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Shirley Pitts
Shirley Sally Pitts, later Shirley Sally Hawkins (24 November 1934 – 16 March 1992), was an English fraudster and thief known as the "queen of shoplifters". Born into poverty and crime, she began to steal as a child to feed her siblings. She was educated in shoplifting by the Forty Elephants, also known as the Forty Thieves, and later diversified into other non-violent crime such as fraud. When Pitts died of breast cancer, she was given an elaborate funeral in south London attended by family and criminal acquaintances that received national media coverage in Britain. The flowers included a six-foot-long arrangement that said "Gone shopping". Early life and family Pitts was born in south-east London, in Lambeth Walk, Lambeth, to Harry Pitts, who died in Parkhurst Prison in 1962, and Nell Taylor, an alcoholic. One brother, Henry "Adgie" Pitts, became a bank robber who died aged 29 in a car crash. She disowned another brother, Charlie, after he took part in a kidnap plot, for which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shirley Pitts
Shirley Sally Pitts, later Shirley Sally Hawkins (24 November 1934 – 16 March 1992), was an English fraudster and thief known as the "queen of shoplifters". Born into poverty and crime, she began to steal as a child to feed her siblings. She was educated in shoplifting by the Forty Elephants, also known as the Forty Thieves, and later diversified into other non-violent crime such as fraud. When Pitts died of breast cancer, she was given an elaborate funeral in south London attended by family and criminal acquaintances that received national media coverage in Britain. The flowers included a six-foot-long arrangement that said "Gone shopping". Early life and family Pitts was born in south-east London, in Lambeth Walk, Lambeth, to Harry Pitts, who died in Parkhurst Prison in 1962, and Nell Taylor, an alcoholic. One brother, Henry "Adgie" Pitts, became a bank robber who died aged 29 in a car crash. She disowned another brother, Charlie, after he took part in a kidnap plot, for which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lambeth Cemetery
Lambeth Cemetery is a cemetery in Tooting, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is one of three cemeteries owned by Lambeth London Borough Council, the others being West Norwood Cemetery and Streatham Cemetery. History Like nearby Streatham Cemetery, Lambeth Cemetery was developed by a parish burial board in 1854 following the Metropolitan Burial Act of 1852, which was a response to the second cholera epidemic of 1848–49. The cemetery is laid out as a rectangular grid of paths, has a few trees and is sited just east of the River Wandle in what was countryside in the 1850s and was largely to remain so for some decades. There are two lodges beside the main gate in Blackshaw Road and a memorial chapel, all built in brick in a Gothic style and designed by F. K. Wehnert and J. Ashdown. The cemetery was extended to the south in 1874 when Robert Taylor was chairman of Lambeth Burial Board, and Hugh Mcintosh was the surveyor who laid out the extension. There is a crematorium and G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1992 Deaths
Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 ''Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Mesopotamia is partitioned into two Roman provinces divided by the Euphrates, Mesopotamia and Osroene. * Emperor Septimius Severus lays siege to the city-state Hatra in Central-Mesopotamia, but fails to capture the city despite breaching the walls. * Two new legions, I Parthica and III Parthica, are formed as a permanent garrison. China * Battle of Yijing: Chinese warlord Yuan Shao defeats Gongsun Zan. Korea * Geodeung succeeds Suro of Geumgwan Gaya, as king of the Korean kingdom of Gaya (traditional date). By topic Religion * Pope Zephyrinus succeeds Pope Victor I, as th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1934 Births
Events January–February * January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established. * January 15 – The 8.0 Nepal–Bihar earthquake strikes Nepal and Bihar with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''), killing an estimated 6,000–10,700 people. * January 26 – A 10-year German–Polish declaration of non-aggression is signed by Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic. * January 30 ** In Nazi Germany, the political power of federal states such as Prussia is substantially abolished, by the "Law on the Reconstruction of the Reich" (''Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reiches''). ** Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, signs the Gold Reserve Act: all gold held in the Federal Reserve is to be surrendered to the United States Department of the Treasury; immediately following, the President raises the statutory gold price from US$20.67 per ounce to $35. * February 6 – F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian "Little Legs" Clifford
Brian Benham "Little Legs" Clifford (29 February 1940 - 28 September 1985) was a south London criminal and club owner who was murdered at home as he slept. His murder has never been solved. Early life Brian Clifford was born on 29 February 1940 in Lambeth, London. In 1960, he married Rhoda R. Katz in Stepney, London. The couple had children Karon (born 1961), Deborah (born 1962) and Bernard (Bernie) (1968-2017) who was the manager of the Groucho Club in Soho. Career Bernie Katz described his father as "a real villain with a heavy clout around south London."Bernie Katz. ''The Times'', 7 September 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2017. His nickname came from his short stature. According to professional thief |
Alice Diamond
Alice Diamond (22 June 1896 – 1 April 1952) was an English career criminal, linked to organised shoplifting. Early life Diamond was born Alice Elizabeth Black in Lambeth Workhouse Hospital to Thomas Diamond and Mary Ann Alice Black. Her parents had applied for a maternity birth under the name of Black before they married to avoid the stigma of an illegitimate birth. However, as they married shortly before Alice was born, this also avoided the problem. Her father, Thomas Diamond, had at least three criminal convictions, including one for assaulting the son of the Lord Mayor of London at a political meeting by punching his head through a pane of glass in a door, severely injuring him. Alice's mother was born Mary Geary and took the name Black when her parents married. She added Ann and Alice to her name at random times. Alice was the eldest of seven children, a younger sister Louisa also joined the Forty Thieves gang of which Alice Diamond had become leader and given the title Q ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signet Books
The New American Library (also known as NAL) is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948. Its initial focus was affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works as well as popular and pulp fiction, but it now publishes trade and hardcover titles. It is currently an imprint of Penguin Random House; it was announced in 2015 that the imprint would publish only nonfiction titles. History 20th century New American Library (NAL) began life as Penguin U.S.A. and as part of Penguin Books of England. Because of complexities of exchange control and import and export regulations—Penguin made the decision to terminate the association, and the company was renamed the New American Library of World Literature in 1948 when Penguin Books' assets (excluding the Penguin and Pelican trademarks) were bought by Victor Weybright and Kurt Enoch (formerly head of Albatross Books). Enoch served as president of New American Library from 1947 to 1965. He later served as h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lorraine Gamman
Lorraine Patricia Gamman (July 1957) is professor of design at the Design Against Crime Research Centre at Central Saint Martins in the University of the Arts, London which she founded in 1999. Her taking of the oral history of professional shoplifter Shirley Pitts as part of her PhD kindled her interest in oral history as a form and lead to her book ''Gone shopping: The story of Shirley Pitts, Queen of thieves''. Gone Shopping. Retrieved 13 September 2017. In 2012, the production company bought an option to acquire the television and film rights to the book. Selected publications * ''The female gaze''. |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronnie Knight
Ronnie Knight (born 20 January 1934) is an English former nightclub owner and convicted criminal. On 4 January 1995, 16 days prior to his 61st birthday, Knight was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for handling £314,813 in stolen money from the 1983 £6m armed robbery at a Security Express depot in Shoreditch, East London. Early life Ronald Knight was born on 20 January 1934 in Hoxton, London Borough of Hackney, the son of James and Nellie. Knight was responsible for minor infractions of the law when he was young, whereas his brothers John and James were involved in more significant crimes. Along with John, Knight was friendly with the Kray brothers, but, he says, was not connected with their illegal activities. Knight also had another brother, David and a sister, Patsy. Clubs The two clubs Knight ran, the Artistes and Repertoire Club (known as the A&R) on Charing Cross Road and its neighbour Tin Pan Alley in Soho, London, were drinking establishments favoured by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buster Edwards
Ronald Christopher "Buster" Edwards (27 January 1931 – 28 November 1994) was a British criminal who was a member of the gang that committed the Great Train Robbery. He had also been a boxer, and owned a nightclub and a flower shop. Early and private life Edwards was born in Lambeth, the son of a barman. After leaving school, he worked in a sausage factory, where he began his criminal career by stealing meat to sell on the post-war black market. During his National Service in the RAF, he was detained for stealing cigarettes. When he returned to south London, he ran a drinking club and became a professional criminal. He married June Rothery in 1952. They had a daughter, Nicolette. He was involved in the theft of £62,000 ( £ today) from Comet House, the headquarters of British Overseas Airways Corporation at Heathrow Airport, in 1962. Many of the gang were captured, but Edwards escaped arrest. Many from the same gang were involved in the Great Train Robbery in August 196 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daimler Company
The Daimler Company Limited ( ), prior to 1910 The Daimler Motor Company Limited, was an independent British motor vehicle manufacturer founded in London by H. J. Lawson in 1896, which set up its manufacturing base in Coventry. The company bought the right to the use of the Daimler name simultaneously from Gottlieb Daimler and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft of Cannstatt, Germany. After early financial difficulty and a reorganisation of the company in 1904, the Daimler Motor Company was purchased by Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) in 1910, which also made cars under its own name before the Second World War. In 1933, BSA bought the Lanchester Motor Company and made it a subsidiary of Daimler Company. Daimler was awarded a Royal Warrant to provide cars to the British monarch in 1902; it lost this privilege in the 1950s after being supplanted by Rolls-Royce. Daimler occasionally used alternative technology: the Knight engine which it further developed in the early twenti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
