Thieves dubbed Victorian era ‘Bonnie and Clyde'

This rogue gallery features the infamous "Bonnie and Clyde-style" Victorian "Highland Hotel Robbers" who terrorized guests in the 1880s.

American James Edward Lyon and his young accomplice Eliza Thorpe targeted well-to-do guests in fancy hotels from Argyll to Aberdeenshire in the summer of 1883.

Nicknamed the 'Highland Hotel Robbers', they stole cash, jewelry, and other valuables while traveling as man and wife, often alongside their associate Joseph Dowling.

When Dowling was caught red-handed with some stolen items, the two men were convicted, while the case against Thorpe, then 20, was not proven.

Dowling was sentenced to one year, while Lyon was sentenced to seven years in Inverary Prison, with photographs of the trio kept in an album of interesting cases by the local procurator fiscal.

Now, for the first time, their records and photographs have been digitised and added to Scotland's People, the official site for government records, alongside over 100,000 other inmates from Ayr and Inverary Jails.

Around 4,600 records exist from Inverary Jail in the 19th century, including the seven-year-old James McCulloch, who was caught stealing, and 82-year-old Ann Kerr, sentenced for vagrancy.

The newly published records also include 98,000 entries from Ayr Prison from 1841 to 1911.

Notable prisoners included murderers Joseph Calabrese, Thomas Bone and Mary Boyd. All of them were sentenced to death, but all spared.

Archivist Veronica Schreuder said: "Prison registers are a rich source of information for social researchers and family historians alike.

"While it can be a shock to find an ancestor in prison, it can sometimes lead to details that are unlikely to have been preserved for most people.

"Finding out the color of their hair, details of their health or whether they could read or write can turn a name and some dates into a much more rounded person.

"And of course, if they have committed a serious crime, it can explain a lot about the decisions of other relatives such as moving area, changing a name or simply never talking about them."

The new additions mean there are now over 400,000 historical prison records available to search on Scotland's People.

This includes the old Edinburgh prisons, Barlinnie, Perth and Largs.

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