Big Question
Was Thomas Sidney Nicholls a criminal?
QI’m trying to find out what happened to Thomas Sidney Nicholls (born 23 February 1886, Battersea, Surrey, Wandsworth Registration District).
The last good record I have of Thomas is the 1901 census, when he was an inmate on the training ship Mount Edgmont in Saltash, Devon.
Was Thomas a criminal who changed his name?
David Nicholls
AYou have made an interesting discovery already in your search for Thomas Sidney Nicholls. As you deduced from the evidence on the 1901 census of the training ship Mount Edgmont in Devon, Thomas entered a life of crime at a young age.
I turned to the historic newspapers in the British Newspaper Archive ( britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk); the same collection is available to ‘Pro’ subscribers to Findmypast ( findmypast.co.uk). A search revealed an article published in the South on 25 August 1899, in which Thomas is revealed to have been a thief at a young age, when just a schoolboy, living with his parents at 107 Winstanley Road in Battersea. He stole 10s 6d from his sister, who was working as a servant. According to his sister’s testimony, he had stolen before. Thomas was discharged, but with a warning. Sadly, Thomas seems not to have heeded the warning because he was sent to the training ship by the night of the 1901 census.
Thomas appears to have been a repeat offender, not learning from his mistakes nor being rehabilitated from his life of crime. A register on Findmypast reveals that on 2 September 1905, Thomas Sidney Nicholls was up before the Magistrates’ Court in Plymouth (near where the training ship had been moored in 1901) for larceny. He was sentenced to one month’s hard labour (Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, ref. 1542/1/1). This entry is particularly useful in that it reveals he was also known as Ernest E Pengelly.
This court session was reported in the Western Evening Herald on 4 September 1905, and provides a unique insight into Thomas’ character: “Who says we are not wide-awake in the West? Mr Thomas Sidney Nicholls, ‘seaman’, London, who has lately honoured us with his presence, gave us a fine testimonial on Saturday. After his arrest on the suspicion that he had broken open an automatic machine, he magnanimously confessed, ‘I am considered smart in London, but I am not smart enough this time,’ and took what consolation he could in his philosophy: ‘Never mind, we will have a better haul next time.’ Mr Nicholls, we are sure, is an interesting study, but we cannot say we are convinced as to the value of his personal testimony to his own smartness. We think smart men in what seems to be his profession do not abandon the Metropolis for the provinces except for a brief excursion, and Mr Nicholls has been with us for some time, having received a week’s hospitality at Crownhill in June, when he was found sleeping out, an impossible position for a really smart man. His present withdrawal from free active life for a month’s meditation and hard labour may make our guest a more careful thief; we are sure it will not make him a better citizen. Some day we, too, may learn things, for instance how to deal sensibly with cases of obliquity of moral vision.”
There is a marriage entry for a Thomas S Nicholls in Camberwell, London, in the March quarter of 1911, which may be worth checking (vol. 1d, page 878). If this is the correct person, then it may be possible to trace him through his wife and any children.
Another approach could be to trace Thomas’ parents and siblings forward to see if they left wills or any clues that could indicate what had happened to their relative. Emma Jolly