The Thieves of Threadneedle Street: The Victorian Fraudsters Who Almost Broke the Bank of England

by Nicholas Booth

Late in 1873, London was gripped by the astonishing story emerging from the highest court in the land, where four American conmen were on trial for attempting the greatest financial scam the world had ever seen. Their leader, Austin Bidwell, had hatched a plan of devilish ingenuity that, were it not for one tiny stroke of bad luck, would have ended with him walking out of the Bank of England with £1 million in cash – a heist that would have plunged London into financial meltdown and put Bidwell's name alongside the legends of criminal history. In The Thieves of Threadneedle Street , Nicholas Booth tells the extraordinary true story of Bidwell and his gang. It is the tale of a charming criminal genius – then only 27 years old – who committed frauds all over the world before attempting the most audacious heist of the nineteenth century, but who, on the brink of escaping with his fortune, saw his luck finally run out. With access to hitherto unopened archives, Nicholas Booth has unearthed one of the greatest untold crime stories.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Crime

361 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2014

About the author

Nicholas Booth is a British author and broadcaster. Starting out as a science writer for national newspapers, he later worked in television and mobile publishing. Now he writes about unusual characters and unlikely events from history. His biography of the double agent Eddie Chapman, Zigzag, was highly acclaimed and will be made into a film. The Thieves of Threadneedle Street published in the U.S. by Pegasus Books is out now as a paperback. It was a pick of the week by Publishing News and a highlight of the season by The New York Times. Born in Cheshire in 1964, Nick lives there with his wife and their kittens.

Here is an interview with the author about The Thieves Of Threadneedle Street: http://mccormackwrites.com/2017/02/08...

Reviews

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

The true story of the American forgers who nearly broke the Bank of England…

My thanks to my contacts at Pegasus Books, Iris Blasi, Katie McGuire, and Maia Larson, for my advance reading copy of this book. You ladies rock!

The Bank of England is lovingly known as “The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.” In February 1873 a discovery was made that brought “The Old Lady” to her knees. A bill of exchange cashed by the bank was found to be a forgery. It was the drop of rain before the flood.

The entire amount stolen by means of forged bills of exchange (promissory notes) came to more than £100, 000. The men who managed this extraordinary robbery were Americans. Brothers Austin and George Bidwell, George MacDonald, and Edwin Noyes Hills defrauded bills against banks across the Continent, laundering the money through a false account at the Bank of England.

The brothers and their accomplices used a long list of aliases as they obtained genuine documents they would latter forge by using printing houses in Paternoster Row. No single printer made all of the documents, and none really knew that the same man was visiting other printing houses.

It says something to the audacity of the swindle when two men using aliases with no permanent address were allowed access to thousands of pounds with little to no trouble. If not for a single mistake, the forgetting of a date on one of the bills of exchange, they might have gotten away clean.

As it was it set off a massive manhunt, and they were tracked down in various places by the Pinkerton’s—Austin Bidwell in Havana, George Bidwell in Edinburgh, and George MacDonald in New York. All were finally tried at the Old Bailey, where the brothers were given life with penal servitude. Ironically, they were both released in the 1890’s and began lectures and a magazine on how crime does not pay.

Austin Bidwell stated that they used little more than pen and paper and a lot of chutzpa to pull off their scheme. This story follows the crime’s planning, execution, discovery, and the trial and aftermath.

I give the book four stars. It is interesting enough, but it does tend to drag at times.

Quoth the Raven…

[John Uzzi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good story poorly executed. Structure of jumping back and forth in time was difficult to follow, language was off putting.

[Laurel Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an interesting read although there were a lot of aliases and I got a bit confused. Also since I'm not knowledgeable of banking turns, especially in England in the 19th Century, I had trouble understanding some of what went on. Unfortunately I read the Kindle edition and there were numerous punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors. The Kindle edition also made it hard to read the footnotes in the back of the book so I didn't even attempt to do so and didn't even realize there were pictures in the back until I finished the book. I would recommend reading the actual book :)

[Tamsen Donker · Rating 1 out of 5]

Only finished it because I started it 😏 but this one took forever and required so much concentration! writing was done well but in an older fashion and so many names were used for the same person/multiple people in the story had very similar names. So hard to keep up with. But I persevered and learned a lot about the banking system in those days. Definitely an interesting story but not an easy read at all.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Victorian-era crime story I knew nothing about, which reminded me of some of the large scale modern financial scams.
The book does jump around the timeline, between the trial and the various phases of the lives of thise involved, which made the story incoherent at times.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a good story in general, but it took twice as long as necessary to tell it and just kept reiterating itself over and over.

[Deedee]

Dewey 364.163
FAY-PT

[William DuFour · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book on some American forgers who almost got away with it. It goes back and forth between the trial, and the job of forging on the Bank of England.

[Tehila · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing.

I really wanted to like this book, but found myself actually dreading the idea of picking it up. The research that the author did is very obvious, but for some reason I couldn’t easily follow the action.

I’m putting it on hold, and might go back to it again.

[Dorothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting story, enjoyed this one.

[Jack Goodstein · Rating 1 out of 5]

A good story wasted by some awful writing.

[Daniel Farabaugh · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book really took a lot of the excitement out of this crime story. The author does not adequately explain the intricacies of the crime and gets lost in the minutia of their travels.

[Laura Brose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exhaustive research of the times and conditions in which a massive bond theft was pulled off as much by "social engineering" as by weaknesses in the existing financial system. Parts can be dull (not everyone is interested in the banking system) but the author made a good effort to piece together the historical evidence which remained behind to attempt to give an accurate portrayal of the thieves, their backgrounds, their psychological makeup, and the society in which they lived.