Man read society pages before burgling the rich

Press, 27 July 1981, Page 24

Man read society pages before burgling the rich

By

KEN COATES

in London At a time when burglary and street crime are on the increase, the life of a man known as “the top people's burglar" makes almost respectable reading. According to “The Times,” William Featherstone, aged 69, was no ordinary, common thief even though he had spent 45 years of his life locked up. Mr Featherstone, who has decided to retire, took to crime when his grandmother, a strict Baptist, found his hand in the till of her shop when he was 14. But he really began his rebellion against authority he says, when the police slapped

his face to get a confession when he had been brought up to go to Sunday school and trust the police. In his time, William Featherstone has been on bread-and-water diet on the roof of Dartmoor, demonstrating about “brutality,” and protested at an official flogging by breaking windows. He tried to escape four times, once through a window in the High Court in London. He did not get far, even when he made his getaway down Fleet Street, shouting, “Stop thief.” He always dreamed of pulling off the “jackpot” to give him the freedom he paradoxically lost. He wanted to avoid the grinding

poverty he experienced in the Depression. The nearest he got to his goal was a £32,000 ($NZ72,896) post office raid in 1957, but an elderly woman in a darkened window opposite noticed him helping to load the proceeds into a car, even though he was wearing a postman's uniform. He chose his victims by reading the social gossip pages of the “Tatler," "Harpers.” and “Queen.” To learn about silver and porcelain he visited museums — “my university of crime.”

He once broke into Lord Olivier’s home to steal silver, having discovered his movements by reading “The Stage and Variety."