Twiggy Who Do You Think You Are?

Model, fashion designer

and star on both stage and screen,

Twiggy was an iconic face of the 1960s...

..and is credited as one of the world's first supermodels.

'I grew up... All my life, we lived in London.

'I grew up in Neasden, which is a north-west suburb of London.'

We didn't have lots of money,

but, you know, we had a car, we had a telly,

I had my mum and dad, I had my sisters.

'He was brilliant, my dad.

'I was devoted to him.'

That doesn't mean I didn't love and adore Mum,

but she was much, much more complicated.

'Well, she suffered...we called it... She suffered with her nerves.'

'My mum didn't like talking about the past.

'I have a vague memory of her dad,

'who died when I was, I think, about four-ish.

'Um, I know nothing about her mum.'

'I don't get the impression that she was from a bad family

'or it was anything wrong with them.

'I think she was very close to her mum and dad.'

What am I going to find out?

I'm off on an awfully big adventure and I'm very excited!

'In the kitchen of 93 St Raphael's Way, Neasden,

'Lesley Hornby has breakfast with her boyfriend,

'while Mum has a cuppa.'

-Did I know her, Aunty Jessie?

-No, I don't think so.

She knows Vivien but she doesn't know you.

'I was born Lesley Hornby,

'my dad's family name.'

When I was about 15,

I had a boyfriend whose brother used to tease me.

And he used to call me Sticks first,

cos my legs, he said, were like sticks,

and then somehow that turned into Twiggy.

I was a mod, I was 16 years old.

I did...

I did all those eyelashes and the painting on at weekends

because we weren't allowed at school.

16-year-old Twiggy was discovered in 1966

when a reporter spotted a photo of her

on the wall of a Mayfair hairdresser's,

and a national newspaper decided to run the story.

We thought it would be a little column, you know, a little bit,

and my dad suddenly came in one morning really excited.

He said, "Look, Les, look!" And he opened the paper

and it was "Twiggy, the face of '66."

And that day, in February, 1966, my life changed for ever.

'It was madness.

'I was suddenly in the newspapers or being flown all round the world

'and, you know, we were all a very ordinary,

'you know, happy family.

'I had a happy childhood.'

Twiggy now lives in West London and has one daughter, Carly.

So...this is your mummy!

-Aw-w, a tiny mummy.

-Isn't that funny?

-You're very funny.

-I was quite fat, wasn't I?

-You really...yeah.

-That was pre-Twig.

They used to say to me, "Lesley, pull a funny face."

-Yeah.

-And I used to do that.

Aw-w... Pouting already!

I feel, heart and soul, a Londoner.

I'm very proud of it.

My dad came from Lancashire,

'which is weird my mum married him

'because she hated going anywhere north of Watford.'

They both had great noses, look.

They did have good noses. Yeah, you have her nose.

-Um...

-Have I got Mum's nose, do you think?

-I think so, yeah.

-Yeah.

Yeah. But she looks a lot like you.

-Yeah, I can see me...

-Yeah.

-..in Mum, a lot.

'My mum...probably today,

'she'd have probably been diagnosed as bipolar or something.'

I had a happy childhood

but then she would get lows

and she'd get depressed,

and so the doctor would give her, you know, medicine

and then sometimes she'd end up in hospital.

The nice thing was, you know, she... although she had dementia,

but it would come and go,

-cos sometimes she was quite lucid and...

-Yeah.

The last few days she was talking, she was talking about her mum a lot.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Aw-w...

-So...hopefully she joined her.

-That's so sweet.

-Yeah.

'My mum's mum, my grandma,

'I don't even know her name

'because when I was born she'd already been deceased.'

I don't know when she died.

I don't know anything cos Mum wouldn't talk about it.

And because of Mum's...

fragile mental health,

we didn't ever want to upset her.

I know she was close to her mum, that's all.

It's a total blank space.

I've always wanted to know. We all have.

We're absolutely intrigued.

So, I'm on my way to Woking in Surrey,

where my elder sister Shirley lives,

and Shirley's 15 years older than me,

so I'm hoping she might know a little bit more

about Mum's mum and dad than I do.

-Hello.

-Hello!

-It's me! How are you?

-Nice to see you. I'm fine.

You all right?

So, what have you've got in store to show me?

Oh, photographs.

-Cos we haven't got that many cos of...

-No, we haven't.

..you know, Dad getting rid of them,

-but I think that was Mum telling him to do that, don't you?

-Yes.

-She wasn't well.

-No, I know she wasn't.

-No, she wasn't.

My memories of Mum are, you know, she was a wonderful mum.

I mean, I was spoilt to death,

cos, like, you were like my second mum

cos by the time I was old enough to really know you...

-That's right, yeah, I was in my 20s...

-..five or six,

you were in your 20s. So what have we got?

-That's Dad and that's Mum.

-Mum's swimsuit.

-Yeah, yeah!

-Looks like it was knitted.

Well, mine definitely was,

and when I went in the sea it all sort of dragged down.

That's hysterical!

How old's Mum then? She was born in 190...9?

-..9, yeah.

-About in her late 20s.

-20s, yeah, yeah.

-Aw-w...

-Yeah.

This is... That's Mum pregnant with me, right?

-With you, yes.

-So this must be the summer of 1949?

-Yes.

-Cos I was born September 19th.

-In September, '49, yeah.

-And there's Dad.

-That's right.

-Where are you? You're not here?

-I'm not there, no.

-You were out gallivanting.

-Yes, definitely.

Aw-w. And this is Mum's sister's wedding, right.

-Yes. Yeah, yeah.

-Who sent this to you?

Somebody gave it to me

but I can't tell you where it'd come from cos I haven't got a clue.

That's Mum.

-And that's Mum with the low hat.

-Yeah, yeah.

-That's Grandad and that's...

-Oh, is that Grandad?

-Yes.

-Is that Mum's dad?

-That's Mum's dad.

-Oh, bli...

-But you never saw him, did you?

-Well, I did.

-Oh, you did, I beg your pardon.

-I remember him living in our house.

-Oh, when he was in the flat.

-And I've got a vague...

I must have been really little,

three or four, vague memory of a big man, which he is...

-That's right.

-..with a big moustache.

-That's right.

-And that's Nanny.

-That's Nanny.

See, I don't remember her.

So what...when did Nanny die, do you remember?

I never met her, did I?

No. No, I don't think so.

No, because I was quite young when she died.

And was her name Grace, I want to say, no?

-It was either Alice or Grace.

-Oh, Alice.

-Alice.

Yes, I'm almost certain it was Alice, yeah.

-Isn't it awful we don't know?

-We don't know, no.

-We don't know anything about our mum's grandparents.

-No.

-No.

-It's amazing, isn't it?

I wonder if Mum ever met her grandparents.

We don't know that either, do we? Interesting.

-It's like...it's like some mad jigsaw puzzle, isn't it?

-Yes!

What do we know, what do we not know?!

And this was Mum's...

'Having talked to my lovely sister, Shirley,

'I thought she might know a little bit more.'

And she actually knew Nanny, but she did come up with her name,

Alice, that she's sure she was called Alice.

I'm hellbent on finding out now,

you know, I really want to know about Alice and her life.

To find out more about her maternal grandmother,

and that side of the family, Twiggy has returned to London

and is on her way to see a genealogist.

After seeing my sister Shirley,

I ordered our mum's birth certificate,

which I've got on my lap!

Which I'm hoping will start to open the doors to something I don't know.

It's quite exciting, actually. I feel a bit weird.

It's kind of funny but I'm going to go ahead.

Oh-oh.

Put me glasses on!

Yeah, 10th... She was born 10th August, 1909,

we were correct in that.

Nellie Lydia. Yeah, I knew that.

Lydia's such a pretty name.

Oh, our grandma was... Oh, she was right, it's Alice.

"Formerly Meadows."

So her maiden name was...

That's weird.

I've never ever heard that mentioned in our family.

So I think my line of action now is to look up this,

you know, Alice Meadows' family.

Thanks.

At the Society of Genealogists,

Laura Berry has been looking into Twiggy's grandmother

and her family.

-Shall I go in there?

-Just take a seat, yeah.

-OK.

So, Laura, I'm here hoping that you can help me find my grandma,

Alice Meadows.

-Well, I have been able to find her on the 1891 Census.

-Oh...

So you can see her with her parents.

-And we put in Alice Meadows...

-Yeah.

Just have a look and see what comes up.

In fact, it's been transcribed as Meadow,

-which is why you would have really struggled to find it.

-Oh, why?

Just because the person has misread it

-when they've compiled this index.

-OK. Oh, gosh,

-that must happen a lot, mustn't it?

-Yeah.

Or misspell things.

Oh, wow, what's this?

So that's the beginning of the Meadows family.

Alice, my grandma, who was 12.

That's her dad -

William Meadow, my great-grandad, yeah?

-Yeah.

-Head.

Lived there with Elizabeth and then they had Alexander, a son.

-And are these all their children as well?

-Yeah.

-Oh, my goodness!

-Got all these children, here.

That's one, two, three, four, five, six children!

-You've got another there, as well, Frederick.

-Oh, my goodness!

-Seven.

Seven children lived in two rooms.

They lived in 1 Bridge Street, in two rooms!

-Which is in...

-Is where?

-I don't know if you can read that.

-In Willesden!

-Willesden, yeah.

Oh, wow! And what did he do?

William was a slater.

And would they have earned much money?

It's doubtful. I mean, he's living in...

-In a shared house.

-Yeah.

And it's got, well, a lot of people living in it.

So we're thinking they were probably not very well off, right?

-Yeah, I doubt it.

-Elizabeth, presumably, wouldn't have worked?

-No,

-Elizabeth would have been looking after all of these children.

-Oh, my God!

-Hundreds of children she's got.

-I know.

So, I think I'd better write this down actually.

Let's see.

Right.

So, how do I start?

So Meadows...family.

OK, so that's it - William Meadows, Elizabeth Meadows,

my great-grandparents, right?

So we've got William...

Twiggy's discovered that in 1891,

her grandmother Alice

was part of a large family,

living with her parents,

William and Elizabeth,

and six siblings.

Frederick...

..seven months.

Wow, it's amazing.

Cos these...

were my mum's aunts and uncles

and my great-aunts and uncles,

-and I know nothing about any of them.

-No.

-My mum never ever... I mean, that's weird.

-Never mentioned them?

-Maybe they fell out.

-Well...

-Families do!

-They do. And it is a bit odd because...

-Why?

-..the next logical thing to do...

-Yeah.

..would be to search for this family on the next census return,

-moving forwards, so...

-Moving forwards? Oh, OK.

-..to find out what happen to them.

-So if we try looking for them on 1901...

-OK.

..which I did try before you arrived,

-and I've had real trouble, to be honest.

-Oh!

So I'm not 100% sure what's happened.

-So they weren't at that house in 1901...

-No, they weren't there.

-..in Bridge Street? They'd gone.

-No, the family wasn't together.

William and Elizabeth, my great-grandparents, right,

where are they in 1901?

Well, this is the interesting thing,

I haven't actually been able to find them together in 1901.

-What does that mean?

-Well, I'm not sure.

-Ooh...!

I think something has gone amiss.

Catastrophic?

-Well, it might be something you have to look into.

-Oh, OK.

Unable to find the Meadows family living all together in 1901,

Laura looked for the younger children,

most likely still to be living with their parents.

She couldn't find the youngest, Frederick...

I'm looking for the next youngest.

OK, which was...

..so she searched for Henry,

and finally found him by using the other common form of his name.

-Henry is sometimes Harry.

-Harry, oh, yeah.

So maybe he was under Harry.

-Harry Meadows, is that him?

-Yep, that's him.

-What does that say?

-Inmate.

Inmate!

So, do you think he was in jail?

It says up here...

Aw-w...homeless little boy.

Oh, my God! What happened?

-So he's in the district home for homeless little boys.

-Aw-w.

-In Kent!

-In Kent.

-Not even in London.

Horton Kirby in Kent - never heard of it.

'It's amazing how emotionally it hits you, actually,

'because my nan came from actually quite a big family

'that we never knew about.

'But by 1901, we can't find the family as a unit.'

So all I can think is something awful has happened

because the only one we can find is little Henry, who is now Harry,

and he's about 13 or 14

and he's in a school for homeless boys,

which means the family must have disintegrated

or they died or...

and where are the other six kids,

all my great-aunts and uncles?!

So what did happen to the Meadows family during the 1890s?

Twiggy's following her only lead.

Right, I'm now on the trail of my great-uncle Harry.

He turned up in Kent in a home for homeless boys,

which is rather distressing.

So I don't know if the building still exists, or the records.

I don't know but I'm hoping to find out.

Twiggy's enlisted the help of historian Dr Kate Bradley.

They're meeting on the site of the boys' home,

now a retirement community,

although some of the original buildings remain.

-So this would have been the chapel that the...

-Yeah.

-..homeless boys would have used?

-Absolutely.

So my great-uncle Harry would have sat here?

-Aw-w.

-Yeah.

Why would a boy like Harry, born and raised in London,

be sent all the way out here into Kent?

Well, if we look at the founding minutes of the home,

we can get an insight into the circumstances

in which he would have come here.

So, here we are.

"The object of this institution

"is to feed, clothe and educate and train to industrial work

"homeless and destitute little boys

"and those in danger of falling into crime."

To have been brought here,

Twiggy's great-uncle Harry must have found himself

in a desperate situation.

With an estimated third of London's population living in poverty,

its charities were over-subscribed,

so some homeless children were sent to the countryside.

At the home in Kent, Harry Meadows joined around 300 other boys.

"All such children to be under ten years of age

"at the time of admission."

Oh, my goodness, cos in 1901,

my great-uncle Harry was 13, it said,

-so he would have come here before he was ten?

-Yeah.

Oh, gosh! That's awful.

So does this mean that Harry was abandoned or orphaned?

Or maybe he ran away? Maybe it was so horrible.

And, you know, what happened to all his brothers and sisters

-and his mum and dad?

-It's hard to say.

I mean, what we can infer from the fact that he's here

is that there wouldn't have been anyone

in a position to take care of him,

that could have been his parents or older brothers or sisters,

but there's another document that I have for you

that might give you some insight

-into what's happening with his older brothers and sisters.

-Oh!

Oh. "The Middlesex Courier."

-That's obviously a newspaper.

-Yeah.

"Second Court."

Oh. "Kilburn Schoolboys in Trouble -

"Harry Wotten, 51 Lowfield Road, Kilburn,

"and Samuel Meadows..."

That's one of...

That's Harry's brother, elder brother.

"The schoolboys were charged with begging in Roxborough Park

"on Tuesday afternoon."

I mean, they were obviously hungry.

Now, I didn't know begging, at that time,

was considered a crime to go to court.

In Victorian Britain,

begging was a crime punishable by prison.

Harry's brother, Samuel Meadows,

was expected to work, not beg, to get by.

"The boy Meadows said they were out of work

"and they rambled as far as Pinner."

Wow, that was a long way.

"They came back through Harrow

"and feeling hungry and having no money..." Aw-w!

"..they went to a house and had a cup of water and a piece of bread.

"The case was dismissed."

Aw-w, that's really sad.

My great-uncle Samuel had a nice judge who dismissed it.

-Maybe he felt a bit sorry for them.

-Yeah.

In this case, it was quite possibly taking them to court

as a means of trying to stop them from doing it in future.

The family had obviously got into some sort of trouble

-if Harry was here...

-Yeah.

-..in the home for the homeless

and his elder brother Samuel was begging.

A few years before, they were all living together.

Yeah, they were poor, but they were all together

with the mum and dad and brothers and sisters.

And now we can't find them.

We don't know what happened to my great-grandparents.

And why were these little boys, you know, in this situation?

I've got to go back to London and try and find out

cos it's going to drive me mad otherwise.

To find out why the Meadows family broke up

and what caused Harry to end up in a boys' home and Samuel to beg,

Twiggy's meeting a historian in Hampstead.

Douglas Brown has been searching for the family

in records of the poor of North London.

-How do you do?

-Hello.

Little Harry ended up in a home for homeless boys

and Samuel had been arrested for begging.

I'm trying to find the rest of the family,

including my grandma, Alice.

OK. Well, the first thing to look at is this.

OK.

What is this?

This is the Religious Creed Register.

-Oh, the year of the book is 1892.

-Mm-hm.

Oh, Master of the Workhouse. Oh, gosh.

So what am I looking for?

-I'm looking for Meadows, correct?

-Mm-hm.

Maff, Marrison, M...

-Meadows.

-Mm-hm.

Oh, actually, can I look in my book? Cos I've got their names, look.

Grace. That's her.

Oh, they're all here!

So they're in the workhouse. Aw-w.

Where?

So Parish of St John, Hampstead.

So there was a workhouse in Hampstead?

Yes, that's right.

In fact, I can...

-I can show you. That's what it looked like, then.

-Wow!

-If we have a look...

-It's actually quite beautiful.

Oh, my goodness, it's still here!

-Yeah.

-Oh, how fantastic.

Thank God they didn't pull it down,

-although I'm sure it wasn't as lovely inside...

-No.

-..being a workhouse.

-These are luxury flats, now.

-Are they?

-Yeah.

-How times change.

-Yes, quite.

Long before the existence of the welfare state,

the parish workhouse was the last resort for the Victorian poor.

To keep numbers down,

conditions were deliberately made worse

than the lowest standards endured by labourers outside,

as the more people who entered, the more it cost the parish.

Inmates had to sell all their possessions

and were issued with uniforms that marked them out as paupers.

Lucy was born in...

That's right, she's '80...'85.

So the older ones didn't go to the workhouse?

Samuel... Oh, he would have been 13.

And then Alice, who is my nanny, who I never met,

she was also 12-ish,

so she didn't go to the workhouse.

-So we've just got the four youngest.

-The younger ones.

-Yeah.

-So Frederick's there...

-Yeah. So he's a toddler at this point.

Yeah. Harry's there.

These are the little ones.

Lucy's there.

And Grace.

"Name of..."

What does that say? "In..."

-"Informant."

-"Informant." So Grace...

-Grace Elizabeth...

-..admitted herself.

-Yeah.

Or at least was the spokesperson for ones who were there.

Ah, OK.

So Grace, who's the eldest of these four, admitted them all?

She would have been 11.

Oh, that's really...

-What a thing to have to take on yourself at that age.

-Yeah.

In 1892,

only a year after they'd all been

living together in Willesden,

Twiggy has discovered

that the Meadows family split apart.

Her grandmother Alice

and the other older siblings

had to find work to survive,

while their younger

brothers and sisters -

Grace, Lucy, Henry, also known as Harry,

then just five, and Frederick,

went without them into the Hampstead workhouse.

But it doesn't say where their parents are.

Where do you think Mum was, does it say?

-So, have a look at this one. This is another register.

-OK.

"Name and address of parents or nearest relative...

"1891, '93...'93, '94.

"Mother, Elizabeth Meadows, of Loveridge Road..."

And that's their home address, presumably.

So from these documents,

it appears that my great-grandmother's still alive

but obviously not in the workhouse.

Look at what else is happening to the other members of the family.

Now, a little baby... Oh, God, I can't bear this.

"Baby Frederick, 18th July, '94,

"to the North Western Fever Hospital."

So he came down with a fever?

Yeah. And then there's one more family member here.

Oh, yeah, that... Oh, Elizabeth, she's in.

Elizabeth admitted herself.

She's managed to stay out of the workhouse until this point.

Aw-w. So, "Date of entry: 11th of October, '94."

Presumably she must have known...

Well, she would have known by then how sick Frederick was.

Yeah, it's possible that...

And do you think that's why she admitted herself, to be with him?

Yeah, it's very possible.

-That he was getting sick, she needed to look after him.

-Yeah.

-You know, he was a toddler.

-OK.

-I mean, he was two or three.

-Yeah, he was a baby.

SHE GASPS Aw-w, he died.

Oh.

I thought...

-I thought that might have happened. He was so young.

-Yeah.

Oh, God, how horrible.

Yeah. It would have been really tough and they wouldn't have...

She wouldn't have...

She wouldn't have put them in unless there was a crisis like this.

Well, it must have been terrible for Elizabeth.

You know, as a mother, I can't even imagine

what it must have been like.

Yeah.

Let's have a look at the next one.

-Four years later?

-Yeah.

Where are we? Let's find... Oh, here we are.

"Elizabeth Meadows.

"Date of entry: 18th of February, 1898."

-Oh, she died...

-Yeah.

..6th June, 1898. Aw-w.

So she died in the workhouse?

-Yeah.

-Aw-w.

So we know poor Elizabeth died in the workhouse,

but where's William, my great-grandfather?

Well, keep reading over.

"Nearest known relative: Husband," yeah, "William."

So William's still around.

"Remarks...deserted"!

He left them.

-Is that what it means, he deserted the family?

-Yeah.

Why do you think...? Well, maybe he was...

Maybe I shouldn't judge, maybe he was desperate,

but you don't leave seven children, sorry.

Well, let's go back six years to this document.

This is the minutes of the Board of Guardians,

who were the officials who ran the system,

-and so it's 1892.

-Mm-hm.

And have a look at these three lines here.

-"Resolved that a reward of 40 shillings..." Right?

-Yeah.

"..be offered for the apprehension of William Meadows

"for deserting his four children, now in the workhouse."

He deserted the family, so it's his fault, so they wanted him.

-So they want him back, yeah.

-Wow!

-So they're offering this reward.

-Quite right.

I'm after you, William!

'I didn't know my grandmother Alice, my mum's mum,

'so then I learnt about her mum and dad,

'William and Elizabeth.

'I think their part of the story is probably the saddest

'because they were obviously desperately poor.'

'My great-grandmother Elizabeth became very, very ill

'and finally died in the workhouse

'which...you know, the shame on the family,

'and maybe that's why we've never heard about them,

'maybe that shame stopped the next generation talking about it.'

'And then her husband also deserted her,

'which, you know,

'obviously he was going through a terrible time,

'couldn't feed his children,

'but I don't think you desert your wife and kids,

'so I don't feel too kindly towards him.'

'I feel a little bit against him at the moment.'

By leaving his wife and children,

William Meadows had broken the law.

Deemed capable of working,

the parish held him responsible

for the expense it was put to, feeding and housing his children.

To find out what happened to him,

Twiggy's come to Hampstead's Burgh House Museum

to meet historian Professor Joanne Bailey.

Hello!

Joanne's found relevant court records starting in 1893.

-'William Meadows, there he is.

-Yes.'

"Minute of Adjudication."

That means sentence.

"Committed as an idle and disorderly person

"for one calendar month with WHL."

What's that?

That's "with hard labour."

What does that mean, like, digging roads, railways?

It is.

It's a punishment that involves hard work,

and something like digging roads, quarrying,

-at least had an end result to it.

-Yeah.

But increasingly there was a form of hard labour which was unproductive.

This is a picture from Pentonville Prison.

Yeah. What are they doing?

This is the treadwheel that was used for hard labour.

-What was it turning?

-Well, that's the thing.

The treadmill didn't generally have any productive point to it at all.

To discourage him from reoffending,

William Meadows could have been forced on and off the treadmill

for up to ten hours a day,

for no purpose other than to exhaust him.

Other futile tasks included turning the crank

which became increasingly difficult to turn

as wardens tightened it.

It's said this earned them their nickname - screws.

Do we know whether it did the trick?

-Did he ever come back?!

-Well, I'll show you...

I'll show you the next record that we have.

-This one is '98, so that's...

-That's right.

-..five years later.

Yes.

-"William Meadows," the same guy checked him in.

-Yes.

"Not you again!" OK.

"Nature of offence: Refusing to maintain his wife,

-"chargeable to the parish."

-Yes.

So my great-grand...

Yeah, I think my memory is that she died in '98 at some point,

-so she's still alive but very, very ill.

-Yes.

And presumably what the parish is trying to do

is to get payment for her time in the workhouse

and presumably for the costs incurred with her illness.

"Committed for three calendar months

"with hard labour as a rogue and vagabond."

What does that mean?

It means he's moved up

-the next stage of...

-Badness!

-..the category of vagrant. Yes!

So you start as an idle and disorderly person,

then if you offend again, you become a rogue and a vagabond,

and, of course, what that means

-is you get a harsher penalty.

-Sentence.

-So in this case it's three months.

-Mm.

So why do you think my great-grandfather William

kept reoffending?

It really might be about desperation,

it might be about lack of work.

William Meadows was listed on the 1891 Census as a slater -

heavy work, lifting and laying roof tiles.

It was poorly paid and seasonal.

It's likely the family could barely make ends meet

when William was in employment,

let alone when he was short of work.

-It must have become overwhelming, mustn't it?

-That's right.

Cos they had seven children and four of them were really young.

If he can't work, he can't make a living.

There is, you know...

As I said, it becomes a complete vicious circle, doesn't it?

-Yes, that's it.

-Unbelievable.

Was that the pattern of his life, do you think?

Do you think it just...? Do we know whether it continued?

-Well, the next record that I have to show you...

-Oh, gosh!

What's this?

-So, here we know...

-Oh, dear!

-"Copy Entry Of Death." It's a death certificate.

-Yes. And...

"1905. William Meadows."

Oh, he was 58. Wow.

"Slater from Marylebone Workhouse."

Oh, so he ended up in the workhouse.

Oh, not surprisingly. Aw-w.

"Cause of death:

"Strangulated hernia

"and suppurative peritonitis."

The interesting thing is when you think about a hernia,

a hernia is caused by, you know, carrying heavy weights...

-Heavy weights.

-..and it does make you wonder

how long this was a problem for him.

This is, you know, something which would have limited his ability

-to work as a slater...

-Of course.

-..or a labourer before that.

-And surely the heavy work probably caused it, right?

-Yes.

So, it's interesting to me

because although I didn't actually meet my grandmother,

Alice,

this is, you know, her family.

-It's not that long ago, really, is it?

-It isn't, so...

So do we know about his family?

-Well, I've got one more record to show you.

-Wow!

A page from the Old Bailey Calendar of Prisoners.

-Oh, gosh! We're there again, are we?!

-We are!

-Oh, dear!

And again we have the names of the offenders in this column.

Oh, God! "Meadows...Grace."

-Grace Meadows!

-Yes.

-Mother?

-Yes.

-Sister?

-Mother?

-Mother.

-And she's an offender?

-Yeah.

Oh, God! Poor chap.

So that's my great-great-grandmother.

Oh, goodness, what has she done?

And this is 1862.

-So this is what she was charged with.

-That's right.

"Unlawfully uttering counterfeit coin

"well knowing the same to be counterfeit."

And the sentence of the order of court...

"Six months house of correction, Westminster."

So is that...? She got sent to jail?

So where do I go now?

The criminal records

of her Meadows ancestors

have brought Twiggy a generation

further up her maternal line

to her great-great-grandmother,

Grace Meadows,

who, like her son, was imprisoned.

Her crime involved

counterfeit coins.

At the British Museum,

which holds a large collection of historical coins,

Twiggy's meeting Professor Barry Godfrey.

He specialises in the history of crime.

-Hello.

-Morning, nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

-It's a beautiful day.

-Gorgeous.

-If you come through to the...

-Thank you.

So I've just found out that my great-great-grandmother,

Grace Meadows,

-was arrested for unlawfully "uttering" counterfeit coins.

-OK.

What does that mean, "uttering"?

OK, it's a good question.

You've got counterfeiting and uttering.

-Counterfeiting is making fake coins.

-OK.

Uttering is passing them on to members of the public,

-so distributing.

-OK, so using them to buy things?

-Using them, that's it. That's exactly it.

-OK.

-Can I show you some of the coins?

-Yes, please.

We need to take a few precautions.

-Oh, I get... Ooh!

-Yeah.

-Ooh, it matches me jacket!

Lovely. Very stylish!

And some coin-doms for me.

Have a look at this rather beautiful gold one, there.

-I need my glasses.

-You'll need your glasses,

-because the detail's just so fine.

-Yeah. Ooh, lovely. That's beautiful.

They are quite tremendous,

-but people were desperate to copy these.

-Yeah.

If you flip it over, you'll see it should have Victoria on the back.

Oh, yeah, it's beautiful.

But the counterfeit ones aren't quite as...

-as graceful.

-Have we got one?

-Yep. We'll have a look at some of those.

And here's some of the counterfeit ones

we've got from the British Museum.

And there...

-..is something which is supposed to be similar to that.

-Oh, OK.

-Okey-doke.

-And these...

-Oh, yeah, it's lighter.

-..you can see the difference.

And look at the colour.

In comparison, the real one almost looks kind of rose goldy.

And why has it got that big slice in it?

Well, it's been crimped

to see whether it's of the right base metal or not.

-Oh, I see.

-Actually, you can see there...

-Can you see this silver...

-Yeah.

-..showing through?

Shows this has been probably electroplated.

-Oh, I see.

-So it's a base metal...

-OK.

-..that's had something put over the top of it,

but it's not quite doing the job.

Obviously someone had suspicions

-and that's how they've tested it.

-OK.

That's another one.

That is a fake silver whatever... What's the coin?

-It's a florin.

-A florin, OK.

But if you could get away with passing that

-then you were effectively making money, you know.

-That's true.

This is worthless

and you're passing it over for pieces of gold and silver.

-And did some people get away with it?

-Loads of people must have got away with it.

-Wow!

So how would my great-great-grandmother

have made her money?

Well, she probably would have purchased coins,

-high value coins...

-Oh, OK.

-..not for the full value of the coin itself,

and then she will be passing it on, getting the goods,

-getting some of the change back...

-Oh, yeah.

..so she's making a little bit of money there.

So if you think of it a bit like the drugs trade is now.

-We have the Mr Bigs at the top...

-It's very similar, isn't it?

Very similar to that.

Then you get right to the bottom, you get people like Grace,

who are the people who are running all of the risks,

who are really vulnerable to being picked up by the police.

Maybe that's why they used women?

Would they look more trustworthy?

-You know, if a woman had a nice...

-It's a female crime.

-It is!

-It's overwhelmingly a female crime.

-That's interesting.

-I bet that's what they thought.

-Women are the ones who are shopping.

-Yeah.

Women are the ones who are supposed to be more respectable,

and less criminal,

but also women are domestic servants,

who might be sent out with coins to go and get things

-for their masters or mistresses.

-Ah, how interesting.

So they're the ones who are doing all of this business.

She may have been considered what the Victorians called

the professional criminal classes.

You know, society was so harsh in those days,

especially on the poor classes.

Society was unfair.

Grace's life probably wasn't a very rosy one.

My great-grandfather died in the workhouse

and my great-grandmother did, so they were poverty-stricken.

-And this is his mum.

-OK.

So I was wondering if that poverty had come from her

-and it sounds like it more than likely...

-Yeah,

I mean, these are crimes of need

but they're also a form of employment.

-It's criminal, but your alternatives might be prostitution.

-Mm-hm.

In 1862,

when Grace Meadows

committed her crime,

she was married

and a mother to five children

under the age of ten,

in addition to her eldest son,

Twiggy's great-grandfather, William.

Women with as many small children as Grace

could seldom take steady paid work.

So if their husbands couldn't support them,

their options included the workhouse and crime.

Do we know anything more about Grace?

Well, we're lucky because we do have some documents that tell us

just a little bit more about Grace's life.

Good. Can I take this off?

You can take that off now, yeah.

Now these are the Sessions papers of the Old Bailey.

-Oh-h!

-And this is from the year 1862.

Oh, so this is the one I saw the shortened version of?

You'll have seen a little summary...

-Yeah.

-..and we get a lot more detail here.

-Oh.

Have a look here, this is the statement of Rebecca Dawson,

-one of the witnesses.

-She was one that she tried...

-She was a victim, really.

-Yeah.

"On 25th November,

"about half-past eight in the morning the prisoner came for

"a farthing boot-lace, a child's neck scarf and two pocket handkerchiefs.

"She paid me for the boot-lace first with a farthing

"and asked me for change, which I gave her.

"Mr Parks came back with it in his hand and said it was bad."

-So this is the shop owner?

-So this is the shop owner, yeah.

And then, of course, they go off, find a police officer and...

And she gets arrested.

..Grace is arrested. She's tracked down.

-There's a little bit more here...

-Hold on.

..about her arrest.

Oh, this is another witness.

"I do not know where she was in the morning,

"she is a hard-working woman and keeps at home with her children."

And then it says, "The prisoner received a good character."

Aw-w, that's nice.

And then it says, "Guilty on the first, second and third counts,

"recommended to mercy by the jury on account of her family."

So she could have got more than the six months?

She could have got more than that, but for every mother that

goes into prison, the children have to be looked after

-and they have to go into the workhouse...

-Oh, God,

-back to the workhouse.

-..or thrown on to the relief of the parish.

So, er, it's a desperate thing

-for women going to prison at this time.

-Yeah.

There's no doubt that Grace,

my great-great-grandmother, was a criminal,

but I have to think that she was a goodie in horrible circumstances,

I hope, I can't believe in my heart that she...

I mean, she didn't kill anybody,

she didn't break into somebody's house and steal anything.

She was just trying to earn a crust, bless her.

I'd like to know did she reoffend?

Did it get better or did it go downhill?

In nearby Clerkenwell Green,

Twiggy's meeting Professor Dick Hobbs.

Dick has researched what happened to Grace

after she'd served her time for passing counterfeit coins.

I'd like to know what happened, when she came out, to her and her family.

Did she learn her lesson and stop committing crime?

Well, things moved on.

This is "Lloyd's Weekly London Newspaper, Sunday July 12th, 1874.

"Police intelligence, a mother and daughter stealing banknotes."

Oh, dear.

"Grace Meadows, 50, and Lucy Meadows, 14,

"mother and child, living at 51 Sewardstone Road, Old Ford..."

-which is East End, right?

-Yeah, very much.

"..were charged on remand with being concerned together in stealing

"three Bank of England notes..." Ooh!

"..for £20 each, one for £5, and £6 in gold,

"the moneys of Charles Pragnell.

"The evidence showed that the prisoner, Lucy Meadows, was

"in the service of the prosecutor..." which is Pragnell, right?

-Yes.

-Oh, so Lucy worked...

-Yep.

-..for somebody.

Yeah, she worked... she worked for, er, for Pragnell.

Oh, I see, and she stole the money, his money?

That's what they're saying, yeah.

Ah! "Lucy Meadows had been in the service of the prosecutor

"as servant girl and on 22nd June

"he left the house in the girl's charge

"whilst he and his wife went out.

"On his return, the prosecutor on going upstairs found that

"the staircase window was open whereas he had left it shut."

Yeah, so, basically, we're at a point now where it's a burglary.

You know, it's a burglary, but Lucy...

Worked in the house.

..worked in the... worked in the house, yeah.

"A box in his wife's bedroom was open

"and then it was discovered that a cash box,

"left in the larger box,

"had been forced open and the money in question stolen.

"Some days afterwards, one of the £20 notes,

"the numbers of which the prosecutor had obtained after the robbery,

"was found to have been paid into the Bank of England.

"It was traced back to a witness, the wife of a rate collector.

"Grace Meadows,

"it was proved, had paid it for taxes two days after the robbery."

So she needed to pay her taxes.

She needs to pay taxes and,

and that's how... that's how they've traced it.

Oh, I see.

"The prisoners were then committed for trial."

-Oh, dear.

-And the trial was here...

-Oh!

-..in this building. This is...this is why we're here.

Oh, my goodness! So this was a courthouse?

-Yes. Clerkenwell Green.

-Oh, wow! It's an amazing building.

Just...just on the edge of it. Just on the edge of it.

-So my great-great-grandmother was here.

-Was here. Yeah.

-Wow.

-Yeah.

-Not in the happiest of circumstances.

No, she wouldn't have been too pleased.

Aw. Oh, dear. Do I want to know what happened?

-So, then we, um...

-Oh, it's not going to be nice.

-So...

here's a statement.

"Thereupon Grace says the child knows nothing about it."

-That's Lucy?

-Yeah.

-So she's saying,

"My daughter had nothing to do with it"?

Absolutely. She's clearing Lucy, she's taking responsibility.

-Ah, that's nice. Cos she was only 14, wasn't she?

-She was just a kid.

Because Mum said she was nothing to do with it...

-Yep.

-..um, they discharged...

-Lucy's free. Yeah, no problem with Lucy.

Oh, that's... Well, that... Well, that's nice. Yeah.

Oh, that's... "Several previous convictions having been

"proved against the prisoner, she was sentenced

"to two years' hard labour."

Oh-h, poor Grace. That's horrible.

I mean, this isn't... this isn't petty crime.

This is...this is a lot of money.

It's the...it's the equivalent of about £5,600 in today's money.

Oh, my God!

-I mean, people then were earning shillings a week.

-Wow!

A pound would have been a lot of money.

Yeah, it was a serious crime and hard labour was, er,

was quite common for these... for these crimes.

Even for women?

Yeah, for women, very, very common indeed

and it really was hard labour.

Her son William, he did hard labour and it was pretty awful,

but he did, like, six months at the time,

but two years is a long time.

-Two years is a long...

-And a woman!

-Yeah.

Where is this? Oh, my God!

-Well, we're in the, er, we're in the basement of the court now.

-Yeah. OK.

This would have been the holding cell, and this is where Grace

would have been held before she went off to serve her sentence.

-So she'd have been brought down from the court...

-Yep.

..she wouldn't have seen her family, presumably?

No, she wouldn't have seen her family.

She'd have been brought straight down here, held here

-and then taken off to prison.

-Oh, my goodness.

That would have been it.

We've got some pictures here of what it was like for her.

Oh, wow!

"Workroom on the silent system

"at the House of Correction, Tothill Fields."

What does silent system mean?

The work that they were carrying out

was carried out literally in silence.

For six hours a day, they would work in silence,

-they were not allowed to speak to anyone.

-Really?

And you can see the people round the edges were there

to enforce that, these were the guards. That was the...

-Oh, they're the guards.

-Yep.

Here, we've got an example of what they're...they're doing.

They're picking oakum, and oakum was, you know the saying,

-"Money for old rope"?

-Yeah.

-Well, oakum was old rope.

-Oh, I see.

And they made money from it.

So they unpicked the rope and turned it into

this rather fluffy substance that we can see there.

And what was oakum used for?

It was used in between the planking

and wooden ships to seal it with tar, to seal it, and it was

also used on joints for plumbing to seal the joint,

so it had a value.

They turned something that was useless, old rope...

-Old rope.

-..they turned it into money.

And we've actually got the opportunity for you to...

-Oh, thank you(!)

-..to have a go at picking...at picking the oakum.

There's a piece of old rope for you.

-That's money for old rope.

-Money for old rope.

-Oh, it's really sticky, isn't it?

-It is very harsh.

-Ugh...ugh...

-That's it.

It feels like... You know what it feels like, it feels like, um,

-wire wool.

-Yeah, yeah.

God! But their finger must have been raw.

Yeah, it would have been, yeah.

This was their task for two years, for Grace's case for two years,

-it's what she had to do.

-It's unbelievable.

I've got a feeling it can't be a happy ending,

having two years in this.

I feel quite angry. I feel really sad

cos my great-great-grandmother went through that,

but I'd really like to know if she came out,

how she was when she came out.

Did she go on offending,

or did she get back to her family?

I... That's what I'd like to know.

Twiggy's come to East London

where her great-great-grandmother Grace had lived

when she wasn't in prison.

I know that she came out from there

and I don't know what happened next to her, so I've come to Hackney

to try and find out.

She's meeting Professor Clive Emsley on Hackney's Mare Street.

-Twiggy. Nice to meet you.

-Hi. Good to see you.

-Well, here she is in the 1881 Census.

-OK.

-So this is in Dalston Road...

-Yeah.

-..which is in Hackney.

-Grace Gillies. Is that her?

-That's her. Back to her maiden name.

-Oh!

-People often use both names, yeah.

And it says she's head of the family, so...

Well, head of the household.

And in the house was Sarah, daughter, John, son, Robert, son,

and then Daniel Crackett, boarder.

Oh! She...she let rooms.

A policeman!

That's hysterical.

Well, yeah, he's a...

-That's really funny.

-Um...

I mean, if you did that in a programme, they'd...

-They might laugh, yeah.

-..come out of jail for hard labour

and you board a police... Do you think he knew she was an ex-con?

-Er, quite possibly, yeah.

-TWIGGY LAUGHS

That's brilliant! Absolutely brilliant.

She's clearly going straight. It's quite rare.

It's very, very difficult for a woman to go straight

-in the 19th century.

-Oh, really? Wow.

Repeat offending by women is colossal.

So what my great-great-grandmother did was quite unusual?

To come out of two years' hard labour and then turn her back to crime...

-It's... It is...

-..to become a respectable landlady.

You're a respectable landlady, yeah, yeah.

And this is the next Census, 1891.

-OK, so they'd moved.

-Yeah.

Brett Road which is, oh, still in Hackney,

so they're still in the East End. Now where is she?

Grace Gillies, head, age 62, yes, she's ten years older, er...

Oh, the... Robert, the son is 22, yeah. I can't read it all.

-That's Maud.

-Maud...

-Grandchild.

-Oh!

-Maud...

-Crackett.

-Crackett.

-Now here's an interesting thing...

-Very Dickensian.

..look at the name of the policeman we picked up over here.

Oh-h! We've got a TV series here!

-Daniel Crackett.

-Oh, my goodness!

He fell in love with her daughter! How romantic! And they had a baby.

Well, they actually got married.

Aw-w! Aw, that's lovely. She married a policeman.

-Aw, it's a romance.

-It is.

I mean, this is brilliant.

I never guessed this in a million years.

I thought it was going to just dive downhill rapidly.

-So...so we're 1891, right?

-Yeah.

Grace, my great-great-grandmother, is 62, renting her rooms to policemen.

Brilliant. Did she stay on the straight and narrow

-or did she revert back to crime?

-Well, she certainly seems to have...

-Brilliant.

-..stayed straight and there's some more information.

Some more. What, she's in the paper again?

She's in the paper again.

She was famous, my great-great-grandmother,

not for always the right reasons.

Oh, my goodness! Oh my gosh!

"The Western Gazette, Friday, August 20th, 1897,

"killed at a bargain sale!"

Oh, I shouldn't laugh. TWIGGY GASPS

"An inquest was held at Hackney on Tuesday

"respecting the death of Grace Gillies, aged 69,

"who died during a great crush.

"On Saturday morning, she attended a great sale at Messrs MacIlroys shop,

"333 to 339 Mare Street, Hackney."

-Which is...

-Where we're sitting.

-Yeah.

-We're on Mare Street.

-Yeah.

-Wow!

"It was the first day of a great clearance sale

"and the doors were to be opened at eight o'clock.

"She appeared to be very ill and on being assisted to a seat said,

"'I have been beaten this time.'"

-She went to a sale and...

-Yeah.

-..she'd had a heart attack.

They say your life flashes, you know, in front of you,

she must have thought, "Well, I got...

"I got through all my criminal life, got through hard labour,

-"became a respectable landlady, but the sale got her."

-Yes.

THEY LAUGH

Aw, bless her heart. Amazing.

You know, I've always wanted to know about my ancestry

and I never have.

Before I did this programme, beyond grandmother Alice, it was blank,

and now I've got a picture of these characters of my mum's line.

Er, I'm looking for 333.

'I mean, I think what this has shown to me is...

'..that the women in my family are incredibly strong women.

'I feel akin to them when I'm learning about them.'

So this would have been 333... SIREN WAILS

..where my great-great-grandmother came to a bargain sale...

..and got crushed and died.

What a way to go, in a way...

..but amazing to think...

..my...four generations ago from me,

she was walking in here...

..to a bargain sale.

'I really do feel proud of my ancestors,

'of what I've learnt about them.

'I've found it fascinating...

'..extraordinary in places, very sad in other places.

'I grew up in a working-class family, but I wouldn't call us poor.

'My dad had a good job.

'So my grandmother Alice, when you think of it,

'she and her husband Alfred were the first two

'to come out of that terrible poor family'

syndrome, really.

And I'm a very lucky girl sitting here is all I can say,

that I wasn't born 150 years ago.