Woman turned to theft in Preston after leg break halted stage career

At the Preston Intermediate Sessions of mid-February 1913 before deputy chairman Mr. R.B. Walmsley and a bench of magistrates there were 22 prisoners down for trial.

Among those accused was Margaret Thompson, aged 22, who was smartly dressed and described as a factory operative. She was charged with stealing a purse, containing £10 in money, the property of John Manning in the second week of January.

According to the prosecution Mr. Manning was a Temperance Hotel proprietor in Preston and on the night in question the prisoner had stayed at the hotel. It was stated that Thompson had occasion to go into the kitchen the following morning where the stolen purse was on a table. When she had left the house, the purse was missed.

The accused was suspected of the theft and a week later the prisoner deposited her portmanteau at Victoria Station in London, from where the police received it. Upon searching the portmanteau the police found the empty purse.

Det Inspector Bridge was called to give evidence and he stated the prisoner’s real name was Margaret McTommony and that she had been born in Preston, had removed to Bolton at the age of thirteen. Subsequently, she had left her parents home with the intention of making herself a theatrical career and becoming a music hall star.

After a brief consultation the jury returned a guilty verdict and she was sentenced to five months imprisonment.

A month later Miss Thompson was in the courts again having been taken from her prison cell to the London Sessions where she pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing jewellery worth £10 from servants employed at the Hotel Victoria, on Northumberland Avenue in London.

The prosecution told the court that Thompson had been convicted of similar offences at Manchester, Bolton, Blackpool and Preston. Being a persistent thief who stole in order to get money to return to the stage. On this occasion she had walked into the Hotel Victoria during the day, slept in a disengaged bedroom, and strolled out in the morning, after giving the waiter sixpence for helping her on with her coat.

It was stated by the defence that she had fallen on hard times after breaking a leg, causing her ambitions to have a stage career come to a halt.

The chairman of the London Sessions, Mr. Wallace then passed sentence of twelve month’s hard labour, to run concurrently with the Preston sentence.

The Temperance Hall on North Road and six Temperance Hotels in the town were part of the legacy of Preston’s great Temperance Advocate Joseph Livesey.

These were the days of music halls and theatres throughout the land and in Preston there were a number of popular venues at the time such as the Empire, Royal Hippodrome, King’s Palace and Princes Theatre, who all had a wide variety of performances weekly.

Unfortunately, the ambitions of the stagestruck Miss Thompson would have to wait a while as she returned to custody.