Elizabeth (Lillie) Miers was born in 1872, the daughter of Joseph Miers and Cecilia Levy. They had married in January 1868 and lived at 47 Oxford Road Kilburn, where they had six children. But the marriage was not successful and they divorced in 1883. The divorce papers said that since December 1882, Cecilia had committed adultery with Alfred Nathan and cohabited with him since January the following year. Nathan was a teacher of modern languages and by 1891 he and Cecilia were living in Staines with two children.
Ten years later Joseph Miers was living with three of his daughters at 18 Summerfield Avenue in Queens Park. He was a wholesale clothier with an office in the City, and Lillie worked for her father as a commercial traveller. When she became 21, she had invested £300 in his company, but later the business failed and Joseph went bankrupt. On 15 September 1901 he committed suicide by taking poison in his office at 56 City Road and died in St Bartholomew Hospital.
Lillie was devastated by her father’s death, but another City company showing concern gave her a job. For ten months she worked honestly earning about £2 a week (today worth about £275). Then she issued 60 to 70 orders to fictious customers and collected the goods and commission, amounting to about £500. She was dismissed but not reported to the police.
She became a very clever shoplifter from the top jewellers in the West End, such as Asprey’s. Arriving by carriage and fashionably dressed, her technique was to ask to see items, distract the assistant and then pick up small pieces by covering them with a silk handkerchief. She also asked for items to be sent on credit to fictitious addresses. In a year she stole over 300 jewels, gold and silver items, valued at £1,000 (today worth about £130,000), which she pawned. She lived extravagantly and took carriages to the opera and theatre from her rented rooms in Victoria Road Kilburn. But she did not pay her bills and eventually Lillie was summoned to court. She wrote a letter to the Judge, forging her sister’s name saying that Lillie had unfortunately died from a painful illness.
Lillie Miers was an exceptionally brazen and confident young woman who operated in the shops of Regent Street, Bond Street, and New Bond Street and it was believed she had stolen from all the best jewellers in the area. Such was her skill as a shoplifter that she was never suspected, and more than once was kindly escorted from various establishments by the private store detectives sent to catch her, never believing the beautiful and well-dressed lady was the skillful thief.
Her career as the ‘Queen of Shoplifters’ as the press called, ended by chance. In October 1903, Detective Sergeant Alfred Scholes was checking for stolen items in Attenborough’s the silversmiths at 142-144 Oxford Street, when he overheard a conversation between a smartly dressed woman and the proprietor. She wanted to pawn a gold pencil case. The case was worth at least £7, as the shopkeeper pointed out, but the woman was asking just £2. Scholes’ suspicions were raised, and he indicated to the shopkeeper to refuse the transaction. He did so, and Lillie Miers left the shop, closely followed by DS Scholes.
Newspaper photo of Lillie
He produced his warrant card and asked the lady why she was trying to pawn a gold pencil case for much less than it was worth. She said, ‘Surely you do not think that I stole it?’ ‘My sweetheart gave it to me a year ago’. Scholes asked for the name and address of her sweetheart, but she declined to give it. Scholes was sure the case was stolen and arrested her. The young woman had a silk handkerchief containing three pills marked ‘poison’ which were later found to contain morphia. Scholes had just captured one of the most elusive and prolific thieves in London. He later described Lillie as, ‘Exquisitely beautiful with masses of raven black hair, arranged in a dainty coiffeur. Her face was oval, and her eyes tender and languorous’.
On 11 November 1903, Lillie aged 32, appeared at the Clerkenwell court and pleaded guilty to charges of shoplifting in the West End. She was sentenced to 12 months in Holloway. When the sentence was read out she merely shrugged her shoulders. Asked by the Judge for any reason for her actions she said, ‘I was under the influence of Morphia’. Lillie’s brothers and sisters were present at court. They disowned her, saying they would offer her no more assistance until she reformed her ways.
She was a troublesome prisoner at Holloway, as her previous lavish lifestyle had not prepared her for prison life. On Sunday 3 April 1904, Lillie turned off the gas light to her cell at the regulation hour. During the night she removed her bedclothes and stuffed them around the gap of the door. Standing on a chair she pulled the gas pipe from its fittings and released the toxic fumes. She did not wake up, and her body was found early on Monday morning when a prison governess was alerted to the smell of gas.
At the inquest, Doctor Griffiths, deputy governor of Holloway Prison, and medical superintendent, said he had made a recommendation a few months ago that the gas pipes and lights should be made safe from interference by the prisoners. The Judge agreed and ordered that the lights and fittings be installed behind thick glass. He recorded a verdict of suicide.
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