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In the late 19th century, nefarious groups ruled the streets of London, but one stood out: the Forty Elephants, London's all-female organization. Contemporaries of the real Peaky Blinders, these women were the best shoplifters in London, able to hide multiple fur coats in their skirts and bloomers; and their queen, Diamond Annie, ran the outfit with ruthless precision in the 1910s and '20s. Dressed in expensive furs and arriving by limousine, Diamond Annie walked into high-end department stores and swiped fortunes' worth of merchandise in under an hour.
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In the late 19th century, nefarious gangs ruled the streets of London, but one stood out above
0:05
the rest, the Forty Elephants, London's all-female organization. Contemporaries of the real-life
0:11
Peaky Blinders, these women were expert shoplifters, and their queen, Diamond Danny
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ran the outfit with ruthless precision. So today, we're going to take a look at Diamond Danny and
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the Forty Elephants, the all-female gang that tormented London. OK, so the first thing you're probably wondering is why they were called the 40 Elephants
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Well, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the 40 Elephants flourished
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London was divided into different territories. The gang known as the 40 Elephants considered Southwark, a poor neighborhood south of the
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Thames, their home. The group's turf was located near an establishment called the Elephant and Castle Pub, which
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is one of the factors that gave the 40 Elephants their name. But there was more to it than that
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The moniker was also an inside joke. When the women went shoplifting, they would hide the jewelry and clothing they stole under their skirts
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When they left a store weighed down with all those goods, they quipped that the additional bulk made them look like elephants
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Which they did, sort of. Huh, never realized elephants looked like that. The 40 elephants may have been the best shoplifting ring in London's history
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The women donned coats and skirts with hidden pockets before visiting ritzy shops in London's West End
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Once inside, they would swipe thousands of pounds worth of merchandise in a matter of minutes by stuffing it into their hidden pockets
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The women also hid items in their hats and were often given so much privacy when shopping, they were even able to put merchandise in their bloomers
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That's trickier to do nowadays, unless you're stealing things that fit into your underwear, like a smaller pair of underwear
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For decades, the head of the 40 elephants was called the Queen of the 40 Thieves, or sometimes the Queen of the 40 elephants
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The first queen, Mary Carr, may have even founded the 40 elephants
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Under aliases like Polly Carr and Molly Main, Carr ruled the group for decades
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and at one point was known as the most dangerous woman in London. The women of the 40 elephants were generally known as hoisters
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A retired member explained that she went into the profession because there's not a lot of room in the crooked game
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for a woman who doesn't want to go regularly to work, like the mugs who punch a clock every morning
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According to the ex-elephant, a woman who doesn't want to work either hustles for a living and keeps some layabout as a ponce or she becomes a hoister That being said while the hoisters in the 40 elephants weren big on a hard day work they were willing to go that route if it led to bigger paydays
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For example, the women perfected a scheme preying on wealthy families. They would pose as maids, passing off
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forged recommendation letters to get hired working in seriously rich digs. After gaining the trust of their employers
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the maids would rob the family blind. Never trust an elephant, even if they
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have incredible references. Diamond Danny was born Alice Elizabeth Black in June of 1896
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Her father, Thomas Diamond, was also a criminal. He had at least three criminal convictions
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including one for punching the son of the Lord Mayor of London through a pane of glass, which will get you arrested
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but also will get you a pretty cool story. Diamond Danny, as she came to be known
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grew up in Southwark, close to the Elephant Castle neighborhood for which the 40 Elephants named themselves
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In the early 20th century, Diamond Danny took over the 40 elephants when she was just 20 years old
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Her younger sister, Louisa, also joined the 40 elephants. And her brother, Tommy, joined a different gang
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known as the Elephant and Castle Gang. That is a lot of elephant gangs in London
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It's like when every actor in Hollywood was suddenly named Chris. Might as well start drawing from a different well
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like the zebras or zebras. Alice Diamond already had the perfect name for a jewelry thief
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But some believe she earned her nickname, Diamond Danny, in part because she covered her fingers in diamond rings
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As London historian and author Brian MacDonald explained, Diamond Annie had a punch to beware of
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and was taller than the average London man at the time at five foot and nine inches
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which made her a force to be reckoned with. She was also one of the craftiest thieves
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in London's history. Once, when the police thought they had caught Diamond Annie
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and questioned her at a jeweler's shop, Annie managed to slip the missing jewels
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into the detective's pocket during the interrogation. It's unclear whether she convinced the detective
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to arrest himself, but either way, you've got to respect the guts and ingenuity
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Dime and Danny gave the crew a new direction by coordinating simultaneous schemes across London
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Rather than committing unorganized crimes around the city, she broke the groups into cells to carry out targeted incursions
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And the 40 elephants were damn good at what they did. For example, in 1915, they descended on a department store
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More than a dozen members showed up in disguise, exiting black handsome cabs in groups of three or four A limousine pulled up behind the taxis and the chauffeur held open the door for a stately woman wearing furs Spoiler that woman was Annie
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Since they were dressed as well-to-do socialites, the store managers didn't think anything of it
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In an hour, the women had plundered the store, taking clothes and jewelry without detection
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and walking out with a small fortune in goods. Annie herself stuffed two sable coats under her own furs
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and raced off in her limo before the store even realized what had happened. The 40 elephants knew that the key to avoiding detection
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was to look like women of means. High-end establishments were on the lookout for crimes
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committed by the poor. But they had a blind spot for people who strutted in looking like a million bucks
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and acting like they owned the place. That's exactly how elephants Maggie Hughes and Diana Black
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were able to take a fur coat worth 600 pounds. The women dressed in fur coats of their own
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and then visited the tailor who custom-made the coat. After asking about the prices of different items
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in the showroom, Hughes and Black managed to hide the expensive jacket under one of their own
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It took 30 minutes for anyone to notice the missing garment. But by then, Hughes and Black were long gone
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According to the charmingly named Detective Ambrose Askew, the 40 elephants were the cleverest lifters in the country
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And their methods were so remarkable that they had never been seen to take any goods
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And none of the taken property had ever been recovered. Members of the 40 elephants were also
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strategic about what they wore. The women dressed in the latest high fashion
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but they made sure never to wear goods they'd stolen. Instead, the women brought the merchandise to stores, traders, and pawnbrokers willing
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to buy the items, then used that money to fund their wardrobes
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It turns out don't get high on your own supply applies to wearing stolen clothes
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That is, if you don't want to get caught. The 40 Elephants used several techniques, not unlike pages from an NFL playbook, to steal
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staggering amounts of merchandise. For example, one member wore a false arm so she could conceal her real one beneath her
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coat for stealth pilfering. In one ruse called The Crush, a large group would swarm a counter, asking to see jewelry
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The women would pass an item down the line until a disguised co-conspirator took it
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Meanwhile, the others would make a distracting ruckus while proclaiming their innocence, allowing the thief to flee with the jewelry
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During another trick called The Ringer, a member would try on an expensive necklace
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and then leave to create an identical decoy. A second person would come into the store with a decoy, then swap the real necklace with the fake one
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Speaking of decoys, a particularly daring move involved a diamond nanny walking into a store that
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knew her reputation as the queen of the 40 thieves While the managers and clerks were laser focused on her another member of the gang would pile up several five discounts without detection The move was appropriately called the decoy The 40 elephants thrived for decades
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escaping police detection. The women bought fast cars that could outrun the police
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and use their cunning to evade them further. But the 40 elephants didn't always escape scot-free
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When one 19-year-old elephant was caught red-handed at William Whiteley's Emporium in Bayswater
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police found 45 items hidden beneath her skirt. And in 1923, Maggie Hughes, she of the fur coat scheme
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made a rookie mistake. She walked into a jewelry shop to look at diamonds
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and grabbed a tray of 34 rings. The 40 elephants typically got away with crimes like this
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all the time. But on this occasion, Hughes fled the shop and ran directly into a police officer
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Should have brought a lookout. And they say an elephant never forgets. Diamond Danny became the queen of the 40 elephants
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when she was just 20 years old and forced the women to follow strict rules called the
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Hoister's Code. Among the rules were no drinking before a raid and early hours to bed
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And if a member is taken into custody, others must be willing to provide an alibi
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But in the 1920s, Annie's extreme measures caused her downfall. When member Marie Britton fell in love with a man, Annie forbade the girl from running
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off with her lover. Britton, however, became pregnant and married the man anyway
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Annie flew into a rage. During a 40 Elephants party at the Canterbury Social Club, she convinced her inebriated followers
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to go after Britton and her new husband. On her orders, the 40 Elephants started an uprising
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armed with bottles, stones, and pieces of concrete. They broke their way into Britton's
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home and wailed on her husband while Britton watched. The incident did not end well for
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the elephants. The police intervened and captured the participants. Annie was sentenced to 18 months
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but by the time she was released, she had already been replaced. After Diamond Annie was sent to
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prison, a new queen took over the 40 elephants, Lillian Rose Kendall. Known for her smash and
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grab technique in wearing her hair in a bob, Rose was given the nickname the Bobbed Hair Bandit
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According to multiple accounts, Kendall preferred driving her car through storefronts to grab
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jewelry, like the Kool-Aid man struggling to come up with cash for his DUI fines. It certainly
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lacked the subtlety and finesse of Diamond Danny's methods, but you can't argue with results. For her
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part, it seems Annie had no desire to compete with Kendall for her former position as head of
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the 40 Elephants. Instead, the retired queen ran a cat house in Lambeth until her passing in 1952