This is John Williams who is depicted in one of the recently discovered Victorian era mugshots that we have been featuring on our blog. They include the oldest mugshots in Britain and were taken at the Moor Street staton in Birmingham between the 1850s and 1870s. West Midlands Police heritage lead Corinne Brazier and her colleagues did a great service in ensuring the preservation of these remarkable mugshots.
Mugshots were first used by Belgian police in 1843 and began ten years later in Birmingham.
John Williams is obviously quite young and was convicted of breaking into a warehouse. He was given four months of hard labour in 1864. There is both a sense of sadness but also premature aging in the eyes of his young man.
