James Morren - "He said he did not know what was being done when the crime was committed"

James Morren was one of four men convicted in January 1901 in connection with the theft of £54. 4s. 3d., from the offices of Adam & Company, 42 Regent Quay, Aberdeen. He was represented in court by his solicitor, Mr. Donald Sinclair, who made strenuous efforts to downplay James's role in the affair, saying that by keeping a look out for the police, he had only played a "minor part" in the theft and because he was young and from a respectable family, he should therefore be treated with leniency. The Sheriff, however, was having none of it. As The Aberdeen Journal of the 23rd January 1901 reported, 

"Mr Thomas Maclennan, Depute Procurator Fiscal, said that the accused had kept his eye on the police while the others had committed the theft. Mr Maclennan again recounted the circumstances of the theft stating that one of the men pretended to be drunk, and, going to the edge of the quay, drew away the old watchman's attention while two of the thieves broke into the office, and Morren kept his eye on the police. Morren afterwards left town, and was only apprehended on the 19th December. He denied the crime until four days ago, when his agent intimated that he would plead guilty. The other men who shared in the crime were Tindall, who got eight months; Mann who got six months; and Mackenzie, who acted as decoy, and who got 30 days' imprisonment. The sheriff saw no reason to differentiate between Morren's case and that of the others. He would therefore have to go to prison for six months".

James Morren was incarcerated in Craiginches Prison, Aberdeen, appearing as a prisoner there on the 1901 census. James's occupation is given as an "able seaman", with his birthplace being Aberdeen. Although it has not been possible to locate him on the 1911 census, he does appear as an eight year old on the 1891 census, living with his parents and six siblings, who were aged between three and eighteen, on Princes Street, Aberdeen. His father and mother, William and Margaret, were both forty-two, with William's occupation given as a stone cutter. 

The Princes Street area where James Morren lived as a child in the 1890s

Reproduced by permission of the National Library of Scotland

Ordnance Survey - Aberdeenshire LXXV.11 (Aberdeen) Revised: 1899 to 1900, Publication date: 1902