Miss Davies, the eagle-eyed detective

In the 1920s, Gertrude Davies stopped many a woman from thieving from London stores

In 1925, one 'Miss Davies' was commended by a south London magistrate for her skill in providing fair and detailed evidence which put away a female shoplifter. Katherine Geake was in her seventies, and used her age as a disguise: who would think that an elderly woman would brazenly steal goods from her local store? But steal she did, not realising that the store - Bon Marché in Brixton - employed an eagle-eyed private detective to stop people like her.

Miss Davies had seen Miss Geake take a fur necklet from a display, and then a butter knife, wrapping them up and brazenly walking out into the street. The detective followed her, and took her straight to the manager's office, at which point the butter knife fell out of her clothing to the floor.

Katherine Geake duly appeared at the Lambeth Police Court, where she listened to Miss Davies give a full account of what had happened. However, she vehemently disagreed with that account. She had had no intention of stealing anything! She was a regular customer of the Bon Marché. She knew nothing about the butter knife, had not stolen it, and did not drop it. The magistrate knew who he believed, though. As he remanded Miss Geake into custody, he commented that he was 'much impressed with the fairness with which Miss Davis gave her evidence, absolutely every word of which he believed.'

The building on the left is the former Bon Marché store; the smaller building on the right of the picture

was the former staff quarters (Google Maps)

A year later, Miss Davies caught a woman who had aroused her suspicions at Bon Marché, but who, in fact, had not stolen anything from there. However, she followed 56-year-old Annie Clark, from the store to another shop, and saw her steal a pair of shoes from there - Morley & Lanceley’s shop on Brixton Road. It wasn’t a theft from her employer, but Miss Davies still ensured that Annie was brought before the magistrate, and the thief admitted she had stolen after having been drinking.

In 1927, and still working for Bon Marché, Miss Davis caught another female shoplifter. This time, the perpetrator was Mabel Lefevre, a 34-year-old mother of young children. Although from a good background, her husband had been out of work for several months, and she was suspected to have been enlisted by a gang to be their dupe, stealing goods to order for them. She had already received two convictions - on the first, she was fined £5, and the second time, she was sent to prison for three months. She had emerged from prison and shortly afterwards gone to Bon Marche, where she rather incredibly managed to steal an entire roll of crepe-de-chine fabric and smuggle it out under her fur coat.

Miss Davies noticed her leaving, and thought her coat looked rather odd. She stopped her, and said, "You have something under your coat that you have not paid for." Mrs Lefevre admitted it, and on taken to the manager's office, the stolen goods were found. "My husband will never forgive me!" Mabel cried. In court, she apologised to the magistrate, but he told her she had been sorry before, and it hadn't stopped her thieving. She was sent back to prison for another three months.

So who was the feisty store detective whose evidence was so trusted? The 1921 census shows that it was Gertrude Alice Bevan Davies, a middle-aged spinster. In 1921, she was working as a private detective for a different store - Messrs Barnes Ltd on the Brompton Road - and lodging in Kilburn. A 1924 directory lists her living at 15 Artillery Row in Westminster. She started working for Bon Marché when she was in her late 40s.

There was no history of private detection in Gertrude's family. She was one of 10 children born to schoolmaster Samuel Bevan Davies, a native of Anglesey - Gertrude was the seventh child, born in 1875. She and her siblings were all born in Altrincham, Cheshire, where Samuel ran a boarding school. By 1891, he had relocated to Barton upon Irwell - Manchester - where he was a schoolmaster there (with Gertrude's sister Edith as the music teacher). Gertrude was sent to school in Chester, before she followed sister Florence into work as a shorthand writer and typist.

When Samuel Davies died early in 1901, Gertrude's mother Elizabeth became a woodcarving teacher in Colwyn Bay, before returning to Manchester to live with her daughter Charlotte, who ran a private girls' school there. Gertrude had followed her mother to Colwyn Bay and stayed there, working as an arts and crafts teacher. She was clearly an intelligent and independent woman, putting her hand to several different, skilled, lines of work. She had even sailed to Canada shortly before her 40th birthday.

The catalyst to her move to London may have been her mother's death in 1920, for by 1921 she was in the capital after decades in the north-west of England and Wales. She as working at Bon Marché, which was on the Brixton Road, for a long time: in 1932, she is mentioned in the local newspaper after having caught two women from south London stealing stockings, scarves and a hat. She had observed them stealing from her employer, Bon Marché, and then tracked them to Quin & Axtens and Woolworths, where she saw them steal more items. At this point, she commandeered them and demanded they accompany her back to her manager’s office. The ringleader, who had a previous conviction for theft from Bon Marché, was sent to prison for six weeks; the other woman was bound over to good behaviour.

Tankerton Beach, by Mark Anderson: Gertrude retired to this area

Gertrude continued living in London until she retired, at which point she moved even further south to Tankerton, a suburb of Whitstable in Kent. She died there just before Christmas in 1941, aged 66, with probate being granted to her two younger sisters, Dora and Ethel.

If it wasn't for the press cuttings about her skills (and I’ve only mentioned a few of the ones she appears in), we would know far less about Gertrude's personal qualities: but the newspapers show that she was an eagle-eyed, tenacious, and honest woman whose skills as a private detective were acknowledged by London's magistrates.