Minors' mugshots

The young scoundrels of Edwardian Britain

Alex Q. Arbuckle

1902-1908

[img src="http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/AJ1J1gGOavE9frPOOJhpLN4hOjw=/fit-in/1440x1440/uploads%2F2016%2F6%2F8%2Fcriminalchildren_2.jpg" caption="Susan Joice, 16, arrested for stealing money from a gas meter." credit="Tyne & Wear Archives & Museum" alt=""]

This series of mugshots of minors arrested for petty crimes in the British town of North Shields comes from the collections of the Tyne & Wear Archives & Museum. The subjects range in age from 12 to 21, which until 1970 was the legal age of adulthood in the UK.The crimes range mostly from sleeping outdoors — punishable by up to a to a month of hard labor under the Vagrancy Act of 1824 — to the theft of morsels of food, cigarettes or small valuables.

[img src="http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/4UJSfsBXRQE_U2N7vEPCeWramVo=/fit-in/1440x1440/uploads%2F2016%2F6%2F8%2Fcriminalchildren_1.jpg" caption="Charles Johnson, age unknown, arrested for stealing sash weights." credit="Tyne & Wear Archives & Museum" alt=""]