The Most Celebrated Bank Robber of the

He escaped from the English prison in Australia and produced his method to New York City. In the 1840's, the Police Gazette wrote that Bristol Bill the Burglar was "the most celebrated bank robber and burglar of our time."

The London police realized his name however they never unmasked it, but we do know the next about Bristol-Bill. He was created in the early 1800 to an aristocratic family, the son of a Bristol MP. When Bill was in his second year at Eton College, his family used a 16-year previous orphaned girl of an unhealthy cleric. Bill was the handsomest of guys, very nearly 6 legs tall, with piecing brown eyes and a broad forehead. Right away, he lured the young child and got her pregnant. His father was therefore outraged when he found out about the young girl's delicate issue, he overcome his son to a pulp, then banished the girl from his home. His father sent Bill back to Eton, but Bill shortly situated his love and they both absconded to London.

The little one was created, and to cover the costs, Bill got work in an area locksmith. Shortly Bill was therefore adept at essential, lock and tool creating, he began offering his products to a London Team called the Blue   new orleans locksmith Boys. The Blue Boys were therefore effective at burglarizing and bank robbing, they shortly make Bill their leader. That continued for six years till Bill gathered around 200,000 dollars. Along with his newfound riches, and with law enforcement nipping at his heels, Bill forgotten his wife and kid, and headed to Liverpool, wherever he expected to go a ship to America. But a particular London policeman was on his trail, and he arrested Bill in Liverpool. That same policeman might pay a large portion in Bill's life on the other part of the Pond.

Following his charge, Bill's income was confiscated and he was sentenced to 14 years in prison at a penal colony in Botany Bay, Australia. Following serving a decade, Bill escaped by swimming four miles to an American whaler. He first landed in Bedford, Massachusetts, but then he produced his method to New York City, wherever during the time almost all the professional robbers were of English extraction. Bill's objective was to attach with a robbery gang that has been called "the most considerable association of thieves, counterfeiters, and swindlers that the American earth has actually seen." The London contingent consisted of such observed "crossmen" (a London term for thieves), as Billy Fish, Billy Hoppy, "Cupid" Downer, Bill Parkinson, Joe Whelan, Rick Honeyman and Dick Collard. These were joined by two New Yorkers, Joe Ashley and "One-eye" Thompson.

The minds of the operation was an unethical character named Samuel Drury, who was known as a banker and a financier, but was actually a counterfeiter of great renown, and a wall of taken goods. Whatever his gang robbed, Drury might buy and sell, and keep consitently the significant section himself.

Bill achieved a woman named Catherine Davenport, who was a professional sneak-thief and pickpocket, but she also worked for Drury as a "koneyacker," or even a passer of counterfeit cash. Davenport knowledgeable Drury that the popular Bristol Bill was in New York City, and that he wished to join their operation. When Bill first achieved Drury, he believed he appeared familiar.