It is a name I find particularly depressing but couldn't remember why until suddenly it came back to me that Stamford Street also ironically contained the HQ for a while of the infamous Forty Thieves or Forty Elephants (for they originated in Elephant & Castle) shoplifting gang. The gang existed in various forms from about the 1870s to the 1950s. Mad Frankie Fraser's misses was a member. They specialised in low risk retail thieving. Mary Carr based at number 118 was the original leader of the gang and was renowned for her extensive use of aliases and disguises. Such was Carr's fame there was even a bullshit story she was the model for this portrait by Frederick Leighton and Dorothy Tennant...
She was eventually imprisoned for child abduction but the gang continued through various iterations. Some members tattooed their hands as a secret sign of their criminal cult. Particularly during the 19th century Stamford Street had an unenviable reputation as a dark place of vice and squalor. The last identifiable leader of the gang was Kray associate Shirley Pitts who died in 1992...
The gang used various techniques over the years from standard shoplifting concealment and distraction methods which were easier for women as they had more elaborate clothes, to infiltrating domestic service to purloin jewelry and attempts at blackmail through false accusations of sexual assault...
Honestly, I don't know why they didn't call it the Bill Sykes Company and be done with it....
Still, it could have been worse I suppose. What if the first Sainsbury's HQ had been in Rillington Place?
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