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Meet the Lady Gangsters and Criminals of the Victorian Age

Larry Holzwarth June 30, 2021 34 min

Though many of the female offenders served time in British prisons, they were usually for shorter sentences than their male counterparts, Wikimedia

20. Alice Diamond and Lillian Kendall were two infamous criminals/leaders of the 40 Elephants

Alice Diamond ruled the female 40 Elephants gang in the early 1920s. Likely her name was an alias, based on her penchant for wearing prominent diamond rings. The gems were for more than show. The 5’8″ Alice used the rings as brass knuckles on more than one occasion, defending her turf against usurpers, as well as against policemen who attempted to arrest her on several occasions. In late 1925 Alice led an attack against a former member of her gang who had shown the temerity to join a rival gang. Arrested and convicted for inciting a riot, Alice served a prison sentence of 18 months. Upon her release, she discovered her position as “Queen” of the 40 Elephants had been taken by a former comrade, Lillian Kendall. Alice resumed her career as a hoister but allowed leadership of the gang to remain in Kendall’s hands.

Kendall became known as the “bobbed-haired bandit“. Bobbed hair was a fashion among the youth and flappers of the 1920s, scorned by upper society. Kendall flaunted hers during a series of smash and grab robberies. In some of her robberies, she drove her car into a storefront window, grabbed those items which struck her fancy, and fled. In one such event, she crashed through the storefront of Cartier’s in London’s fashionable Bond Street. The press made much of her brash robberies and daring escapes. Eventually, in the days following World War II, retail outlets developed better security, and the police and courts applied less chivalry to their regard for female criminals. Equal rights did not always benefit the formerly downtrodden. By the early 1950s, the 40 Elephants were no more. Crime experts continue to debate the amounts of money they stole over the seventy or so years of their existence.

Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

“To Catch a Lady Burglar”. Eloise Moss, History Today. July 4, 2019

“Housebreakers and Burglars”. Article, Dictionary of Victorian London. Online

“Dark Secrets of the Victorian Underworld”. Article, BBC History Extra. February 21, 2019. Online

“Victorian Crime”. Article, The History Press. Online

“Women, Crime, and Penal Responses”. Lucia Zedner, Crime and Justice, Volume 14. 1991

“The Lady is a Detective”. Olivia Rutigliano, Lapham’s Quarterly. December 10, 2018.

“The Victorian Underworld’s Most Unusual Crimes”. Article, Crime Reads. Online

“Night Raiders: Burglary and the Making of Modern Urban Life in London, 1860-1968”. Eloise Moss. 2019

“Juvenile Crime in the 19^th Century”. Matthew White, British Library Online. May 15, 2014

“Damaging Females: Representations of women as victims and perpetrators of crime in the mid-nineteenth century”. Doctoral thesis, Radojka Startup. February, 2000. Online

“Alice Diamond and the 40 Elephants”. Brian McDonald. 2015