an organized ring of female thieves active in London ever since the late 1700s, but any connection to the Forty Elephants is speculation.
Even if the group had existed prior to the 1870s, it would have been too loosely organized to pose any serious problems. The main reason why the Forty Elephants eventually became so prolific was because the collective learned to operate as a well-oiled machine, with each member knowing and playing her specific role. And the credit for that crucial transformation usually goes to a woman named Mary Carr.
Carr has often been described as one of the founders of the Forty Elephants. Whether this is true or not, we cannot say, but she was its most prominent leader during the late 19th century. During Carr’s eventual trial in 1896, the police referred to her in court as “the Queen of the Forty Thieves,” while a contemporary London newspaper described her as “noted for her good looks and engaging manners [who] managed to get round her a gang of young women who gave her complete obedience as their leader.”
Despite Carr being portrayed here as the “queen bee,” the Forty Elephants were probably more egalitarian than your average gang. There is even talk of them having a code that all members had to adhere to. Supposedly, the code was written down by a male associate who had an “elephant” in his family, with the intention of selling it to the press. It was never published, but some of the alleged rules included:
“No drinking before a raid, and early hours to bed.”
“Proceeds from a job are equally shared by the group members involved, no matter what their role.”
“Members must not steal from each other (their money or boyfriends).”
Modus Operandi
Mary Carr’s home at 118 Stamford Street became the first headquarters for the Forty Elephants where they planned their operations. Their usual modus operandi involved shoplifting from all over London, with high-end department stores serving as their preferred target. They took advantage of Victorian fashion, which clothed women in large dresses with multiple layers of undergarments, as well as muffs, hats, and all other sorts of accessories where they could keep their stolen goods. The thieves tailored their outfits by sewing hidden pockets inside them that could stash plenty of loot without looking suspicious. They were further assisted by the prudish attitudes of the day, where women were granted plenty of privacy while they were out doing their shopping. Even when they suspected a thief, not a lot of store detectives or attendants would demand to search their unmentionables for stolen merchandise.
The thieves, or “hoisters,” to use the lingo of the day, usually worked in groups of two or three during their shoplifting sprees since it was easier to distract the storekeepers that way. The thefts were normally planned in advance, although, on occasion, temptation got the better of them. In one instance, in 1923, gang member Maggie Hughes got a little overenthusiastic and simply snatched a tray with 34 diamond rings while browsing a jewelry store and tried making a run for it, only to barrel straight into a policeman. She received three years in prison for that, which was typically the harshest sentence given out for shoplifting. Alternatively, the women risked up to 12 months of hard labor.
Most thefts, however, went much smoother than this. Once the women secured the goods, they had access to a network of fences that would distribute the merchandise throughout London. Rarely did the Forty Elephants keep the stuff they stole for personal use. It made it easier for them to be identified and apprehended. Instead, they preferred to buy their clothes legitimately. High-end stuff, usually, since it made them appear more inconspicuous and respectable while out shopping.
Meanwhile, their fences made sure that the goods reached the right people. Small-value items usually went directly to street market traders since they were either impossible to identify as stolen or they were simply not worth enough for anyone to bother looking for them. Jewelry and similar items were sent to pawnbrokers who didn’t ask too many questions. And lastly, clothes were sold to shady shops looking for new inventory, that weren’t above replacing the labels and even altering the designs to make them look legit.
It was a nice gig and, although it was what the Forty Elephants were most famous for, it was not the only racket they were involved in. Blackmail was up their alley, as well. Sometimes, it was as easy as seducing a man and then getting him to pay up so his wife didn’t find out. Other times, one of the women would approach a male target in a secluded street and accuse him of attacking her. A few of her compatriots would then play the role of eyewitnesses and claim to have seen the whole thing. Most men in this situation preferred to part ways with their money or valuables to avoid a scandal.
Occasionally, the Forty Elephants worked longer cons to gain access to high-value targets, such as getting hired as housemaids for wealthy families. They would wait for the right opportunity and make off with the jewels, antiques, and any other valuables they could get away with.
Violence was not a common component of the gang’s activities, but it also wasn’t completely missing. Once the Forty Elephants firmly established themselves, they protected their turf fiercely. In 1895, for example, Mary Carr and several of her cohorts were brought to trial for a vicious attack on a rival named Nellie Stanley, although they managed to beat the charges.
Diamond in the Rough
Mary Carr’s organizational skills were instrumental in getting the Forty Elephants off the ground and establishing them as one of London’s top thief rings, be they male or female. However, her time as matriarch couldn’t last forever, and her downfall began in 1896 when she was convicted of the kidnapping of 6-year-old Michael Magee. Kidnappings weren’t typical fare for the Forty Elephants, but this does show that the members didn’t turn up their noses from most criminal activities as long as there was money to be made. As far as we can work out, one of Carr’s associates bought the boy from his mother, who wanted nothing to do with him, and Carr was looking after him until they sold him to a childless couple.
This was one of the first times when the general public saw just how profitable the hoisting racket was for the Forty Elephants. Mary Carr showed up in court “in a splendid black velvet cloak, trimmed with fur, over a black silk dress, her head adorned by a broad-brimmed Rembrandt hat boasting five ostrich feathers. On her fingers glittered seven diamond rings, valued by one journalist at more than £300, at a time when a working man’s wage was less than £2 a week.”
We’re assuming that Carr wasn’t trying to project the image of an honest, working-class woman here. If she was, then she failed miserably. More likely that she knew they had her dead to rights, so, since she was going to jail anyway, might as well show off for the press. She got three years in prison for that and her hold over the Forty Elephants was never the same again.
Soon after Carr was released, she was arrested again in 1900 for receiving stolen goods and got another two years. Later, in 1909, she was implicated in a jewelry store robbery and then was exposed as a con artist posing as a socialite in Manchester.
While Carr was in prison, someone else had to take over the Forty Elephants. We can’t tell you who her immediate successor was, but we know that, by the 1920s, the Forty Elephants had a new head honcho – Alice Diamond.
She was born in 1896 in either Lambeth or Southwark, sources seem a bit uncertain on that point, but in South London, either way. If you’ve seen the TV show, this is where it takes a significant departure from reality since Alice Diamond appears in the show, although, in real life, she hadn’t even been born yet when the action takes place.
We don’t know how she rose through the ranks of the Forty Elephants so quickly, but her criminal career got off to a fast start. By the time she was a teenager, she had already been arrested multiple times for theft. During World War I, she got pinched for using a fake ID to enter an ammunition factory, presumably to steal explosives to blow up safes.
Alice Diamond had the brains and the guts to make it to the top. Police called her “the cleverest of thieves,” but also warned that she had “a punch to beware of.” Alice was known as “Diamond Annie” due to her fondness for wearing a lot of diamond rings, but she did not hesitate to turn them into the world’s most expensive knuckle duster when the situation called for it.
Under her leadership, the Forty Elephants reached the pinnacle of success, making more money and extending their reach further than under Mary Carr. Soon enough, they became rich enough to fully embrace the extravagant lifestyle that they portrayed during their shoplifting sprees. They could be seen wearing fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, driving fast cars, and attending the trendiest nightclubs and restaurants in London.
This lifestyle does come with a significant drawback, though – increased attention. When you’re a criminal, there are some groups of people you want attention from, and some you don’t. The police, for example, fall firmly in the second category. As do your targets. After years and years of shoplifting, London’s store owners, attendants, and detectives were far more guarded when it came to the female clients who entered their establishments. Plus, it wasn’t as easy to hide things, anymore. The trendy but short and body-fitting flapper dresses of the 1920s were nowhere near as spacious or inconspicuous as the fashion of the previous century.
Alice Diamond’s reign on top lasted only a few years. She and several gang members were arrested in 1925 for taking part in a brutal attack in Lambeth and Diamond was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Although a new matriarch, Lillian Kendall, immediately took her place, the Forty Elephants went on a decline, and the gang never recovered. The Great Depression and World War II probably didn’t help, either. As their takes got smaller and smaller, their numbers started to dwindle. Eventually, sometime during the 1950s, the Forty Elephants simply vanished, leaving behind a curious criminal legacy of the all-women gang that thrived in a man’s world.
