For my doctoral thesis, I researched the use and effectiveness of criminal registers by the detective police and I came across many examples of records featuring the long-gone faces of regular offenders. I would have loved to have had the time to research every individual, but sometimes a particular face caught my eye and I just had to find out more.

One of the most memorable mugshots I encountered in my research was of a child convicted of stealing biscuits. Aged just 12, Arthur James Woodbine already had a long criminal record, and I uncovered his hidden history of petty crime and cruel punishments against a background of hardship and poverty.

A long-lost face

Arthur seems much wiser than his years as he stares at the camera. With his shorn hair and round face, he looks quite childlike but his narrowed eyes and world-weary gaze reveal that his childhood was already long lost by the time his photo had been taken in prison in 1896. The details on his criminal record card state that he was born in 1884 (this was incorrect – his birth date was 1883), in the market town of March in Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire. On 1 January 1896, Arthur was convicted at the quarter sessions in Wisbech for housebreaking and stealing biscuits. He was sentenced to six weeks’ hard labour, followed by five years at a reformatory school.

It is interesting to note that on the register that Arthur’s measurements were recorded according to the anthropometric system devised by French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon. Six measurements were taken of various body parts, such as the size of his head and the length of his middle left finger and his left foot. It also stated that he was 4 feet 4 3/4 inches tall, and he had a fresh complexion, light brown hair and grey eyes. His distinguishing marks included his right forefinger being ‘discoloured from frostbite’. Despite his age, Arthur’s trade was listed as labourer, which might account for his damaged digit. I wanted to find out about this young felon’s background and why his act of theft had led to such a seemingly harsh sentence.

A harsh education

First, I checked the calendar of prisoners and then used newspaper reports to piece together Arthur’s criminal activities. His first offence was committed in 1892, when he was only nine years old. He stole a coat in his home town of March, and was sentenced to four strokes with a birch rod. This inhumane and violent form of punishment, which was mainly used for juvenile offenders, seems particularly shocking, especially when meted out to a young child like Arthur. (It wasn’t abolished until 1948). Because he would have been quite small, he probably would have been bent over the official’s knee or over a chair and struck with the rod on his bare buttocks. Exactly a year later, Arthur was brought up before the magistrate again, and was convicted of breaking into a house and stealing a piece of cake. This time, he was severely reprimanded and sentenced to six strokes of the birch. He was 10 years old.

The experience of corporal punishment didn’t deter Arthur and, two months later, he broke into an ironmonger’s shop and stole some coins and a knife valued at five shillings and nine pence. He pleaded guilty and, because of his two previous convictions, he was sentenced to 21 days’ imprisonment followed by two years in a reformatory school. A note added to his prisoner record states that ‘a school could not be found for him on account of his tender age’. He remained free and, two years later, he was back in trouble. In November 1895, Arthur broke into a tailor’s shop and stole two knives worth two shillings. According to the Peterborough Express, ‘the audacious youth’ scaled a six-feet-high wall to enter the back yard of the premises and then smashed the window with a brush to gain entry. All this took place in broad daylight. He was committed to trial at the following quarter sessions.

While he was on out on bail, Arthur broke into a goods shed belonging to the Great Eastern Railway, in the company of another schoolboy, nine-year-old James Doncaster. They stole five tins of biscuits and a box of 12 Sunlight almanacs valued at ten shillings. When Arthur stood trial on New Year’s Day in 1896 on the earlier charge, he was tried for both offences, which accounts for his sentence of six weeks’ hard labour and five years in a reformatory school. His alleged accomplice was discharged due to a lack of evidence. My next step was to uncover where Arthur went after his completing his gaol time.

Reformatory schools were penal institutions for young offenders. They were in operation in the UK from the mid-nineteenth century for convicted juveniles under the age of 16. As in Arthur’s case, it was typical to spend up to 14 days in prison prior to joining the school. According to Arthur’s prison record, he was admitted to Kerrison Reformatory School in the village of Thorndon, in Suffolk. The school was established in 1856 by local MP Sir Edward Kerrison. Arthur’s days there were highly regulated; he would wake up at 5.30 a.m. to say his prayers and clean his room, after which he would engage in reading and writing lessons, his skills in both of which were described as ‘imperfect’. For the rest of day, with meal breaks, he would have been engaged in industrial work, such as gardening and crop cultivation. The day ended by 7 p.m., when the boys had Bible study. There were some additional activites for the inmates, including a drum and fife band, which had been formed in 1882.

Arthur’s story

I located Arthur on the school admissions register and it offered some insight into his family background: his father was an unemployed brickmaker from March, Isle of Ely. Arthur’s mother had died and left four dependent children. When I researched his family history, I discovered that this entry was only part of the truth about his childhood.

Arthur’s parents were James and Mary Redhead (née Fox) Woodbine. They had married in 1878 after the births of their two eldest children; William, who was born in 1877, and Mary the following year. A third child, Flora, was born in 1881. Two years after Arthur’s birth in 1883, his mother died during childbirth. The baby perished too. James Woodbine was left alone with four young children to care for. Five years later, he married Alice Hart, who already had two children; Charles aged 10, and Mabel, five.

The newly-formed Woodbine family were recorded on the 1891 census, still living in March. James, 42, was working as a brickmaker and the household consisted of his wife, Alice, 30; Arthur, who was eight, and his sisters, Flora, aged 10, and two-year-old Eliza, as well as his two step-siblings. A year later, Arthur broke the law for the first time and the fact that initially he stole food and clothing would suggest that he was experiencing considerable hardship, especially as his father was out of work, and he was likely to have been hungry – the Woodbines were now a large family, with James and Alice having as many as ten children between them. Also, it is interesting that that his stepmother and the four surviving children that she shared with Arthur’s father weren’t mentioned on the reformatory school admissions register, as later records show no evidence of the family splitting up.

Finally, I wanted to know what happened to Arthur after he left the reformatory school. The date of his discharge is unknown but, by 1901 at the age of 17, he was living on a farm in Warboys, Huntingdonshire, where he worked as a labourer. In 1905, he married Mary Ann Burton, and the couple settled in St Ives, where their son Percival was born two years later. The 1911 census revealed that they had had another child who had sadly died, but I’ve been unable to find out the details. Despite his challenging start in life and early criminal record, I’m glad to say I’ve been unable to find any evidence of Arthur offending again as an adult.

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