Juvenile crime has for the past 100 years been part and parcel of daily life in the UK, as this story from the Eccles and Patricroft Journal nimbly illustrates.
Clegg Street, now long demolished, stood virtually in the centre of Eccles near Silk Street and was in the 1910s a rather dubious area with the locals famous for having little or no respect for authority.
Boys age 8 and upwards gathered here under the name of the ‘Clegg Street gang’, and were notorious in the local area for stealing and generally making a right old nuisance of themselves.
100 years ago in Eccles: Davis Street ‘gang’, 11 and 13, flogged for stealing
But as we all know now, justice – when it does come – is rarely fair.
The story starts with PC Bridge doing his rounds of Eccles one evening in July 1916.
Normally the good officer would make sure all premises were safe under his watchful eye.
While examining the storeroom at the rear of Boots chemist on Church Street he was horrified to find that it had been broken into and trashed, and the place “was in great disorder”.
Central Eccles in 1916, Boots would have been to the right of the picture
With detective work that would have put Sherlock Holmes to shame, he had tracked down the perpetrators within a few short hours: the finger of suspicion pointed firmly in the direction of the Clegg Street gang.
Seven lads aged between 10 and 16 were arrested and charged with breaking into the premises and stealing eight tins of paste; six bottles of scent; three books; seven spring shooters; a rubber stamp; a pair of men’s socks; a tube of solution; and two flash lamps, a total value of 3 shillings.
All of this booty was recovered from each of the boys’ homes on Clegg Street.
The daring gang of robbers appeared at Eccles Magistrates Court where further incriminating evidence was heard.
The Manager of Boots said that it was around 11.30am on a Wednesday morning when he had last seen the building secure.
Later in the day when he returned after the robbery, it had been broken into by the removal of boards.
PC Bridge said he found the place ransacked and property scattered about the floor.
But it seems these young boys were not irredeemable crooks; there were those in the police willing to speak in their defence.
Inspector Harnby from Eccles took the unusual step of asking the Magistrate if the boys could be charged with theft only – dropping the breaking and entry charge.
Silk Street: The poorest streets tended to have the roughest gangs
Also speaking on their behalf was Mr SH Neave from the Education Authority.
He said that the Clegg Street gang of school age did not have a particularly poor attendance record, but that it was their parents who were “indifferent to their education”.
The Chairman of the Bench, Mr E Everett, wasn’t not in the mood for leniency. He told the two oldest lads, age 16, that they were old enough to know better and fined them five shillings each with a warning to their future conduct.
Four others were bound over for good behaviour for six months along with their parents.
Perhaps he, too, was was concerned about lack of parental control in Clegg Street.
Mr Everett saved his wrath for the youngest boy, age 10, telling him that he would be receiving four strokes of the birch with his parents in attendance for good measure.
I must admit I feel a tad sorry for the poor lad being thrashed, perhaps as a warning to the others on his street.
It was a message they tried to get out both to parents and children regularly, if the 1916 court lists in Salford are anything to go by.
Main image: By Nick Harrison via Flickr
