To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that women have always made up a minority of offenders, particularly when it comes to more serious crime. Yet recently, when I was researching a case in the Liverpool Record Office, I realised that women in Liverpool in the 1840s, at least, were rather well represented in the criminal record.

Using the Calendar of Prisoners, which detailed men and women being held in the house of correction while waiting to be tried, it is clear that women in the early Victorian city were not just frequently named as being charged with misdemeanours – they were also recorded many times as having been charged with a felony, the more serious type of offending. The records show not only who these women were, but also the scale of previous offending some had undertaken. These were not necessarily young, innocent women who had been inveigled into committing crime by men – as some believed. However, they were often bruised by their upbringing and experiences, with sometimes extensive histories of criminal offending.

Of the first four recorded prisoners who appeared on charges of felony at the Liverpool sessions in December 1844, 50 per cent were women. Margaret Hewitt, 19, had been with stealing a watch. Mary Cooke, 22, was charged the same day with stealing two handkerchiefs. Both women were young and semi-literate; and both were accused of stealing items from men. On the following page of entries, there are nine people listed, of whom five are women – a majority of the entries. These women are again young, being between 20 and 23 years old. Three are illiterate; none read or write well. All are charged with theft.

Money was a common item to be charged with stealing; for example, Elizabeth Peters and Margaret Cummins had stolen Bank of England notes from Charles Harrison. Theirs was a major theft, as they had managed to steal notes worth £100. Against Elizabeth’s name, a series of prior offences has been noted, showing that although only 23, she had a criminal history going back at least four years. She had one conviction in each of 1840, 1841 and 1842. In 1843, she had been convicted six times, and she had already been convicted three times in 1844. However, her offending may have been the result of poverty, at least in part. Although her first conviction, in 1840, was for pawning – at which time she was using the alias Margaret Stewart – all her subsequent ones until the Harrison theft were for vagrancy. Her co-accused, Margaret Cummins, similarly had prior convictions, all for vagrancy – four in 1843, and one in March 1844.

This pattern of prior offending was common across the female offenders: several had convictions for vagrancy. Drunken behaviour also featured often. Other women had convictions for threatening behaviour, assault, malicious damage, and also for prostitution. Some women, such as the illiterate 21-year-old Ann Waters, had convictions for most of these: Ann had been convicted some 15 times between 1840 and 1844, before appearing again in December charged with stealing a petticoat and apron from another woman.

One of the youngest women to feature in the Calendar of Prisoners is Sarah Slowman, just 15 years old when she appeared on a charge of stealing a sovereign from William Nield. This was her first offence. She was in the calendar next to Ann Green, just five years her senior, who was also charged with stealing money (in her case, one sovereign and two half-crowns, taken from James Cowell). However, Ann perhaps served as a warning to Sarah. Ann had four earlier convictions for being a common prostitute, having served prison sentences of between a week and a month, and one for malicious damage. Another young offender was Mary Ann Armstrong, alias Maguire, who was just 13 when she was charged with theft.

The ages of these women are similar to the men, in so far as a wide range of ages is represented. Sarah and Mary Ann were young offenders, but so was George Hill, aged 14, and charged with stealing a cheese. At the other end of the scale, Mary Watkins was 49 when she was charged with stealing money, and had a history of offending that stretched back at least eight years (there are 34 prior convictions listed for her between 1836 and 1844, primarily for vagrancy and drunkenness). John Tarleton, with prior convictions for vagrancy and theft, was 67 when he appeared charged with stealing a pair of boots. However, it seems that it was the younger age group – late teens to early 20s – who were best represented in the Calendar of Prisoners – but despite their young ages, most, although not all, had previous convictions.

Several of the women who feature have Irish surnames, suggesting that they were drawn from Liverpool’s migrant population – the 1840s saw an influx of migrants due to the dire economic conditions and the potato famine that would blight the lives of so many over the course of the decade. These were families who would often end up living in the poorest parts of the city – and although it is important to remember that some Irish migrants, particularly earlier ones, did make a success for themselves in their adopted city, others, such as Ann Shields, married to a dock labourer and living in the Liverpool back-to-backs, resorted to prostitution and theft to get by. But economic hardship could frequently lead to offending, and this offending might start at the misdemeanour level but then become more serious, felonious offending. Once in the pattern of offending and imprisonment, it could be hard to get out of it.

Other women were born and bred in Liverpool, such as 36-year-old Jane Molyneux, who also went by the aliases Mary Evans and Jane Thompson. Jane had four prior convictions – one for assault and three for vagrancy – when she appeared at the Quarter Sessions charged with stealing a range of clothing. The items she stole were likely to have been taken to sell on, and including frocks, pinafores, chemises, and a skirt, gown and apron. She was again convicted and sent to prison for three weeks. Jane was undoubtedly from a poorer background – she later shared a house in a poor part of Liverpool with another family, part of a back-to-back estate of courts and alleys. Yet she may have ‘progressed’ from her earlier convictions to theft as a way to make a living, even if it was not a legitimate job.

Women stole a variety of goods. They took clothing (both men’s and women’s clothing, outerwear and undergarments; and also footwear and accessories), bedding such as counterpanes and sheets; and other household items such as cutlery, crockery and candlesticks. Domestic goods and clothing were always common items for women to steal, and this was because of the still gendered nature of space: where could women go, without arousing suspicion? Who could they get close to? If they were in a public street, then there was the opportunity to pickpocket from either gender, to steal their money and handkerchiefs; but if in a house or shop, they needed to have their excuses ready and take items that they thought they could reasonably justify having on their person if questioned.

The Liverpool Calendar of Prisoners shows that Liverpool’s women were well represented among the numbers of individuals committing felonious thefts, and that although they tended to steal different items to men, there were similarities too, certainly in terms of stealing money. They were often repeat offenders, and many had prior convictions, their offences gradually becoming more serious. What they were not, though, is the stereotypical depiction of the meek, submissive, Victorian woman: these northerners were anything but, forced by economic conditions to get by as best they could.