The case of Julia St. Clair Newman—or Miss Newman, as she was commonly called in the prison and out—attracted considerable attention in its time, becoming indeed the subject of frequent discussion in Parliament, and being referred at length to a Select Committee of the House of Lords. Inside the walls Julia Newman was for many months the centre of all interest; she was a thorn in the side of all officials, visitors, governor, doctor, matrons, and even of her fellow-prisoners. Apparently of Creole origin—at least it was certain that she had been born in one of the West India Islands—she came home while still a child, and was educated at a French boarding-school. When sixteen she returned to Trinidad with her mother, remained there a year or two, and again came to England to live on an allowance made them by Julia’s guardian. But whether this allowance was too small, or their natural proclivities would not be repressed, they soon got into bad ways. Repeatedly shifting houses, they moved from one lodging to another, always in debt, and not seldom under suspicion of swindling and fraud. Three months in the King’s Bench was followed by a lengthened sojourn in Whitecross Street Gaol; then came more shady transactions, such mistakes as pledging their landlady’s plate for their own, making away with wearing apparel and furniture, or absconding without payment of rent. At length, having left the apartments of a certain Mrs. Dobbs in a hurry, they packed up—quite by accident—in one of their trunks a silver spoon, some glasses, and a decanter, the property of the aforesaid Mrs. Dobbs. For this they were arrested, and as soon as they were in custody a second charge was laid against them for stealing a ring from a woman in the King’s Bench, which Julia indignantly denied, declaring that she had picked it up in the pump yard—where of course there were plenty of rings to be had simply for the trouble of stooping. Naturally the jury disbelieved the Newmans’ explanation of both counts, and mother and daughter were found guilty and sentenced to transportation.
They were evidently a pair of ordinary commonplace habitual swindlers, deserving no special notice. But their rumoured gentility gained for them a species of misplaced sympathy; and they were excused transportation, to be sent instead, for reformation, to the Penitentiary, where they arrived on the 11th March, 1837. Of the mother it will be sufficient to say at once that she was an inoffensive tractable old woman, who bore her punishment with patience, and eventually died in prison. But Julia was cast in a different mould. Under thirty,—according to her own statement she was only nineteen,—full in figure, and florid of complexion, possessed, as was afterwards proved, of extraordinary physical strength, she displayed, from the first moment almost, an incorrigible perversity which made her in the end a perfect nuisance to the whole establishment. There was something ladylike about her when she was in a peaceable mood. Inexperienced people would have called her a gentlewoman. Not handsome or even good looking, but decidedly “interesting,” the matrons said when questioned before the Select Committee. She was accomplished: could draw and paint, and was very musical; sang beautifully—and certainly during her stay at Millbank she gave plenty of proof of the strength and compass of her voice; and with all this she was clever, designing, and of course thoroughly unprincipled.