Page 24 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

Much of what is known about
Black Patch Chaplin Park
appears in a book by Ted Rudge,
published by Birmingham City
Council in 2003. Rudge's research
records how the 'Black Patch'
was the camping ground of a
community of tent and vardo
(caravan) dwellers. The Gypsies
on the Black Patch lived on a
deep barren layer of furnace Figure 5 Gypsies on the 'Black Patch' Public Domain,
waste, which, after their eviction, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4751615

was cleared down to grass growing soil to create a park. There is disputed
evidence that Charlie Chaplin might have been born at Black Patch.

Our great grandfather James Burnett Cain was a petty and violent villain who
was involved in a series of offences between 1890 and 1906. His crimes
included theft, breaking and entering, assault, gambling, obstruction,
drunkenness, family neglect and neglect of children.

In 1890/1 he was brought at least four times before
the famous Mr T.M. Colemore, J.P., Stipendiary
Magistrate for Birmingham. (Thomas Milnes Colmore
was born in 1845 into the Colmore family who had
been in Birmingham from around 1500 and built up
large estates, including the New Hall Estate in the
city centre. The road between Newhall Street and
Livery Street, Birmingham, was named Colmore Row
after the Colmore family).

Birmingham Court records show James being
sentenced to 6 months hard labour in 1891 for
Figure 6 James Burnett Cain (my great stealing a young girl’s (Maria Pemberton’s) hat. The
grandfather). Police Museum Image
record also shows his three previous offences during
1890 Between 1902 & 1903 James was convicted twice for drunkenness, and
in 1904 for “neglect of children”. In 1906 he served 6 months imprisonment
with hard labour, for breaking and entering with a man called Albert Glynn.

In Birmingham there was an increasing tendency to use the phrase ‘the
peaky blinder class’ when referring to young criminals of every description.
The problem was now seen as one of individuals or a whole socio-economic
group rather than of gangs.
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