412 Crime and the State
constables—Alexander Forfar, William Atley, and William Boomer—and an-
other eleven whose presence on other reward lists in these years makes it
clear that to a greater or lesser degree they were engaged in some aspects of
thief-taking.^136
Virtually all of these men appear on the list of about thirty thief-takers iden-
tified by Ruth Paley in what is by far the most detailed and illuminating account
of thief-taking in the eighteenth century.^137 Paley has reconstructed the social
world of the thief-takers and examined the larger implications of their work by
studying the court records, trial accounts, and other evidence across the me-
tropolis as a whole in the decade 1745 – 54. Although her analysis suggests that by
the 1740 s more men than ever before were engaged in the variety of activities
that made up the thief-taking business and that they remained involved over a
longer period, her account reminds us of the thief-takers we found at work in the
1690 s. The world she describes included a group of about a dozen who were
very active indeed, and who resemble Dunn and St Leger and other late seven-
teenth-century predecessors in several respects. Like some of the thief-takers of
the 1690 s, many of those uncovered by Paley had criminal records, and occu-
pied, as they did, what she calls ‘a somewhat ambiguous position in society’.^138
Again, like their predecessors, some had positions in the broader peace-keeping
apparatus: two were turnkeys in London prisons, and several were constables—
for the most part constables of the parish of Clerkenwell, in which the Middle-
sex house of correction and the new prison were located. As in the 1690 s, the
thief-takers of the mid-eighteenth century were far from being upstanding cit-
izens; they exploited a variety of questionable money-making schemes growing
out of their detection and prosecuting activities—bribery and intimidation not
the least of them. Several of the thief-takers studied by Paley ran sponging
houses and profited from the tribulations of debtors. As she makes clear, they
also took advantage of the numerous opportunities that came their way to be-
nefit corruptly from the administration of a criminal law that threatened con-
victed offenders with terrible penalties.
It remains as yet unclear how the thief-takers of the mid-century related to
one another. Paley describes several groups with broadly geographical founda-
tions centred on a nominal leader: one was based in the East End; another was
led by one of the better known thief-takers of the second quarter of the century,
Ralph Mitchell, from a base in Southwark.^139 The structure and internal
(^136) Ruth Paley notes that two of the thief-takers who shared in these rewards (William Body and John
Whittenbury) were each recommended by the Middlesex bench for a bonus of £ 50 to be paid by the
treasury for their contribution to the breaking of the Black Boy Alley gang. Why this did not happen until
February 1746 —almost eighteenth months after the event—is unclear (Paley, ‘Thief-takers in London’,
324 , n. 69 ).
(^137) Paley, ‘Thief-takers in London’, 341 , appendix. (^138) Ibid., 302.
(^139) Ibid., 310. Like several of the thief-takers in the 1690 s, Mitchell had taken up prosecuting after
being forced to turn king’s evidence to save his skin. He appeared frequently at the Old Bailey as well as
the Surrey assizes over several decades, giving evidence against highwaymen and burglars, and, after