A very Happy New Year to all readers of Criminal Portraits - I hope you had a relaxing Christmas and many thanks for your continued interest in this blog.
Our first "ne'er do well" of 2021 is Mary Stewart who appears on the 1881 census as an inmate at HM General Prison, Perth. The photograph of her shown at the top of this page would have been taken there, probably at a date just prior to her release on 3rd December 1881. The census reveals that she was born in Aberdeen and it was to her hometown that she returned on her discharge. The Register of Returned Convicts for Aberdeen (see the image at the foot of this page) shows that she stayed at 16 East North Street with a Mrs. Bissett immediately following her liberation, and from March to July 1882 she was a resident at 10 Sugar House Lane.
"Mary Stewart was charged with the theft, on 6th October 1876, of a pair of trousers, from the shop of Robert Barclay, pawnbroker, West North Street, Aberdeen, and with six previous convictions of theft. Prisoner pleaded guilty. Mr. Baxter, who appeared for her, stated that she had already been six months in jail and that she pleaded guilty to having stolen one pair of trousers. His Lordship said he had been told that prisoner had pleaded guilty to a charge of theft, and that she had had only taken one pair of trousers, but he supposed that had been all that there was to take. She had been previously convicted of theft six times, and he supposed that the public would understand that the sentence passed upon prisoners for theft was not so much for the sake of the articles stolen, as on account of previous convictions and whether the party was capable of being reformed...His Lordship then sentenced the prisoner to seven years' penal servitude".
Two things are particularly striking about this report: firstly, that Mary Stewart had already been held in prison for a full six months prior to her trial. Secondly, the severity of the seven year sentence which was handed down to her for simply stealing a pair of trousers, something which the judge justified by the requirement for habitual crime to be seen to be dealt with harshly, which was typical at that time. Incidentally, the papers for the trial which are held at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh show that at the time of her arrest Mary was living at an address on the Gallowgate.
As things transpired, Mary served approximately four-and-a-half years of this sentence, being discharged from prison in December 1881 at which point she returned to Aberdeen. While living at the addresses on East North Street and Sugar House Lane she managed to stay out of trouble until July 1882. During this time we also know from a report of the proceedings of the Police Court in the Aberdeen Evening Express of 22nd July 1882 that she was in work:
"A woman named Mary Stewart, employed at one of the herring-curing yards at Footdee, was today examined before Baillie Ross, in the Aberdeen Police Court, on three separate charges of stealing carpenters' tools from shops in the city during the present week. After emitting a declaration she was committed to prison, pending further investigation. Mary is a well known character to the police, having been no less than seven times convicted".
For these thefts Mary appeared before the Circuit Court once again in September 1882. She was convicted for an eighth time and sentenced to another seven years' penal servitude.
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