Think of London gangsters and the Kray twins immediately spring to mind for most people but unsurprisingly London has a long and often violent history of criminal gangs and one of the most fascinating must be the all female crew that made up the gang known as the Forty Elephants.
Imagine yourself born into poverty in South London during the latter part of the 19th Century, your Father has convictions for violent assault, including on the Lord Mayor’s Son and you, being a young girl and the eldest of seven children find yourself growing up in a very tough and unforgiving environment. What’s the best you could really hope for? For most a short and violent life spent just trying to survive would be the best they would achieve, not Alice Diamond though, she was cut from a different cloth and clearly refused to play by the rules that had been allocated to her.
Born Alice Elizabeth Black in a Lambeth workhouse her prospects would not have seemed great, she received her first caution at aged 16 for stealing chocolate though it’s likely this was just the first time she had been caught. By the age of 19 she was the accepted leader of a gang of thieves known as the Forty Thieves. She was tall for her time, towering over the average male at over 5’8″ and was known to be both intimidating and free with the use of her fists when she felt the situation warranted it. Fists that became known for being adorned with diamond rings.
The Forty Thieves operated from the area around the Elephant And Castle from at least the 1870s, an all female gang they were known for their innovation and organisation, shoplifting being their speciality favouring expensive items from high end stores. Allied with local men’s gangs the Forty Thieves would target shops in the West End of London and later shopping centres further afield. The gang members would wear expensive items of clothing which had often been altered to enable their shoplifting exploits, secret pockets or even jackets containing prosthetic arms leaving a free hand inside to reach for expensive goods. Alice Diamond was known for her love of ‘liberating’ furs.
Unlike the men’s gangs when the women inevitably spent time at the leisure of his Majesty (prison) the other gang members would rally round to support their family during their period of need. It’s entirely possible that the origins of the gang started when a number of women got together after their husbands or fathers had been sent to prison for crimes committed. The name may well have come from the local ‘Forty Elephants’ gang that operated from London’s Elephant And Castle area as it’s highly unlikely there were as many as forty gang members.
It’s remarkable for Alice Diamond to rise to the top of such a crime group at such a young age and shows that she was clearly capable of being hard in both mind and body. You look at her options and they were likely to have been living a life of poverty in one what essentially a slum, perhaps a choice of preying on those more wealthy or finding herself ground down prey, fighting to preserve a family unit in the most trying of conditions.
Alice Diamond was also acknowledged at having a great talent for organisation, something that would have aided the gang’s members immensly both in terms of hauls and also managing to stay out of prison, though few would not spend at least some of their life incarcerated, Alice Diamond included.
In 1925 one of the Forty Thieves stepped outside of the rules rigidly imposed by Alice Diamond and her lieutenants and married a man without permission, the risks of introducing a ‘snitch’ were always high. Alice Diamond led an attack on the man’s home with bottles being thrown and soon a largescale confrontation with the local police ensued, becoming known as the ‘Battle Of Lambeth’, the end result was a number of gang members spending time in prison, Alice Diamond herself got a 18 month sentence. All personal relationships of gang members had to be personally vetted by Alice.
She was an early proponent of using fast cars to speed from the scene of crimes and as the gang became better known in London, unsurprisingly the newspapers loved to run stories about them, they shifted their attention to other British towns, often seaside resorts. This often meant using trains to travel to and from the area and they would deposit an empty suitcase at the station when they arrived, ready to fill with loot for the return journey. They also applied for positions as servants in well off households, stealing the valuables before disappearing. Accosting single men, often older well to do men, initially asking for directions before when the man started showing the way other members would appear accusing him of assault. If the man resisted then it’s likely his money and pocket watch would be taken by force, or he may pay to avoid having to explain his innocence to the police.
The Forty Thieves lived the life of the rich and famous off the back of the thousands of pounds worth of goods they stole. Expensive clothes and jewellery, though not those they had stolen and lavish parties in high end restaurants and clubs were their way of life, ‘putting on the posh’ as they called it.
Alice Diamond retired from leadership of the Forty Thieves in the 1930’s and was succeeded by her lieutenant Maggie Hill who was jailed for four years for blinding a policeman with a hatpin in 1939, Hill too retired upon release from her prison term.
Alice Diamond never married but had a long term relationship with Bert McDonald who was one of the leaders of the Elephant Gang, a male gang operating from the same area as the Forty Thieves. Alice Diamond died in Southwark in 1992, Disney+ is producing a series focussing on Alice’s predecessor Mary Carr who refined many of their techniques and ways of working before Alice lifted them to another level.
