Bigamy, theft and prostitution

This month's post focuses on a wanted poster from the Banffshire Constabulary collection (item reference POL/B/9/4/487). It's part of a wider collection of almost 800 police information notices collected at Dufftown Station in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

This example was sent out by the neighbouring Aberdeenshire Constabulary seeking three individuals – Barnett Burns, his wife Elizabeth and his sister Jane - for stealing £40 and a £255 deposit receipt (about £8500 in total in today’s money) from a drunk man near Inverurie in June 1918.

I’ve been able to find out a bit more about Barnett and Elizabeth using newspaper reports and marriage and census records, and to say these individuals lived colourful lives would be an understatement. The poster states that Barnett and Elizabeth’s marriage was bigamous: this marriage occurred in Huntly in 1917. Barnett had married his first wife Christina in 1913 and Elizabeth her first husband George Begg Stewart, who was a soldier, in 1909. The poster actually mentions she has a tattoo with her first husband's name and a picture of a soldier on her arm which is a nice detail.

Barnett and Elizabeth were prosecuted for bigamy in 1918 and sentenced to two months imprisonment: newspaper reports of the trial say that their original marriages were very short lived, and Elizabeth states that “Burns was the best man ever she had”. Interestingly, Barnett seems to be back with Christina, his first wife, in 1919 as he claims poor relief with her in Montrose in September 1919. 

I’ve actually found an earlier newspaper report of Barnett being fined in Elgin 1910 for assaulting another woman, also described as his wife, so perhaps he was a serial bigamist! By the time of the 1911 census he is in Craiginches prison for resetting (possession of property known to be stolen) a watch and chain stolen by another man in the Green in Aberdeen. Elizabeth also had previous: she was charged with stealing items from the Oldmill Poorhouse in Aberdeen in 1909. 

In the posters and other sources all three are variously described as hawkers and pedlars – door to door salesmen effectively – but also as vagrants, so they were probably living quite a desperate existence. Both women are described as prostitutes on the poster.

The trio were apprehended in Craigellachie with some of the notes in June 1918 and committed for trial: they plead guilty and are sentenced to 4 months and 3 months respectively. By 1922 Barnett is back in the papers for disorderly conduct in Muthill, Perthshire, smashing windows in a police cell.

If you are interested in the history of crime, check out our other blog - Criminal Portraits - which explores the cases in the Aberdeen City Police's Register of Returned Convicts.