Early Life and Marriages
The son of an insurance agent, George Joseph Smith was born in Bethnal Green, London. He was sent to a reformatory at Gravesend, Kent at the age of nine and later served time for swindling and theft. In 1896, he was imprisoned for 12 months for persuading a woman to steal from her employers. He used the proceeds to open a baker's shop in Leicester.
In 1898, he married Caroline Beatrice Thornhill (under another alias, Oliver George Love) in Leicester; it was his only legal marriage (although he also married another woman bigamously the following year). They moved to London, where she worked as a maid for a number of employers, stealing from them for her husband. She was eventually caught in Worthing, Sussex, and sentenced to 12 months. On her release, she incriminated her husband and he was imprisoned in January 1901 for two years. On his release, she fled to Canada. Smith then went back to his other wife, cleared out her savings, and left.
In June 1908, Smith married Florence Wilson, a widow from Worthing. On 3 July, he left her, but not before taking £30 drawn from her savings account and selling her belongings from their Camden residence in London. On 30 July in Bristol, he married Edith Peglar, who had replied to an advertisement for a housekeeper. He would disappear for months at a time, saying that he was going to another city to ply his trade, which he claimed was selling antiques. In between his other marriages, Smith would always come back to Peglar with money.
In October 1909, he married Sarah Freeman, under the name George Rose Smith. As with Wilson, he left her after clearing out her savings and selling her war bonds, with a total take of £400. He then married Bessie Munday and Alice Burnham. In September 1914, he married Alice Reid, under the alias Charles Oliver James. In total, Smith entered into seven bigamous marriages between 1908 and 1914. In most of these cases, Smith went through his wives' possessions before he disappeared.
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