Though like Eva, she struggled to come to terms with the choice facing women to work or marry. His mother was of Irish and Norwegian descent, while his father was halfNative-American. Before then, Fraser had been involved in smash-and-grab raids and wages snatches. "Hill paid by the stitch if you put 50 stitches in a man's face, you could expect 50," says James Morton, Fraser's biographer. [28], "Gangland enforcer sets the record straight about 'the bad old days': Rhys Williams meets "Mad" Frankie Fraser, once known as Britain's most violent man", "Find & contact The White Hart in Waterloo", "Local and community news, opinion, video & pictures - Southport Visiter", "Tories condemn prisoners' freedom to read criminal memoirs", "Gangland enforcer 'Mad' Frankie Fraser dies at 90", "Mad Frankie Fraser given Asbo at age of 89 after bust-up at care home", "Gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser dies at 90", "Mad Frankie Fraser dead: Notorious gangster dies in hospital aged 90 following leg surgery", Personal website with biography and details of gangland tours, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frankie_Fraser&oldid=1107726220, This page was last edited on 31 August 2022, at 15:09. End-right girl on the back row is Eva.. VIEWS Every old-school south Londoner knows the folklore of cockney criminal Frankie Fraser, whose violent tendencies were infamous on the streets of Walworth. On his release, Fraser joined Richardsons brother Eddie in a company called Atlantic Machines, installing fruit machines at some of Sohos most profitable sites, with Sir Noel Dryden recruited as the respectable frontman. I saved myself from Royal life, Harry says & insists 'sharing's an act of service', Love Island's Olivia Hawkins breaks silence as she returns to the UK, Loose Women star lined up to be Strictly's first contestant in wheelchair, Coronation Street fans horrified as Amy Barlow is raped in disturbing scenes, News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. In August 1963, invited to take part in the Great Train Robbery, Fraser pulled out because he was on the run from the police. Its clear she still had to feed her family by acting on the wrong side of the law Beezy said. Join Facebook to connect with Frankie Fraser and others you may know. What Fraser invariably threatened was violence. Various members were eventually caught, though and served their time in Holloway prison, where rations were meagre and they slept on boards. 'And they were the best fun for a night out.'. Although his parents were not criminals, Fraser turned to crime aged 10 with his sister Eva, to whom he was close. She helped support her young siblings by taking milk and bread from neighbour's doorsteps. He received a further five years when, in 1970, he was acquitted of incitement to murder but convicted of grievous bodily harm after he had led the Parkhurst prison riot the previous year. Mad Frank (1994), which went on to sell around 100,000 copies, was the first in a successful series. Although he was conscripted, Fraser later boasted that he had never once worn the uniform, preferring to ignore call-up papers, desert and resume his criminal activities. [24], Fraser's wife, by whom he had four sons, died in 1999. [3][4], Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road in Waterloo, London. Fraser owed his success in the fruit machine business to Billy Hill, whose patronage Fraser courted when he attacked and almost killed Hills gangland rival Jack "Spot" Comer. When the heat from the cops in London got too much, they headed off to the Costa del Crime to seek their fortunes there. In 1941, Fraser was given his first taste of punishment when he was sent to borstal for breaking into a Waterloo hosiery store. His funeral took place on December 18, 2014. For latest book news including updates on the forthcoming film Mad Frank and Sons please like my page Beezy Marsh.
Frankie Fraser Profiles | Facebook During the 1950s, Fraser's main criminal occupation was as bodyguard to well-known gangsterBilly Hill.
Family ways of 'Mad' Frankie | The Northern Echo Mad Frank. The women, who carried razors wrapped in lace handkerchiefs, were known for violent outbursts - including one furore that resulted in a woman blinding a police officer by stabbing him in the eye with her hatpin. In 1966 he was charged with the murder of Richard Hart, who was shot at a club in Catford, but the charges were dropped when a witness changed their testimony. She once stabbed a policeman in the eye with a hatpin, blinding him. At her kitchen table, Alice would teach her girls how to roll furs on the hanger and shove them down their drawers, which the gang called 'clouting'. Fraser himself was accused of pulling out the teeth of victims with a pair of pliers. The Richardson Gang was an English crime gang based in South London, England in the 1960s.Also known as the "Torture Gang", they had a reputation as some of London's most sadistic gangsters. Members of The Forty Thieves, whose mugshots were captured by the Police Gazette ahead of regular stays at Holloway Prison, often wore beautifully designed hats, coats and dresses in order to fit in - known as 'putting on the posh'. He shot, slashed, stabbed and axed. His major stretch in prison came at the end of the Swinging Sixties, shortly before his rivals, the Krays, were jailed, but he was so badly behaved behind bars that he lost every day of remission and even had five years added to his sentence for one of the worst riots in prison history at Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight. "As I was growing up, I never had to buy a shirt Eva made sure she nicked them for me. They stole to put food on the table. By Emer Scully and Beezy Marsh for MailOnline, Published: 10:41 GMT, 4 November 2021 | Updated: 13:07 GMT, 4 November 2021. Aged seven, Ms Pitts was stealing milk and bread to provide food for her five siblings. In the second part, she reveals how Frank wasnt the only member of his family with a chequered past. Yet they fiercely guarded their right to 'earn' their own money. Please enter your username or email address to reset your password. Diamond's second-in-command Maggie Hughes was known as 'Babyface' for her sweet looks and made a habit of cheekily shouting back at the judge when she was sentenced to jail: 'It won't cure me! None of the gang were afraid to use razors on those who crossed them. Harry Styles put on an animated display as he took to the stage for a second night at the Accor Stadium in Sydney's Olympic Park on Saturday.. But few would perhaps know about the equally incredible lives led by his three sisters. The violent thugs, the Kray twins, held Eva Fraser in high regard because of her role in the gang and during the 1940s and 1950s and the Soho gang boss Billy Hill - brother of the fiery Ms Hughes - was careful not to encroach too much on their territory because he respected their right to earn their own money, free from male interference. But his greatest moment of national notoriety came a quarter of a century earlier, during what the media billed as the Torture Trial (in fact a series of trials) in 1967 that became one of the longest in British criminal history. Not long after being released, Hughes was involved in the Lambeth riot of Christmas 1925, when the home of Bill Britten was stormed. The violent thugs, the Kray twins, held The Forty Thieves member Eva Fraser in high regard during the 1940s and 1950s. 'Any girl worth her salt in South London in those days was a. This resulted in Fraser returning to prison once again - this time to serve a seven-year sentence. [13], It was in the early 1960s that Fraser first met Charlie and Eddie Richardson of the Richardson Gang, rivals to the Kray twins.
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? Fraser became a minor celebrity of sorts, appearing on television shows such as Operation Good Guys,[18] Shooting Stars,[19] and the satirical show Brass Eye,[20] where he said Noel Edmonds should be shot for killing Clive Anderson (an incident invented by the show's producers), and writing an autobiography. The raids seem often to have been left to chance, and he was particularly unfortunate with cars. As an adult she was beaten by one of her boyfriends and the father of five of her seven children, Chris Hawkins, who was a fruit and vegetable seller in Hoxton. The Guardian, October 12 1980 Frank Fraser is a thorn in the Prison Department's side - a thorn so big that he is possibly the only British criminal who has become a legend simply by serving time. Following a trial at the Old Bailey in 1967, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. While the award-winning TV show Peaky Blinders was inspired by the all-male Brummagem Boys gang from the same period, the Forty Thieves make some of even their escapades seem tame by comparison. [14] According to Fraser, it was they who helped him avoid arrest for the Great Train Robbery by bribing a policeman. Once again, he was sent toprison, this timefor taking part in bank robberies. Photograph: Alex Segre/Rex. [8] Although his parents were not criminals, Fraser turned to crime aged 10 with his sister Eva, to whom he was close. Eva Brindle formerly Fraser. She was chauffeured in a Bentley and always wore a sable coat. Fraser, tried separately, was jailed for 10. Beezy a former Sunday Times journalist whose biography Mad Frank & Sons was published last year was given unprecedented access to interview the family and learn about the three bold women, who grew up in Howley Terrace, in Waterloo during the 1930s. It will only make me a worse villain! Eva Fraser - the sister of notorious gangster Mad Frankie Fraser - was reputedly one of the last members of the Queens of the Forty Thieves shoplifting gang, which sold stolen goods from. After the war, he worked for underworld boss Billy Hill, for whom he carried out razor attacks. He was so attired when, in 1951, he attacked the governor of Wandsworth prison, William Lawton, as he walked his pet terrier on Wandsworth Common. In 1969 Fraser led the Parkhurst prison riot on the Isle of Wight and found himself back in court charged with incitement to murder. Fraser was the youngest of five children who were growing up in poverty - he first turned to crime at the tender age of 10, alongside his sister Eva. "You name it, we nicked it," he says. The following year, the British mobsterJack Spotand wife Rita were attacked on Billy Hill's say-so, by Fraser, Bobby Warren and at least half a dozen other men. Eva got six months for stealing stockings from Bentalls in Kingston upon Thames. Possessed of a ready wit and good repartee, he followed this up with stage performances both in the East and West End, where he appeared with his then companion of 10 years, Marilyn Wisbey, the daughter of a Great Train Robber, Tommy Wisbey. But Hill was already an admirer: a picture taken at a party to launch Hills ghosted autobiography in 1955 shows Fraser draped artistically over a piano. When he was 10, the pair stole a cigarette machine from a local pub, hauled it to some waste ground and jemmied it open. It is important that we continue to promote these adverts as our local businesses need as much support as possible during these challenging times. Somehow Eva found herself in the opposite company of her eldest sister Peggy, whose boyfriend was heavily involved in the Communist Party, whom the Blackshirts fought in the famous Battle of Bermondsey, and the even more famous Battle of Cable Street. In the summer of 2013 it emerged that, at the age of 89, Fraser had been served with an Antisocial Behaviour Order (Asbo) after another incident, this time at his care home in Peckham, south London. She had died in 2000 but her daughter Beverley, who shared Evas reticent nature, agreed to talk to me and that revealed that Eva had been leading criminal in her own right. But by the time of his death at the age of 90 from complications following leg surgery, Fraser had become something of a minor celebrity. In 1938, she was sentenced for stabbing a policeman in the eye with a hatpin. She was one of the top thieves during the war. The first came when he was in the army during the second world war, the second time when he was sent to Cane Hill psychiatric hospital in Coulsdon, Surrey, and the third when he was transferred from Durham prison to Broadmoor. Francis Davidson Fraser, criminal, born 13 December 1923; died 26 November 2014, Gangland criminal and in later life a minor media celebrity, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Frankie Fraser in 2002. From then on until the end of the 1980s, Fraser was more often in jail than not. Mad Frank: Memoirs of a Life of Crime appeared in 1994, with two further volumes following in 1998 and 2001. When the police arrived, they found Hart lying under a lilac tree in a nearby garden.
Harry Styles bares his impressively toned torso and body art at gig He was very skilled at manipulating people and he played a long game, letting people believe he was mad, with the intention of winning in the end. Ms Marsh said it 'was time to reappraise London's gangland' when she wrote The Queen of Thieves. He was said to have pulled out the teeth of one of the victims with a pair of pliers. We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. During his time behind bars he was involved in violence and was a major instigator in the Parkhurst Prison riots in 1969. After trying his hand at crime as a.
New biography of notorious Frankie Fraser promises to reveal the late The Frasers were both contemporaries of the Hatton Garden heist gang members many of whom also came from south London and who operated on the same bank robbing scene and shared jail cells with the Fraser boys at some point. On 26 November, Fraser died after his family made the decision to turn off his life-support machine. 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. The grim terraces of Waterloo and the tenements of Elephant and Castle provided plenty of girls desperate enough to join The Forty Thieves. Because of Frasers behaviour in jail over the years, he forfeited almost every day of his remission. [25] In June 2013, the 89-year-old Fraser was served with an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) by police after a row with another resident. Fraser was defended by a young solicitor called James Morton, who later became an author and wrote a history of Londons gangland in 1992. End-right girl on the back row is Eva.. Every old-school south Londoner knows the folklore of cockney criminal Frankie Fraser, whose violent tendencies were infamous on the streets of Walworth. Moment brazen thieves jump behind counter at Chicago Drug baron, 58, who 'hid 198MILLION fortune from police' is Isabel Oakeshott receives 'menacing' message from Matt Hancock, Dozens stuck in car park as staff refuses to open gate for woman, Incredible footage of Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russians in Bakhmut, Pro-Ukrainian drone lands on Russian spy planes exposing location, 'Buster is next!' Even the gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser, whose sister Eva was a leading light in the gang in the thirties and forties, spoke with great reverence about Alice Diamond. ", The new documentary returns to this theme, suggesting he had a hard time in prison because there were no criminals in his family. 'In fact, she was one of the people who spotted his talent for stealing after he pinched a cigarette machine from a hotel as a small boy. She also passed on her 'wisdom' to a future queen, Shirley Pitts. Fraser considered that Lawton had meted out cruel and vindictive punishment to him at Pentonville in 1948, and to avenge himself Fraser assumed the role of hangman. Throughout his life he denied the justice of this conviction, but he was happy to trade off it. According to one of his sons, David, Fraser was unharmed but he did not inform on his assailant. Fraser himself was accused of pulling out the teeth of victims with a pair of pliers. Newsquest Media Group Ltd, Loudwater Mill, Station Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. She was still hoisting well into her 70s.'. Here are some pictures of Eva Fraser of the Forty Thieves and her sister Kathleen.
Mad Frankie Fraser - Everything2.com The Krays, according to Frank, were little more than thieves ponces.. And involvement in such activities often led to his sentences being extended. But Beezy said: [Kathleen] experienced the slums of Waterloo as a place buzzing with excitement and the tight-knit community, with its Catholic Church parades, which gave her the chance to shine, though she instead works at the old Hartleys jam factory in Bermondsey. None of the gang were afraid to use razors on those who crossed them, Some of London's The Forty Thieves' antics made the Peaky Blinders look like choirboys. He also ran a coach tour pointing out to a spectrum of customers the old criminal London. It was almost as if the biggest thrill of all was the act of stealing itself. Comments have been closed on this article. Mother of [private daughter (1940s - unknown)] Died 2000s. Nevertheless he was good at sports, captaining the football team at St Patricks school, Southwark, and boxing as an amateur. The following year, the British mobster Jack Spot and wife Rita were attacked, on Hill's say-so, by Fraser, Bobby Warren and at least half a dozen other men. His last jail term ended in 1989, but in 2011 he was handed an Asbo after getting into an argument with a fellow pensioner at the sheltered accommodation where he lived in Bermondsey. Fraser was part of Britain's Underworld between the 1940s-1960's.
From the time of Frankie Fraser's - MAD FRANK and SONS | Facebook With the help of Hill and mafia interests, Fraser and Eddie Richardson established Atlantic Machines, a successful business placing one-armed bandits in clubs throughout Britain. After the war, Fraser was involved in a smash-and-grab raid on a jeweller, for which he received a two-year prison sentence, mostly served atHMP Pentonville. Sister of Frankie Davidson Fraser. However, according to a new documentary, he is clearly not going gentle into any good night. This is Eva Fraser, sister of gangster " Mad" Frankie who was one of the leading lights in The Forty Thieves. Both Fraser and Warren received seven-year sentences. His mother was of Norwegian-Irish stock and his father was half Native American. His wife, Doreen, whom he married in 1965, and who with Eva loyally toured the prisons to visit him, died in 1999.
Frankie Fraser obituary | Crime | The Guardian Fraser spent a lot of time in solitary confinement, tormented by prison officers who would spit in his food. Such were the criminal opportunities during the war, Fraser joked in a television interview years later, that he had never forgiven the Germans for surrendering. It spent six weeks in the Sunday Times top ten and held the coveted #1 Globe and Mail chart slot in Canada for three months. But few would perhaps know about the equally incredible lives led by his three sisters. She helped him sell on his loot.
Who was 'Mad' Frankie Fraser? | The Scottish Sun He saw himself as an innovator, claiming to have invented the Friday gang, robbing wages clerks carrying money from banks; he would use a starting handle to beat his victims and to deter any watching have-a-go heroes in the street. Their view on Hatton Garden was that the world had moved on and robbing banks now was akin to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid trying to get away on horseback, while the police gave chase in cars. Aged seven, Ms Pitts was stealing milk and bread to provide food for her five siblings. . While still a teenager, in the spring of 1943, he took part in a daring raid to free an Army deserter from a squad sent to collect him from Wandsworth Prison. The business came to an end in 1966 when a fight in a Catford night club, Mr Smiths, left a Kray associate, Dickie Hart, dead, and Richardson and Fraser, who was charged with Harts murder, in prison. Keeping My Sisters Secrets was published on July 27 by Pan Macmillan. Many of the Forty Thieves were noted for their beauty as well as their shoplifting skills, such as Madeline Partridge and her sister Laura, whose mother was often used by Diamond to sell stolen goods. Part of his mouth was shot away in the incident. Francis Davidson "Frankie" Fraser, better known as "Mad" Frankie Fraser,was an English gang member and criminal who spent 42 years in prison for numerous violent offences. At the age of five, he moved with his family to a flat on Walworth Road, Elephant and Castle. Fraser was part of Britain's Underworld between the 1940s-1960's. He was a known associate of gangster Billy Hill throughout the 1950s. The Sun website is regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), Our journalists strive for accuracy but on occasion we make mistakes. To inquire about a licence to reproduce material, visit our Syndication site. Frank Davidson Fraser (13 December 1923 - 26 November 2014), better known as 'Mad' Frankie Fraser, was an English gangster who spent 42 years in prison for numerous violent offences. But who were the gang's most brazen members? An unregenerate villain of the deepest dye, Fraser satisfied the public appetite for vicarious thrill-seeking with a series of self-exculpatory memoirs in the 1990s that launched him on a twilight career as a celebrity criminal. Frankie Fraser, born December 13 1923, died November 26 2014, Frankie Fraser at Repton Boxing Club in 2005, Rishi Sunak to host Coronation Big Lunch at Downing Street, Erik ten Hag: Man Utd were a mess with no rules Casemiro has helped sort them out, How Ollie Lawrence became England's missing piece, Harlequins set attendance record but rampant Exeter spoil Twickenham party, Marcus Smith sends England message to Steve Borthwick with man-of-the-match performance, Super-sub Reiss Nelson completes thrilling Arsenal fightback. [6] Fraser was the youngest of five children and grew up in poverty. Aged 17 she was convicted for stealing from a hat shop in Oxford Street. Author Beezy Marsh said: 'These women fought harder than the men and were feared by men and women in their communities. 'It gave them a life they could never have afforded. A famous Monty Python sketch featuring the Piranha brothers, Doug and Dinsdale, has often been associated with Fraser and the Kray twins and some aspects of the new documentary may add to this impression. The criminal, who has spent almost half his life in prison, passed away earlier at King's. The police were cozzers and a burglary was a screwer, hitting someone was a clump, while jewellery was tom as in Tom Foolery, in rhyming slang. His first conviction was for stealing cigarettes, and with the second he was sent to an approved school. Ms Marsh said: 'These women fought harder than the men and were feared by men and women in their communities. Although he was acquitted, a further five years were added to his sentence. Eva knew the Krays well and they treated her with reverence, although she saw them as little more than naughty boys. "My father was the most honest man I've ever come across," says Fraser, who also refers to his Native American antecedents, saying that his grandmother was "a Red Indian", According to his sons, Fraser has no regrets: "He said, 'No, I wouldn't have done my life any other way. It wasnt that we chose to be thieves, said Patrick. He was given an asbo, one of his sons told film-makers, after getting into an argument with a fellow-resident and is unrepentant about his life of crime. Daughter. Shegot her first criminal record aged just 14 and, in 1923, she was jailed after running out of a jeweller's with a tray of 34 diamond rings straight into the arms of a policeman. However, it was in the early 1960s that Fraser began to take on even bigger crimes, when he first met Charlie and Eddie Richardson of the Richardson Gang - rivals to the Kray twins. A keen Arsenal supporter, Fraser had four sons, the first three of whom, Frank Jr, David and Patrick, followed to an extent in his footsteps.
'Mad Frankie' Fraser - a legend in his own gaol time Queen of Thieves: The gangland women who made Peaky Blinders look like She was taught by Alice Diamond in the 1930s and a very senior member throughout the. During the 1940s it was not unusual for 'hoisters', a historical term for shoplifters, to be paid a hundred pounds a week - out earning men's average wages ten-to-one. Fraser was one of the ringleaders of the major Parkhurst Prison riot in 1969, spending the following six weeks in the prison hospital because of his injuries. Photograph: Crime and Investigation network. View the profiles of people named Frankie Fraser. Fraser, whose health has been deteriorating in recent years, turned to crime aged just nine when he and his sister, Eva, became petty thieves. It was a thief's paradise, Gor blimey! 'The other side of the story involves these feisty women and it is perhaps more fascinating given the limited powers such working class girls had to earn a decent wage.'. The Old Bailey jury heard, in grisly detail that still resonates 50 years on, how Frankie Fraser tried to pull Coulstons teeth out one by one with a pair of pliers. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. Notorious gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser died in hospital today aged 90, relatives have revealed. Frankie Fraser was a notorious torturer and hitman for the Richardson gang of south London criminals in the 1960s. Jack 'Spot' Comer showing the scar on his face left by Frankie Fraser and Alf Warren (GETTY), By 1956, Fraser had racked up 15 convictions and had twice been certified insane. Former Northern Echo journalist Beezy Marsh has written a book about London gangster Mad Frankie Fraser. [9], Fraser was an Arsenal fan, and his grandson Tommy Fraser is a professional footballer. Fraser also appeared as East End crime boss Pops Den in the feature film Hard Men, a forerunner of British gangster movies such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and had a documentary made of his life, Mad Frank. He spent more than 40 years in prison.
Author returns with book about the fascinating lives of notorious Eva got into shoplifting, but had a heart of gold. In 1945, when he was 21, he assaulted the governor at Shrewsbury prison with an ebony ruler snatched from the governors desk, for which he received 18 strokes of the cat. When shoplifting she used a number of techniques including: wearing different wigs, putting stolen items under her skirt and the use of barrier bags lined with tin foil to prevent the detection of security tags. To evade discovery they posted the stolen items back to London or depositing a suitcase of loot at the railway station's left luggage office, to be collected later. Once he said he would do something, he did it, and he despised others who backed down. A Gannett Company. Another grandson, Anthony Fraser, was being sought by police in February 2011 for his alleged involvement in an alleged 5 million cannabis smuggling ring. Then they were turned over to Fraser. Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road in Waterloo, London. In 1996, he played (his friend) William Donaldson's guide to Marbella in the infamous BBC Radio 4 series A Retiring Fellow. This website and associated newspapers adhere to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Fraser, he recalled, was more than capable of doing what he threatened.
'Mad' Frankie Fraser dead aged 90 | Daily Mail Online