He escaped from a British prison in Australia and made his way to New York City. In the 1840s, the Police Gazette wrote that Bristol Bill the Burglar was “the most celebrated bank robber and robber of our time”.
The London police knew his name but never revealed it, but we do know the following about Bristol-Bill. He was born in the early 1800s into an aristocratic family, the son of a Bristol MP. When Bill was in his second year at Eton College, his family adopted a 16-year-old orphan daughter of a poor clergyman. Bill was the most handsome of the men, standing nearly 6 feet tall, with piercing brown eyes and a wide forehead. Before long, he seduced the young woman and got her pregnant. His father was so incensed when he found out about the girl’s plight that he beat her son to a pulp and then kicked the girl out of her house. His father sent Bill back to Eton, but Bill soon tracked down his love and they eloped to London.
The boy was born, and to pay the bills, Bill got a job at a local locksmith. Soon, Bill became so adept at making keys, locks, and tools that he began selling his wares to a London gang called the Blue Boys. The Blue Boys were so successful at bank robberies and robberies that they soon made Bill their leader. This continued for half a dozen years until Bill amassed approximately $200,000. With his newfound wealth and the police hot on his heels, Bill abandoned his wife and child and headed for Liverpool, where he hoped to catch a ship to America. But a certain London policeman was on his trail and arrested Bill in Liverpool. This same policeman would pay for a large part of Bill’s life across the pond.
After his arrest, Bill’s money was confiscated and he was sentenced to 14 years in prison at a penal colony in Botany Bay, Australia. After serving 10 years, Bill escaped by swimming four miles to an American whaler. He first landed in Bedford, Massachusetts, but then made his way to New York City, where at the time almost all professional thieves were of British origin. Bill’s mission was to join a gang of thieves that called itself “the largest association of thieves, counterfeiters, and swindlers the Western world has ever seen.” The London contingent consisted of such prominent “cruisers” (a London term for crooks), such as Billy Fish, Billy Hoppy, “Cupid” Downer, Bill Parkinson, Bob Whelan, Jim Honeyman, and Dick Collard. They were joined by two New Yorkers, Joe Ashley and “One-eye” Thompson.
The mastermind of the operation was a shady character named Samuel Drury, who was known as a banker and financier, but was in fact a renowned forger and ringleader of stolen goods. Whatever the gang stole from him, Drury would buy and sell, keeping most of it himself.
Bill puts in a girl named Catherine Davenport, who was an expert sneak thief and pickpocket, but also worked for Drury as a “koneyacker” or counterfeit money smuggler. Davenport informed Drury that the famous Bristol bill was in New York City and that she wanted to join his operation. When Bill met Drury, he thought she looked familiar.
Were you ever a policeman in London? Bill asked Drury. Drury admitted that he was. “I knew it,” said Bill. “You are the same bloodhound that tracked me to Liverpool and pinched me for 14 years.”
Drury told Bill that he was caught stealing from himself and had to leave London for New York City. Drury told Bill, “If you have a grudge against me, you must forget it. I can make you a fortune in this country.”
Bill worked with Drury and his crew for a full four years, robbing banks, valuables, and jewelry from various states, as far away as New Orleans. He even traveled to Montreal to steal a large quantity of silver plates from the home of the Governor General of Canada. Bill’s specialty was making his own burglary tools, and he was the best lockpicker in all of America. He once escaped from jail with a key he made of silver oak. On another occasion he opened the door to his cell with a key he fashioned from a piece of stovepipe. Bill’s biggest heist was the robbery of the barge “The Clinton”. After opening the ship’s safe with a key he had made from a wax impression, Bill walked away with $32,000 in cash. He kept $10,000 and sold the rest to Drury for $7,000, of which Drury gradually divested a bank he owned in upstate New York.
By 1849, Bill had earned over $400,000 in America, which he spent primarily on these three “wives,” one in Manhattan, one in Brooklyn, and one in New Jersey. The three women were good friends and usually accompanied Bill on his robberies out of town; one posing as his wife and the other two as his sisters. There is no record of how he picked and chose which lady to play which role for each separate occasion.
Living the exuberant life, Bill thought it was finally time to get revenge on Drury. Bill knew that Drury had bombed the house of a lawyer he had had a fight with. No longer needing Drury as a fence, Bill, at the request of the Police Gazette, provided information to the police about Drury’s involvement in the explosion. While Drury and his son, along with One-Eyed Thompson, were in jail awaiting arraignment, police raided Drury’s mansion in Astoria and found forged license plates and thousands of dollars in counterfeit cash.
For his help in catching Drury, the New York City police gave Bill a pass. Knowing that New York City was not safe for him, Bill traveled to Vermont with his current girlfriend, a former opera singer known only as “Gookin’ Peg”. He was also accompanied by a forger named Christian Meadows and a London thief named English Jim. They rented a cabin in Groton, near the Canadian border, and prepared to do what they did best. Acting on information provided by the New York Herald and the Police Gazette, Vermont police raided the farmhouse in the spring of 1850. They found Bill’s homemade burglary tools, a counterfeit machine, and fresh bills. Also, there were several diagrams of banks that Bill was planning to rob.
Faced with insurmountable evidence, Bill and Meadows were arrested. English Jim was not at the cabin when the police arrived, and for some reason, “Gookin’ Peg” was not charged. Bill and Meadows were sentenced to ten years in Windsor State Prison. When Bill was released, he was almost 60 years old and disappeared from the American crime scene. Some said he went back to London. Others said that he died bankrupt in the United States.
While in prison, Bristol-Bill the Bulglar confided to his fellow inmates that the biggest mistake he ever made was inventing an unopenable lock in his early days as a locksmith in London, which sold widely in the United States. Joined. He said that on many occasions he came across his invention in bank vaults and house front doors, which made breaking and entering and robbing him nearly impossible.
