London can be a perilous place for visitors, especially if they don’t keep a close eye on their valuables. Thieves operate in crowded streets and quieter backwaters and victims often don’t realize they have been robbed until it is far too late.

Miss Caroline Coplestone was hardly guilty of taking no notice of what she was doing or where she was but she still fell victim to a desperate criminal. Miss Coplestone, who had come up to town from Wimbledon, was walking on Bond Street in the middle of the day, taking in the diverse array of fashionable items in the shops.

Suddenly, out of nowhere a young lad rushed past her, grabbing her purse from her hand as he did so. It is reminiscent of modern phone robberies; snatched from your hand before you can react and take evasive action.

As the boy ran away Caroline must have yelped and a nearby policeman saw what happened and set off in pursuit of the thief. PC Maidment caught the lad and demanded to know what he had in his pockets.

‘Nothing’, the boy replied, all innocent. On being searched however Miss Coplestone’s purse, complete with the £4 and 9dit contained was found in his jacket pocket. On the following day the lad, policeman and Miss Coplestone appeared at the Marlborough Street Police court for the case to be heard by Mr. Mansfield, the sitting magistrate.

The boy was 15 and his name was William Kelly. He was described as ‘a labourer’ but was out of work and such descriptions are pretty unhelpful anyway; ‘labourer’ was often a default term for any working-class person who did not identify himself or his occupation otherwise.

William pleaded poverty and a lack of employment but it didn’t help him much. He said he was very sorry for what he’d done and that could sometimes help in cases like this. Magistrates liked to hear contrition after all, and some young men could be quite belligerent in the dock. Sadly for William Mr Mansfield wasn’t in the mood for ‘second chances’. He looked at William and saw a thief that needed to be taught a lesson. He sent him to prison for three months at hard labour.

[from The Morning Post, Monday, August 29, 1887]

p.s curiously Coplestone is an unusual surname but one to which I am related. My Coplestones are from Cornwall so I wonder if Caroline was a distant ancestor who moved to the ‘smoke’?