Matilda Bramble (alias Sarah Davies). Courtesy of TNA, PCOM4; Piece: 65; Item: 3.
(B. 1852 LLANELLI) – CONVICT
Sarah Davies was born in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, in 1852. Her father David ran the Collier’s Arms public house in Llanelli, where he lived with the rest of the family. The family were respectable, with nothing known about them by the police save that Sarah’s father had on one occasion been convicted for drunkenness. Sarah’s pathway into offending is not particularly clear. Though she and her siblings grew up and established their own lives, the family seems to have stayed living in Carmarthenshire and they were in relatively close contact throughout their lives, with Sarah corresponding with her father, sister Rachel, aunt and cousin even during her imprisonment. What we do know is that, by the age of around 15, Sarah was already frequenting the streets and working as a prostitute. However, her first conviction was not for prostitution or disorderly behaviour, but for theft. She was prosecuted for stealing a gown and sentenced to six weeks in Swansea Prison with hard labour. In fact, Sarah was never convicted for prostitution-related offences, or for drunkenness or disorderly and violent behaviour like so many other young women in her position.
In 1867 she was in court again, this time for the theft of a duck. Sarah maintained her innocence and the case was eventually dismissed. The woman who alleged the theft was a brothel-keeper. Although the truth of the incident is lost to time, it was not unknown for brothel-keepers to bring prosecutions for theft against the girls that lived and worked for them as a form of discipline. A month later, Sarah was back in court, this time at the Swansea Sessions, and she was given six months in prison with hard labour for the theft of a petticoat.
Matilda Bramble (alias Sarah Davies). Courtesy of TNA, PCOM4; Piece: 65; Item: 3.
Theft was not Sarah’s primary occupation. Many months and even years lapsed between her convictions, during which time Sarah made her living as a prostitute, though lack of convictions would suggest that this was neither a daily trade, nor one carried out on the street. Sarah also worked at one time as a factory hand, though this employment was short lived. In March 1871 Sarah was back to prison for two months’ hard labour for the theft of a shawl: she was captured on the census in a small local prison holding her and just forty-two other women. Two years later in October 1873 she was again convicted of stealing, this time dress-maker’s material, and given eighteen months’ hard labour.
Over the course of two decades, Sarah used a range of different names to identify herself. The name of Sarah Davies was a common one in Llanelli, the county of Carmarthen, and south Wales. If her primary aim was evading detection, keeping her own name may have been a better way than the range of flamboyant aliases she used. The two most frequently used were Matilda Bramble and Letitia Power – much easier names for the police to remember and trace. We can perhaps infer that the aliases she adopted were not (or at the very least not solely) about trying to evade capture, but about creating an identity that she felt more suited her sense of self.
With four previous offences behind her, Sarah’s criminal record was beginning to become a problematic factor for her in trials. Her 1873 sentence was a full year longer than any previous sentence, and illustrated that judges were beginning to identify her as a serious offender. Not long after her release from prison in 1875, Sarah was again put on trial, this time at the Cardiff Sessions for the theft of a jacket, and this time, her luck ran out. She was sentenced to seven years of penal servitude and transported to a convict prison in London.
Apart from occasional minor disobedience – singing in her cell, illicitly communicating with other prisoners, verbally abusing the staff and refusing to obey orders – Sarah passed her time in convict prison quietly. She was released to the Russell House Refuge in July 1879, around halfway through her sentence. She had kept in touch with her friends and family in Wales, and returned there as soon as her time in the refuge was up. Unfortunately for Sarah, on licence and under police supervision, when she stole a coat not long after returning, she was swiftly apprehended and put on trial at the Swansea Sessions the next day. She returned to convict prison for another seven years. Not only would she be required to serve her new sentence, she also had more than a year of her old sentence from which she had been licensed left to serve as well.
Sarah’s prison record indicates a desperation to get out of prison almost as soon as she returned. Not only was her behaviour much improved, with only one incident of damage to prison property and one incident of receiving food from another prisoner, but she began petitioning for release as soon as she was able. In 1884, aware that she would soon be eligible for early release, Sarah began making enquiries with the prison authorities about emigration schemes for released convicts. She wrote she was ‘anxious to emigrate to avoid bad associates’. Emigration of ex-offenders was looked on favourably by the prison service, and the wheels for her release began turning
Upon her release from prison the following year, having served almost a decade in prison with only a small glimpse of freedom in the middle, Sarah decided to cut her losses. Life back in Carmarthenshire was not working well for her. Her last experience of release from convict prison, burdened by police supervision, had taught her that it was only too easy to slip straight back into old habits. On the day of her discharge, Sarah went straight to the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society at Charing Cross, where arrangements were made for her imminent travel to America.
There are no records for Sarah in America, but of course, on arrival, she may have changed names again, and taken on a brand-new identity she felt more fitting for her brand-new life.