BOY PALACE INTRUDER WHO STOLE THE QUEEN’S KNICKERS
WHEN legendary reporter Norman Luck broke the story of the Palace Intruder it caused a sensation around the world.
But the story of Michael Fagan who climbed through a window into the Queen’s bedroom in 1982, wasn’t a new phenomenon. And was quite tame compared to the original Buckingham Palace intruder, a boy of 14 named Edward Jones, nearly 200 years ago.
In 1838, two years into Victoria’s reign, he was caught wandering around her Palace home with her knickers stuffed down his trousers. The Weekly Chronicle reported that he was a serial offender, arrested many times, once found sitting on the throne; later making himself a meal of cold meat and potatoes in the kitchen and next even hauled out from underneath her sofa in her dressing room.
Newspapers reported that he was extremely ugly, with a wide mouth and low brow and he never washed, which is why he smelt and people thought he was a chimney sweep.
He gained access to the palace through unlocked doors or unshuttered windows on the ground floors, telling reporters later that there was no royal security at all.
But “simple trespass”, even into a royal palace, was not a crime in those days. He was tried in camera by the Privy Council and sentenced to three months in jail as a rogue and vagabond. But he kept coming back.
On one of his stalking visits, he lay hidden, watching the Queen and Prince Albert in their private room for several hours. It would have been perfectly possible for him to sneak into the nursery, kidnap the recently born Princess Royal and make off with her, a court heard.
And it was also possible for him to have witnessed Victoria and Albert in their most intimate moments, if you get the drift, although this issue was carefully avoided in court.
Jones was the son of a drunken tailor whose entire family lodged in a single room in London, sleeping on “miserable rags” newspapers said. Many people felt sorry for him and there was a lot of public sympathy. He seldom spoke, and spent all evening when he was in captivity, reading from a pile of scrap paper he had once bought for a penny.
He was a problem. So, the government decided to get rid of him. They kidnapped him and put him in the Navy, on a ship to Brazil, but he came back, so he was kidnapped again and incarcerated on a prison ship which was never allowed near the English shore in case he escaped. Sounds like a fiction book doesn’t it, but it was perfectly true. He was kept on board for six years.
After his release he became an alcoholic and then a burglar. Finally, he was deported to Australia where he sold pies but eventually, you guessed it, came back to Britain to try and see the Queen.
Because of his obsession with Victoria, his family persuaded him to go back to Australia now he was older, and live with his brother, a civil servant. He did and became the town crier of Perth in the 1860s.
But he was depressed about always being known for being the Queen’s stalker and he felt persecuted by the jokes about him, even there. Back home he was still a legend and there were songs about him across England. He was known as The Sweep of the Palace.
The sad, Old Boy Jones hit the bottle again and in 1893 died when he fell off on to his head while drunk.
*****
Just Fancy That!
From the Perthshire Courier (EARLY 1800)
Thursday, a young man, a wheelwright, having failed in an attempt to split a piece of hard wood, blew it up with gunpowder; but unfortunately was struck with so much violence by the splinters, on the head and breast, as to occasion his death the next day.
*****
A quiet news day in Wetherby then …
Flicking through old newspaper cuttings, I found this from The Wetherby news, (circa 20c).
BARNUM’S CLOSE SHAVE AS HE FACES STRIKE BY THE BEARDED LADY AND HER CIRCUS RING
On the morning of Friday January 6, 1899, the Bearded Lady, called a meeting at London’s Olympia where Barnum’s Circus was performing its winter season. What happened next made news headlines worldwide.
Chaired by the famous Iron Skull Man who broke rocks on his head, it was attended by other ‘freak’ stars such as Jo-Jo the Human Sky Terrier, whose face was covered with long silky hair like a dog; the Man with Elastic Skin; the Hindu Dwarf, just 22 inches high; the Skeleton Dude weighing just two stone nine pounds and the Man with Two bodies.
The Bearded, Lady Annie Wells, was leading a revolt against them all being called freaks. She announced: “If a beard makes a lady a fright, then it must also apply to a man. No man possessing as fine a beard as mine would call himself a fright!”
The story was big licks for reporters. Barnum was big news. He had already taken Tom Thumb to the Palace to meet Queen Victoria. This new story shocked the public. Many went to the circus just to see the ‘freaks’.
The circus had arrived in Britain for a winter season at Olympia, before setting off on an 80-stop tour of towns and cities across Britain. Its scale was epic, requiring four trains each made up of specially modified railway wagons to transport it from showground to showground, according to historian and writer David Dunford.
Press reports claimed the workforce was 860 strong, including 250 performers. There were 460 horses and 660 other animals. The show had three rings, all in use at the same time, as well as two platforms and a track around the outside used for horse, pony and chariot racing. Every local and national newspaper carried the story.
Entertainment in the rings and on the platforms was continuous, with breaks only long enough for one set of performers to replace another. But even the breaks were covered by clowns. Newspaper ads proclaimed: “Trained animals, aerial displays, weird magic illusions, mid-air wonders, ground and lofty tumbling, aquatic feats, sub aqueous diversions, high class equestrianism, 3 herds of elephants, 2 droves of camels, jumping horses and ponies and races of all kinds.”
In addition to the circus, there was a huge menagerie and more than 40 performers in the ‘freak show’. It was so important and popular that there was a separate illustrated booklet on them: ‘The Wonder Book of Freaks and Animals’ on sale to visitors.
Bearded Annie’s meeting was unanimous that another name should be adopted to replace the offending word ‘freak’. But with no good suggestions, it was adjourned for discussion.
The news of the revolt and reports that the freaks might go on strike provoked a media frenzy across Britain. Articles were written on the ‘final awakening of personal pride in abnormal species of the human race’. An avalanche of suggestions for a new name rained down on Olympia, which was a sell-out.
On the afternoon of Sunday January 15, the freaks met again. Sol Stone, The Lightning Calculator who could do mathematical sums at the speed of a thunderbolt, was in the chair and Charles Tripp took notes holding a pen between his toes.
They wanted to know why the rest of the entertainers in the show were called artists while they were dubbed freaks. Mr Baker, owner of a troupe of musical pigs who played the piano, said he didn’t might being called a freak, but he couldn’t bear to hear his pets described like that.
New names sent from around the country included Ambiguities, Anomalies, Curios, Deviations, Inexplicables, Peculiar People, Uniques, Unusuals, Vagaries and even Whim-wams.
After lengthy discussion the word ‘Prodigies’, which had been suggested by Canon Albert Wilberforce of Westminster Abbey, was voted the most acceptable. It was well received by management and all signs and publicity material was changed.
News of the ‘Revolt of the Freaks’ was published around the world.
The Prodigies were satisfied and life returned to normal at the show, finishing its winter season in England.
But four years later the word ‘freaks’ returned. Barnum had died and a similar protest meeting was called in New York. The story of the second revolt hit the headlines driving up circus ticket sales.
Eventually the truth emerged. The Washington Herald revealed the whole thing had been a massive publicity stunt in the first place, created by Richard Hamilton, the long serving press agent for Barnum, who produced two-million words of promotional copy a year for the circus.
He was helped by The Lightning Conductor, Sol Stone. The question remains: Was the original meeting faked to increase ticket sales?
BY THE WAY, DID YOU KNOW?
M. Henri de Blowitz, the Paris diplomatic editor of the Times, in an article on its centenary in 1885, calculated that in a single day’s issue of the 24-page title, selling over 200,000 copies, a strip of paper was used a yard wide and 310 miles long, covering a space of 110 acres?
“Nothing then remains to be done but to convey to the serving counter, the morning’ s issue where it is supplied to the wholesale agents, and to the carts of Messrs Smith and Son, who are the only distributors employed by the newspaper,” he said.
“It was from this special privilege, obtained by the father of the late Mr W. H. Smith, of being supplied with early copies of the Times, that the wealth of the newsagent may be said to have sprung.”
The Times celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding, which began on January 1, 1785, as the Daily Universal Register, with a silver commemorative medal, which can still be bought from dealers today, at a cost of around £90.
TERRY MANNERS
12 May 2025
