12. Just like in Oliver Twist, London’s slums were home to gangs of child criminals.
Through his novel Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens made gangs of child criminals a central part of the popular perception of Victorian-era London. But just how accurate was the novel? Like much of Dickens’ work, it was certainly exaggerated. However, many children from the slums did indeed turn to crime in order to get by. And many did indeed pickpockets for gangmasters. The records show, for instance, that the St Giles Slum, located in the very heart of the modern-day West End, was home to a man called Thomas Duggin. He was a notorious ‘thief-trainer’ and he exploited the desperation of young boys, getting them to pick the pockets of wealthy Londoners for him.
By the middle of the 19th century, the public were in a panic over ‘child gangs’. This was partly the result of the popular press whipping up hysteria in order to sell newspapers. However, the court records show that the average citizen had a right to be worried. London’s judges dealt with hundreds of cases of child pickpockets and thieves each week. Indeed, between 1830 and 1860, half of all the defendants tried at the famous Old Bailey were aged 20 or under. And most of them were boys who came from the slums. While thieves could be sentenced to death, in reality, many were imprisoned or sent to the penal colonies of Australia – in fact, children as young as 10 were sentenced to ‘transportation’, right up until the end of the 1800s.