1. The first female criminals operated before Victoria became Queen
London, during the Regency Era, is remembered as a place of gentility, luxury, fine dining, finer manners, and elaborately dressed and coiffed ladies and gentlemen. British merchants derived large profits from goods shipped to London, Bristol, Liverpool, and other ports from across the Empire. Trade with the former colonies in North America resumed, and high-quality furs arrived from the new United States. Silks and gems entered Britain from African and Indian colonies. Those with wealth flaunted it ostentatiously. Fashion demanded by Beau Brummel and the Prince Regent ensured men dressed as flamboyantly as their women. An emerging British middle class mimicked the manners, and the dress, of their so-called betters. Those of the working class, and the poor in the tenements and rookeries of the larger cities, struggled to survive.
The poorer neighborhoods of British cities had long been havens for petty thieves, pickpockets, strong-armed robbers, and prostitutes. Many of the latter walked the streets, luring their customers into dark alleyways and abandoned buildings. There they became the victims of associates. More affluent customers avoided the streetwalkers, preferring to take their pleasures in brothels, operated under police protection. The madams running the brothels became the prototypes for criminal gangs, operated by women, sometimes in association with male criminals. Blackmail became a favorite crime, though it was soon supplemented by the crimes of housebreaking and burglary. Women informed associates of when their employers’ homes and businesses were likely to be empty, making them suitable targets for a visit by enterprising thieves.