We love kid gangs – from the Nazi fighters of 1940s comics to super-hero sidekicks, from the Goonies to Dumbledore’s Army, kid gangs are a staple of popular literature.
So, why not kid pirates? London Overlooked shares the story of the Wandle Pirates, a group of thugs who operated on the River Wandle, which runs through South London to meet the Thames at Wandsworth. Mostly unsupervised in the rural town, the pirates preyed on the young children playing along the riverside, while presumably everyone’s parents were toiling.
The pirate crew included two 12-year olds, a 10-year old, and a 9-year old, as well as an 8-year old who was their mascot or something. While they lacked peglegs and beards, the boys sported homemade tattoos identifying themselves as members of the crew. The Wandle Pirates finally ran afoul of the law after they mugged two boys from middle class families, taking toys and handkerchiefs. One imagines that the boys would have escaped notice had they stuck to robbing the poor. The gang was soon caught and each boy sentenced to six whips with a birch cane.
The public reaction was mixed, with some bemoaning the boys’ delinquency and others taking sympathy on the children. Predictably, the prevalence of crime and adventure stories in penny dreadfuls was blame for the boys’ corruption. Nonetheless, the boys seemed to have reformed after their caning.
What could you do with this band of roving child pirates? What happens next?
