Saltley Reformatory Inmates

George Hannah

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Notes:

13. October 1852  An astonishingly lengthy report in the Worcestershire Chronicle  Wednesday 13 October 1852 p.4 col.1 gives  a very detailed account of Hannah’s life and criminal career: CONFESSIONS OF A THIEF AT WORCESTER. – A remarkable instance of juvenile depravity, and of the necessity that exists for reformatory institutions, has just come to our knowledge. A lad named George Hannah, and a man who gave the name of David Shettle, were in august last sent by the Worcester city magistrates to gaol for two months, under the Vagrant Act, they having been caught picking pockets in the Worcester Market house. The lad has been very communicative since his confinement, and has revealed a history of himself and his career of Jack Sheppardism [Jack Sheppard was a notorious thief in early 18^th century London] which, for one so young (he is little more than ten years old), is truly shocking, and must excite the painful interest of all who read the tale. He believes that he was born at Glossop, in Derbyshire, has no recollection of his father, and says that his mother died about four years ago. His father was a Paisley weaver. After the death of the father, his son (then but an infant of four or five years old) went with his mother about the country, hawking hardware, etc. On her death he went with another woman, engaged in the same trade, through Derbyshire, Nottingham, and the populous manufacturing districts. Hannah had some words with one of this woman’s two children, and left her in consequence in Manchester, when he soon fell in with a gang of young thieves, he being then but seven years old. Hannah was quickly initiated into the art and mystery of pocket-picking and shop-lifting, and being small and active he was appointed to do the bulk of the business, while the rest of the juvenile gang acted as scouts and kept up a sharp look-out. Robbing tills was a lucrative branch; but when that failed, shop-lifting was almost as productive. Little Hannah would creep into a shop on all fours, abstract goods or pick a lady’s pockets, and disappear, with the rapidity of thought; or tasking advantage of a crowd of customers passing in, he would also enter and glide behind them, upstairs into the ware-rooms, where he would lay the boxes and drawers under contribution and watch his opportunity to escape. He committed 60 or 70 robberies in Manchester, and was never detected.

Next he went to Liverpool, and joined a cousin, who was also a thief. There he chiefly operated on the landing stairs at the river’s side, where crowds were going to and from the steamers. The principle was to never take handkerchiefs, as those articles never fetched a good price and often led to detection. Purses also were thrown away as soon as the money was abstracted. On one occasion, at the Rock Ferry, this little lad fetched £13 from pocket-picking. In the short space of eighteen months he was confined in Liverpool gaol five times, and once was sent to the sessions, and got ten days’ imprisonment. He calculates that he robbed 100 people at Liverpool. At length, a party, of which Hannah was one, broke open a shop, and went off with the goods to Chester, every facility being afforded at the various lodging houses for disposing of stolen property. A little boy who had belonged to the gang at Liverpool gave information to the police which led to their capture. [This little boy had frequently been in gaol, and having learned the trade of a tailor there, he was at last engaged to remain in prison, working at his trade, and to be allowed to go out certain times in the week. This was done as he had no honest place to go to, and no-one would take him in. While out in the town he would rob the shops of materials, and bring them home to make up into clothes, till the governor, suspecting it was not all right, threatened him with further prosecution and its consequences, transportation, if he did not confess. Upon this, he told of the robbery in which young Hannah was concerned, and the result was the capture of the juvenile thieves at Chester.] By one of those casualties which sometimes occur even in the most decided cases, and for which our sapient jury-man have much to answer, the young urchins escaped. Hannah and his cousin then went back to Manchester, where the latter being  detected in the practice of his old offences, was transported.

Our hero then fell in with a man named Daniel Shettle, who kept up a thieving establishment at 33 Old Thomas Street, Birmingham. This Shettle hired boys to steal, and kept a variety of dresses in which they could at any time disguise themselves. The fruit of their operations went for their “board and lodging” – that is to say, if the boys were honest enough to hand over all their ill-gotten booty, which is not very likely. Shettle was a smasher, and went “the circuit” in the exercise of his profession. He met with Hannah in Manchester, and took him to Derby and other places; but at Derby, Hannah got in for three months imprisonment and a sound flogging for pocket picking. Shettle also received two months, before the expiration of which Hannah came out of prison and was received by Shettle’s wife, with whom he went round the country picking pockets and passing bad coin. At Nottingham he took £2 from one woman’s pocket, and at Birmingham he eased a lady of a purse and a large sum of money. The purse and its contents however being large, Hannah was somewhat clumsy in pocketing it, and the lady caught him in the act, but sent him about his business, without prosecuting him. At Burton on Trent he picked a lady’s pocket of £4 19s, at a railway station, but information being immediately given, and policemen put upon the scent, the woman Shettle immediately threw the purse and money out of the window of the railway carriage to avoid detection. The purse was soon picked up, and the thieves taken into custody, and afterwards suffered a month’s imprisonment. Mrs Shettle, it seems, not satisfied with her husband’s long confinement in gaol, had in the meantime procured another male consort, and when Shettle emerged from prison, he and his successor in the lady’s affections had a dreadful battle which was fortunately put a stop to by the police, or the consequences might have been fatal. On Saturday the 14^th of August last, Shettle and our hero came to Worcester for the double purpose of meeting a butty who was coming out of gaol and of doing a little business in the Market house. Both, however, were apprehended in the pursuit of their miserable profession, and in due course were sent to gaol, where they still remain.

Young Hannah, who is a very shrewd, intelligent boy, seems exceedingly anxious to abandon his wicked habits, and to avoid the woman Shettle, who, he says, will be sure to present herself at the gaol on the day of his liberation, tomorrow (Thursday), and claim him as her son, with the intention of forcing him to continue that course of life which may one day bring him to the condemned settlements or  the gallows. He has had no education but what has been given him in gaol, and by that means he has learned reading and writing, and a little of the tailoring trade, but professes himself willing to go to the workhouse or do anything to get an honest living. Unfortunately there is no institution for the reception of such melancholy cases. We are not sure that the workhouse authorities would do right in receiving him; and few, if any, tradesmen would like to risk an engagement with him. This statement of facts, therefore, is made in the hope that some of our benevolent readers will be induced to make an effort towards snatching this brand from the burning, and to give him at least a chance of proving whether his avowed wish for a reformed life is sincere or otherwise. We will only add that, if such attempt be made, it must be made at once and without a day’s delay.

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