Taters Chatham

By the end of that decade he was burgling the houses of wealthy Londoners, carefully selecting his targets from society magazines.

[4][2] Chatham was initially careful in his burglaries, researching his targets in Burke's Peerage, Country Life and Tatler and receiving tip-offs from insurance clerks and aristocrats.

[4] The swords had belonged to the Duke of Wellington; one commemorated his victories in India and the other was a gift from Russian Tsar Alexander I.

The chelengk had been presented to the British admiral Horatio Nelson by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for his victory over the French at the 1798 Battle of the Nile.

[6][7][8] Chatham became associated with the gangster Billy Hill and often lost large amounts of money at his rigged casino tables.

[4] He successfully escaped from Brixton Prison and, while attempting to evade capture, severely wounded a police officer with a jemmy.

[11] During one spell of imprisonment in 1957 he met fellow thief and gambling addict Peter Scott, beginning a 30-year association between the men.

Together with Scott he stole millions of pounds worth of goods from jewellery stores in Bond Street and art galleries in Mayfair.

[12] Chatham once stole several hundreds of thousands of pounds of furs from Harvey Nichols, accessing the shop by its roof.

[1] Chatham also continued to be involved in domestic burglary, stealing from the Maharaja of Jaipur, Lady Rothermere, Madame Prunier and Raymond Bessone.

"[1] Chatham was convicted for the theft of £37,000 from the safe at the H. A. Byworth and Co jewellery factory in Mayfair after he was apprehended in the course of a domestic burglary.

[2] At the age of 76 he was caught shoplifting a piece of bone china from Harvey Nichols and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment.

[14] Despite his high-profile crimes Chatham lived in poverty in his later years, in a dilapidated ground floor flat in Fulham.

[3] Chatham died from motor neurone disease in a Battersea nursing home on 5 June 1997; he was penniless at the time of his death.

[15] At the time of his death it was estimated that he had stolen goods worth £100 million (equivalent to £229,879,347 in 2023) during his criminal career and been sentenced to a total of 35 years' imprisonment.