Oftentimes, we think of people from the past as stuffy, stiff, and nowhere near as fun as us. After all, at best, we might have a few old letters and maybe some dusty photographs. But don’t let this fool you, humans over a hundred years ago were just as capable of looking fly.
New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin shared his discovery that people in mugshots from over a hundred years ago look absolutely awesome. Bored Panda reached out to Jason via email and will update the article when he gets back to us.
More info: TikTok
A man on TikTok shared his discovery that folks in 1920s mugshots looked incredibly cool
@jasonkpargin #rizz ♬ Quirky Suspenseful Indie-Comedy(1115050) – Kenji Ueda
We’ve gathered some of the best examples online below
#1 Herbert Ellis 1920
Ellis is found in numerous police records of the 1910s, 20s and 30s. He is variously listed as a housebreaker, a shop breaker, a safe breaker, a receiver and a suspected person
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#2 Sydney Skukerman, Or Skukarman. 1924
Obtains goods from warehousemen by falsely representing that he is in business.
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#3 ‘Ah Num’ And ‘Ah Tom’, Ca 1930
The ‘D’ prefix on the serial number indicates that the photograph was taken on behalf of the Drug Bureau
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
The term mugshot is somewhat comical, as the word “mug” is a pretty lowly slang word for a face. How it ended up being part of the official label is anyone’s guess. Regardless of the “how,” the term mugshot has been used since the late 18th century, although, as these images demonstrate, the form and standards have changed over time.
The real question is, why were all these convicts of the past so darn attractive? Is there some correlation between doing crime and physical charisma? Unfortunately, for better or worse, that seems statistically unlikely. Instead, these images simply stood out from the no doubt hundreds of others.
#4 De Gracy And Edward Dalton, 1920
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#5 William Stanley Moore 1926
Opium dealer./ Operates with large quantities of faked opium and cocaine./ A wharf labourer; associates with water front thieves and drug traders
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#6 Alfred Fitch, 18 August 1924
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
The fact that they were allowed to pose and even retain their own clothes does mean that this was a sort of “golden age” of mugshots. There is something appealing about the modern iteration, of just a face and side profile, but, as these images demonstrate, certain looks are just no longer possible.
#7 Frederick Edward Davies. 1921
The handwritten inscription on this unnumbered Special Photograph reads ‘Frederick Edward Davies stealing in picture shows and theatres Dets Surridge Clark and Breen Central 14-7-21’
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#8 John Walter Ford, Oswald Clive Nash. 1921
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#9 Fay Watson, 24 March 1928
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
So all in all, take this as an opportunity to explore the criminals and fashion of the past. While it might be a bit strange to take fashion advice from a hundred-year-old image of a convict, one can’t deny that many of them do look downright cool. If you overlook the criminal-elephant in the room.
#10 William Cahill 1923
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#11 Elsie Hall, Dulcie Morgan, Jean Taylor C. 1920
The names inscribed here do not appear in police records for 1920-21, and it is likely the women were photographed simply because they were found in the company of known criminals
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#12 ‘Hayes’, Early 1920s
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#13 Alfred Ladewig Circa 1920s
Alfred Ladewig, alias Wallace, John Walker, Atkins; charged on provisional warrant with stealing by trick the sum of 204AUD, at Brisbane, the property of Alfred Walter Thomlinson
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#14 Philomena Mary Best, 15 March 1927
Philomena Best stole silk and other goods valued at over 36 pounds (about $2000 today) from a Bourke shopkeeper
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#15 Ah Chong, 11 July 1928
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#16 Leslie Louis Bernstein, 29 November 1929
Bernstein (under the alias “L Berman”) was the subject of a warrant issued in early 1929 charged with obtaining a diamond ring value 14 pounds by false pretences from an Oxford Street jeweller
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#17 Edith Florence Ashton, 29 August 1929
Edith Ashton was a backyard abortionist who also dabbled in theft and fencing stolen goods
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#18 Ah Low. May 31, 1928
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#19 Harris Hunter, 17 September 1924
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#20 Hampton Hirscham, Cornellius Joseph Keevil, William Thomas O’brien & James O’brien. 1921
The quartet pictured were arrested over a robbery at the home of bookmaker Reginald Catton, of Todman avenue, Kensington, on 21 April 1921. The Crown did not proceed against Thomas O’Brien but the other three were convicted and received sentences of fifteen months each
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#21 “Mrs Osbourne” Circa 1919
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#22 Nancy Cowman, 21 February 1924
Nancy Cowman, 19, and Vera Crichton, 23, are listed in the NSW Police Gazette 24 March 1924 as charged, along with three others, with “conspiring together to procure a miscarriage” on a third woman
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#23 Sidney Langby, 9 December 1924
Sidney Langby, 18, was one of a group of seven young men convicted in early 1925 of a series of break and enters in Sydney
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#24 Eugenia Falleni, Alias Harry Crawford. 1920
Eugenia Falleni spent most of her life masquerading as a man. In 1913 Falleni married a widow, Annie Birkett, whom she later murdered
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#25 Gilbert Burleigh And Joseph Delaney. 1920
Gilbert Burleigh on the left is identified as a ‘hotel barber’, and Delaney‘s picture is labelled ‘false pretences & conspiracy’
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#26 Walter Smith. 1924
Charged with breaking and entering the dwelling-house of Edward Mulligan and stealing blinds with a value 20 pounds
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#27 Guiseppe Fiori, Alias Permontto. 1924
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#28 Albert Sing, 31 March 1922
On 1 May 1922, a month after this photograph was taken, Albert Sing was sentenced to 18 months hard labour on three counts of receiving stolen goods, including fountain pens, cutlery and clothing
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#29 Albert Stewart Warnkin And Adolf Gustave Beutler. 1920
Albert Stewart Warnkin is listed in the NSW Police Gazette of 10 November 1920, as charged with attempting to carnally know a girl eight years old. No entry is found for Beutler
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#30 Thomas Maria, Arthur Wyatt, And Patrick Dangar (Alias Brosnan), C. 1920
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#31 B. Smith, Gertrude Thompson And Vera Mcdonald 25 January 1928
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#32 Norman Wallace, 29 May 1923
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#33 Greta Massey, 26 January 1923
Greta Massey was an energetic impostor, forger and ‘hotel barber’ whose aliases included the surnames Gordon, Spencer, Crawford, Robins and Simpson as well as ‘Nurse Campbell’ and ‘Nurse Nicholas’
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#34 Spencer Cornford, 9 December 1924
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#35 Ronald Frederick Schmidt, 13 June 1921
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#36 Valerie Lowe, 15 February 1922
Valerie Lowe and Joseph Messenger were arrested in 1921 for breaking into an army warehouse and stealing boots and overcoats to the value of 29 pounds 3 shillings
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#37 Ack Samuels (Obscured), Howard Fletcher And Michael Patrick Ryan, 1 August 1930
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#38 Thomas Sutherland Jones And William Smith, 15 July 1921
Smith and Jones are listed in the NSW Police Gazette as charged with stealing seven packages of twine (value 14 pounds). Jones was further charged with stealing thirty horse rugs (value 15 pounds) and two bales of kapok (value 20 pounds)
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#39 Walter Keogh. 1922
Identified as a pickpocket, and later in 1928 (26 December, Group 4 p. 15) as a ‘suspected person and bogus land salesman’
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#40 Thomas Craig, Raymond Neil (Aka “Gaffney The Gunman”), William Thompson And Fw Wilson. 1928
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#41 Joseph Messenger. 1922
Joseph Messenger and Valerie Lowe were arrested in 1921 for breaking into an army warehouse and stealing boots and overcoats to the value of 29 pounds 3 shillings
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#42 Frank Murray Alias Harry Williams. 1929
Harry Williams was sentenced to 12 months of hard labour in March 1929 for breaking, entering and stealing. He ‘disposes of stolen property to patrons of hotel bars or to persons in the street … professing to be a second-hand dealer
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#43 “Silent Tom” Richards And T Ross. 1920
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#44 Ernest James Montague. 1927
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#45 Emma Rolfe (Aka May Mulholland, Sybil White, Jean Harris And Eileen Mulholland), 1 April 1920
Emma Rolfe better known as May Mulholland (also as Sybil White, Jean Harris and Eileen Mulholland) had numerous convictions in the period 1919-1920 for theft of jewellery and clothing (all quality items: silk blouses, kimonos and scarves, antique bric a brac etc) from various houses around Kensington and Randwick, and from city shops
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#46 Sidney “Pretty Sid” Grant. 1921
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#47 Sidney Kelly. 1924
Sidney Kelly was arrested many times and much written about in newspapers during the 1920s, 30s and 40s.
He was charged with numerous offences including shooting, and assault, and in the 1940s was a pioneer of illegal baccarat gaming in Sydney
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#48 Doris Winifred Poole, 31 July 1924
Doris Poole appeared before the Newtown Police Court charged with stealing jewellery and clothing
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#49 Dorothy Mort, 18 April 1921
Convicted of murder. Mrs Dorothy Mort was having an affair with dashing young doctor Claude Tozer. On 21 December 1920 Tozer visited her home with the intention of breaking off the relationship. Mort shot him dead before attempting to commit suicide
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#50 Group Of Criminals, Central 1921
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#51 Alfred John (Or Francis) West. 1922
West is mentioned in the NSW Criminal Register as a ‘pickpocket and spieler’
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#52 Masterman Thomas Scoringe. 1922
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#53 Hazel Mcguinness, 26 July 1929
Hazel McGuinness was charged along with her mother Ada McGuiness with having cocaine (in substantial quantities) illegally in her possession. Police described a raid on the McGuinnesses’ Darlinghurst house during which the mother Ada threw a hand bag containing packets of cocaine to her daughter, shouting, ‘Run Hazel!’
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#54 Isabella Higgs, 21 February 1924
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#55 Ernest Joseph Coffey. 1922
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#56 George Whitehall. 1922
George Whitehall, carpenter, handed himself into Newtown police after hacking to death his common-law wife, Ida Parker on Thursday afternoon 21 February 1922, at their home in Pleasant Avenue, Erskineville
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#57 Emily Gertrude Hemsworth, 14 May 1925
Emily Hemsworth killed her three-week-old son but could not remember any details of the murder. She was found not guilty due to insanity
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#58 May Blake, 1 September 1930
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#59 Jessie Longford, 22 July 1926
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
#60 May Smith, 8 April 1929
May Smith, alias ‘Botany May’, was an infamous drug dealer
Image credits: The Sydney Justice & Police Museum
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