01-03-2025
The South London all-women gang that once terrorised West End department stores
An all-female gang dressed in luxury clothing used to terrorise the streets of London. The Forty Elephants were once known as the "cleverest shoplifters in the country."
Now, a new Disney+ series is telling the story of this girl-power crime group which hailed from the streets of Elephant and Castle.
But this all-women working-class group is not to be underestimated. The Forty Elephants were a well-organised gang of thieves which kept shop-lifters on their toes in the West End.
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The group, which was active between 1870 and 1950, would dress-up like film stars in furs and expensive jewellery before stealing items from department stores, largely in the West End, to sell on for profit.
Life in Elephant and Castle, which inspired the group's name, was tough in the late 1800s. This area of South East London struggled with poverty, sanitation and high rents. It is therefore likely that the Forty Elephants saw their life of crime as a way of surviving in a tough environment.
The makeup of the Forty Elephants was inherently a family affair that was passed down through the generations. Leaders of the gang were called 'Queens' and the title went to whoever was deemed to be the best leader.
In the 1900s, a notorious female gangster, Alice Diamond, led the group in their criminal activity. Using their gender to their advantage, the Forty Elephants could blend into the luxury department stores they targeted better than male criminals. The group worked in cells which targeted certain areas of the city.
Brian McDonald, who in 2015 published his book 'Alice Diamond and the Forty Elephants: The Female Gang That Terrorised London,' said: "The girls benefited from prudish attitudes of the time by taking shelter behind the privacy afforded to women in large stores.'
He added: "They threw the liveliest of parties and spent lavishly at pubs, clubs and restaurants. Their lifestyles were in pursuit of those of glamorous movie stars, combined with the decadent living of 1920s aristocratic flapper society. They read of the outrageous behaviour of rich, bright young things and wanted to emulate them.'
The group members would dress up in luxury clothing before heading out to carry out their criminal activity. 'Dressed to kill, those girls would descend on a West End store like a swarm of locusts,' one police detective said, according to The London Museum.
One technique used by the gang was to distract shop assistants while others carried out the thievery. They would also wear specially made garments that could store stolen goods, such as underskirts with pockets or belts with hooks.
Members of the Forty Elephants would then go on to sell the stolen items to earn a profit and earn money on a commission basis. While many of the Forty Elephants evaded arrest, some leaders such as Alice Dimond and Maggie Hughes, were imprisoned in Holloway in Islington.
The new Disney+ series, A Thousand Blows, was released on February 21. The drama follows the Forty Elephants as they clash with a self-declared emperor of the East End's bare-knuckle boxing world.
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