Lenathehyena's Blog from Lorna Corall Dey

“Woman in Red” gets nine months

For a few short months back in 1921 in Aberdeen the city’s most notorious criminal was a diminutive twenty-five-year-old woman. Dressed in a brick-red coat and red torque pull-on hat she might have stood out more had red not been quite so popular with the women of Aberdeen in the early twenties. However, she was sufficiently conspicuous for her appearance to be mentioned as someone of interest seen in areas where tenants suffered thefts from their tenement flats.

The Woman in Red was an opportunist thief. Until the 1960s it was unusual for folk in Scotland to lock their outside doors partly because people tended to live within the same communities for generations so trusted their neighbours and partly because they had little in their homes to steal. Aberdeen was a city of tenements; anyone could walk in the front door, along the lobby and upstairs to any flat. This is precisely what the woman dressed in red did. She knocked at doors on each landing making on she was looking for a Mrs Ross. If an actual Mrs Ross ever did answer her knock she would claim it wasn’t her but I don’t think any did. When a householder explained no-one of that name stayed there the young woman ‘apologised profusely for the trouble she had given’ and turned away. Turned away but did not always leave the multi-tenanted block of tiny apartments instead she tried each of the remaining flats hoping that no-one was at home and a door unlocked. When this happened in she would go searching through pockets of coats and jackets that hung in the lobby stealthily venturing into rooms that she would ransack, learning from experience where people tended to hide money, watches and the like. Occasionally after speaking to a tenant who was at home and fancying they might have something worth stealing she would appear to leave the premises but go into the toilet on the stair landing (some tenements had a lavatory on each floor shared by the tenants living on that floor – other tenements had outside toilets). There in the lavatory she waited hoping for the tenant to leave on an errand so she could slip into their home.  On at least one occasion she discovered a housekey under the doormat and let herself in which amounted to housebreaking as opposed to gaining entry through an unsecured door.

This was happening early in the 1920s and just a few years since the Great War of 1914-18 during which the woman had worked for a time in a munitions factory at Gretna Green and had become accustomed to having ‘good wages’. At the end of the war she left with a certificate of good character and unemployment benefit of 25 shillings. She returned to Aberdeen, to Woodside, where she lived with her grandparents in two rooms at 1 Bridge Street; the 3-roomed property was shared with a young couple and their child. These people were poor. The woman struggled to find work in Aberdeen so went south to Dundee and found a job in a jute mill. Soon, however, the mill struggled for contracts so put its employees on short time; pay was halved and she found herself with just 18 shillings a week plus 6 shillings unemployment benefit. Cutting her losses she returned to Aberdeen and to thieving in an audacious spree of badness that lasted three months during which time she gained notoriety in the city. She was poor but the people she stole from were also poor, some very poor. When eventually caught she showed her victims no compassion whatsoever – these were folk who had survived a truly awful war, invariably having lost loved ones to it.  

When brought to justice the Woman in Red pleaded guilty to 18 charges of thieving. It was pointed out in court she carefully selected the streets to target and went for many of the most impoverished of folk who couldn’t afford to lose money. She was the menace who caused anxiety among the city’s working folk for she robbed them of their small earnings, any savings and family possessions.

At widow Mary Simpson’s home in Bedford Road the sneak thief in red stole a purse. There was less than £3 in it. Nearby on George Street she let herself into the home of another widow, Barbara Ellison, and took her gold bangle, ring, a silver watch and six shillings. Police constable Alexander Barron lived in Holland Street. In his flat she found £6. At James MacKenzie’s home in Hutcheon Street she took all he had there – 8 shillings and his pair of gloves. She relieved John Bruce a baker on Lilybank Place of his silver watch while gardener, George Sherriffs had 15 shillings and 9 pence pinched from his home in Great Northern Road – didn’t even leave him the 9 pence. In Alexander Duncan’s home she found he had less than £2 – which she helped herself to – he was a labourer earning very little.  

Those victims lived fairly close to her grandparents’ home at Woodside but the red menace spread her wings. Making her way across town to Torry’s Grampian Road she walked into the home of marine engine driver Alexander Keith making off with two purses containing a small sum of money. She moved back over town to slightly wealthier working-class areas targeting tenants in Willowbank Place and Union Grove and over to Rosemount where she found cash and postage stamps in a house in Mount Street. At Henry Pirie’s tenement flat in Wallfield Crescent she scooped the huge sum of £17. Discovering his loss must have been a heart-stopping moment for him for this was his entire savings worth about £700 in current value. Back towards Woodside she walked into the flat rented by warehouseman James Gordon in Lamond Place and hurriedly left with £10 belonging to him. Labourer John Benzie’s home must have been a disappointment by comparison for she only gathered up 2 shillings and 6 pence there. The following day another poor labourer became her victim when she stole £3 belonging to him.  

Newspapers warned that a sneak thief was operating in the city and was thought to be a young woman dressed in a brick-red coat and red pull-on hat – distinctive you might imagine had not that shade been the vogue with women in Aberdeen so apprehending her was as difficult as searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. A picture of the suspected robber came from one of her victims a housewife who had nipped out to the front door to polish the brass bell. She was able to provide the police with a description of a young woman in a red coat and bonnet who came downstairs and walked past her without speaking which was unusual enough but on returning to her apartment the housewife discovered her handbag had been opened and its contents taken.

The bold thief was eventually spotted by police chief-inspector Gordon who followed her back to 1 Bridge Street, Woodside where he recovered £20 – £17 of which had been recently stolen from ‘a poor woman who had sold her entire household furniture in order to go abroad’. The robber had already spent £3 of that £20 so all that was gathered was £17 plus £3 that remained from her other thefts.  

As a result of the find two women at the property were arrested on suspicion of a string of thefts and remanded in custody for further inquiries but the first court appearance cleared the older woman, Ann Anderson the young woman’s granny, and she was released.

The trial of the Woman in Red was the speak of the town. A large crowd of mostly women gathered trying to get into the courthouse but so many turned up several were turned away as there was insufficient capacity in the courtroom to seat them all. When the charged emerged she appeared very nervous, her head bent down, she cried and bit on her nails throughout proceedings. There was the usual defence story – previously good character and ‘the only explanation was that she was short of cash’ – er, yes. Then, again, I don’t suppose the widows and labourers she stole from were exactly flush with it either.

The Woman in Red’s haul for three months effort amounted to more than £60 in cash along with jewellery and various items taken from her victims valued at over £18 amounting to a grand total just shy of £80 – £3000 in today’s money – all from poor folk who had scarcely two pennies to rub together. Okay, so you have to feel sorry for her, she was struggling, too, but the people she took from were no better off than she was and were easy targets – the sort of people had she asked would have been sympathetic and even inclined to give her a few pennies but she didn’t and it was reported that all she did with their hard-earned money was to squander it. Certainly, there was no mention of her helping out her grandmother with whom she was living instead her behaviour led to her 70-year-old granny spending time locked up in a police cell.  

The sheriff expressed sympathy for the accused because of her youth and having never been in trouble before but he pointed out he had a duty to protect the public and she was ‘a menace’ that created anxiety among the city’s poor targeting their savings and hard-gotten gains. He rejected a suggestion from friends of the woman that she be put into a Catholic Home in Glasgow instead of jail for he told them her wrongdoings were such that only a hard person could carry them out so she should pay a penalty for her crimes. He sentenced her to nine months in prison.  The ‘accused left the dock weeping.’

No longer the Woman in Red having ditched her smart clothing for prison garb she became simply convicted thief Helen Morgan. There was another Morgan girl living at 1 Bridge Street with the Andersons – Ann and her husband John aged 72 a retired metal breaker with Aberdeen Corporation roads department – that is he broke stones for building roads – 16-year-old Annie Morgan, presumably Helen’s sister.  Annie worked in the storeroom of Crombie wool mill near their home. The episode must have been a truly disturbing time for them. As for the public and the press they revelled in the episode of the Woman in Red once the perpetrator was safely behind bars. One journalist wag thought the affair merited a novel à la Wilkie Collins, author of The Woman in White along the lines of

In the end it didn’t and you’ll have to be satisfied with my humble blog instead.