Just like his fictional counterpart, Detective Jerome Caminada had a nemesis. The two men on different sides of the law first crossed paths in 1870, when Caminada was still a beat constable. Almost twenty years later, they would meet in an armed confrontation, with only one possible victor. The final battle didn’t take place at a waterfalls in Switzerland and nor was Robert Horridge a criminal mastermind like Professor Moriarty, but he did terrorise the streets of Victorian Manchester with clever burglaries, daring escapes and a desperate bid to maintain his freedom, which resulted in the shooting of two police officers. Horridge was a habitual offender and a career criminal, and I wanted to find out more about this inveterate thief and his illegal acts.
I started my investigation with a photograph of Horridge from Detective Caminada’s memoirs (see feature image). It isn’t dated but it was likely taken in 1887, at the end of his long criminal career. He isn’t looking at the camera, which is unusual for the period and his gaze is fixed beyond the photographer. His hair is short and quite sparse though still dark with a moustache and a goatee beard, making his appearance seem more modern than Victorian. He is dressed in a shabby overcoat with a cravat round his neck and his hands are raised to his chest as customary in police mugshots at the time. It’s strange staring into his eyes, wondering what he was thinking as he faced yet another long period behind bars. At the age of 42, he’d already led a very colourful life and broken the law several times. I used family history data to find out more about his childhood and to search for clues to explain how he had ended up as an experienced felon.
What struck me about Bob Horridge is the similarity of his early life with that of Detective Caminada. Both men were of a similar age – Jerome was just one year older – and they both grew up in working class families. Horridge was born in 1845, ironically close to Strangeways Prison where he would later be an inmate, and his father Ira was a whitesmith, who made fenders for fireplaces. The Horridges were considered to be a respectable family. Robert was the eldest of at least six children, all of whom attended school and received a basic education. It is here that the similarity with Caminada ends, as the police officer had a much more difficult and poverty-stricken childhood, and it’s interesting that he chose to join the police force, whereas his contemporary followed a very different path. Although Horridge had gone into the same trade as his father, he fell in with a bad crowd and was soon tempted into breaking the law. I studied the Home Office files on him at the National Archives to learn more about his criminal career, which began at a shockingly early age.
The first time that Robert Horridge faced the magistrate was in 1862, when he was convicted of stealing money and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. He was 17 years old. No details of this case have survived, but his later appearances in the dock offer more insight into his character. In the meantime, in 1864, he married Jane Buckley (no relation!) in the grand atmosphere of Manchester Cathedral, which was his local church – he had been baptised there too. Jane was 22 and the daughter of a textile worker. Their marriage didn’t start well, and just six months later, Robert was sent down for three months for assaulting her. It was after his release that his criminal career began in earnest and over the next few years, he faced justice several times, including an encounter with Detective Caminada, which led to a much longer stretch behind bars.
By day Bob Horridge worked as a blacksmith, a trade at which he excelled according to those who knew him, but he also carried out clandestine activities on the side, usually at night and often in the company of other felons. In 1867, the year after his conviction for assaulting his wife, he received a custodial sentence of eighteen months for receiving stolen goods. This was the first time that the two men encountered each other. There had been numerous complaints in the city about missing parcels and Caminada was instructed to investigate. When it was discovered that the thief was delivering the parcels to Horridge’s address, the detective went to his house. According to Caminada, a scuffle broke out between them during questioning and he backed Horridge into a corner of the room while his colleagues conducted a search of the property. After that, every time they met, there was a silent face-off as both men refused to show any weakness in front of the other.
In 1870, Horridge had the misfortune to come across Detective Caminada again when a gentleman was robbed of his watch at London Road railway station (now known as Manchester Piccadilly). The watch was in fact broken as it had been scratched by a knife, so when Caminada spotted Horridge coming out of a watchmaker’s, his suspicions were aroused. He later checked the watch that had been left at the watchmaker’s and compared it with the owner’s description. It was a match. The detective staked out the shop and when Horridge returned to collect it, Caminada was waiting for him. Because of his earlier convictions, Robert received a sentence of seven years, followed by another seven years of police supervision, and was shipped off to Pentonville Prison. He was released in the mid-70s but by this time he had become a hardened criminal.
In the following years, Horridge was tried for malicious damage – he had allegedly destroyed the bellows of a rival blacksmith – and for breaking into a mill shop and stealing jewellery from the safe. Both times he was acquitted and he managed to stay free from capture by pulling stunts such as running through attics of terraced houses to evade the police. But in 1880, his luck ran out when he decided to rob a warehouse and was caught red handed by a constable on his beat. After a wild chase which included Horridge jumping into the river, he was caught and sentenced to another eight years, but this time he made an even more desperate bid for freedom.
As Horridge was travelling by train from Manchester to London, he bragged to his fellow convicts that he would break out. An officer overheard him and informed the prison governor. When Bob made his attempt to escape by trying to scale the perimeter wall, the alarm was raised and he was shot twice in the back by the guards. He recovered from his wounds and served out his time. By 1887, Horridge was back on the streets of Manchester and he was about to face Detective Caminada one final time.
The final showdown took place in July 1887 when Horridge broke into a shoe shop. A passing constable spotted him and, when he tried to arrest the thief, Horridge shot him. Fortunately, the bullet only grazed his neck, but when a colleague came to his assistance, he was shot in the chest. After the attempted murder of two police officers, Detective Caminada was instructed to run Horridge to ground. In disguise, Caminada pursued his adversary to Liverpool, where he recognised him from a distance by the way in which he walked. The detective crept up behind his quarry, and holding a loaded revolver to Horridge’s head, he threatened, ‘If there’s any nonsense with you, you’ll get the contents of this’. Horridge was also armed, but after a fierce fight Caminada apprehended him. Everyone’s patience had now run out and Horridge was sentenced to penal servitude for life, most of which he spent at Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight (close to where I now live!). I followed the prison paper trail to find out what happened next…
Robert Horridge was sent first to the convict prison at Portsea Island, Portsmouth, where he would have been kept in solitary confinement. After this, he was transferred to Parkhurst. Various prison records describe him as five feet seven inches tall, with dark brown hair and blue-grey eyes. His face was pockmarked and he had scars on his knuckles, probably from boxing. On the 1891 census, he was recorded as 56 years old and was still an inmate at Parkhurst. I discovered a prison report from 1907 amongst the Home Office papers. His general health was fair and he was well nourished. His left arm was partially paralysed and he walked with the aid of a stick, which might have been the result of the attempted breakout at Pentonville and subsequent shooting. He was released in October 1907, after serving 20 years.
By the time Robert Horridge was released from his final stretch in prison, his wife Jane had died. Now in his early sixties and back on Manchester, Robert soon found a new companion and, in 1909, he married 47-year-old widow Annie Moran, a laundress (this time at the registry office). On their marriage certificate, Robert’s occupation is noted as master engineer, which I guess he was in a way, as he was certainly a master at breaking into safes. The final record I could find for Robert was the 1911 census, on which he was recorded as living in Cheetham Hill with his wife, and working as a peddlar, which was more likely to be accurate. I have yet to discover his death certificate but, as far as I know, he had no more encounters with Detective Caminada.
You can read Jerome Caminada’s description of his encounters with his arch rival, Bob Horridge, in Detective Caminada’s Casebook.
