He is thought to have born somewhere in 1890s Ireland, emigrated to South Africa with his parents as a child, and later settled in England after fighting in the first World War.
But Robert Augustus Delaney has gone down in history for being one of the early practitioners – by some accounts the pioneer – of a new form of crime that became notorious in 1920s London.
When he was first convicted, 100 years ago this week (as reported by the London Times of February 6th, 1925), the court heard he had recently been mixing with a dangerous gang of criminals.
The Recorder: “‘Cat burglars?”
Anti-social climber – Frank McNally on the pioneering cat burglar Robert Augustus Delaney
Digging Up History – Frank McNally on the McMahon, and other once-famous spades
In the name of the father – Frank McNally on the waning tradition of family nicknames
Princess Margaret’s Galway island visit: ‘By the cut of you, you’re a lady. Will you take a drink?’
The witness: “Yes.”
By the time he was jailed again, in 1927, a judge at the Derby Assizes was upgrading him to be “the original cat burglar”. Which may not have been strictly true, since the Oxford Dictionary says the phrase was at least 20 years old then.
Either way, Delaney had become synonymous with the crime.
He got another seven years on that occasion. Thereafter, his periods of freedom were fewer and further between, until he died in Parkhurst prison in 1948.
Handsome, charming, and well-dressed, Delaney was in some ways a latter-day Barry Lyndon.
He too married a wealthy English widow, or at least one who inherited £23,000 from her husband. For a time, Delaney lived the life of a rural squire in Lincolnshire, then squandered the money, and absconded. The Central Criminal Court in London heard that, as of 1925, his wife was now “earning her living as a cook”.
In his new career as a burglar, the modus operandum was to pose as a gentleman, frequenting afternoon tea dances and befriending society ladies with a view to climbing their drainpipes later to steal jewels.
“Strongly built and always immaculately dressed, Delaney was a man of charming appearance and manner,” a newspaper reported in1927. “When not indulging in his burglarious enterprises he was in the West End of London a most popular figure, with his crisp brown curly hair.”
He may well have modelled himself on Arthur J Raffles, the fictional gentleman thief invented a generation earlier by Arthur Conan Doyle (who was present to see Delaney’s first court appearance).
Hence the top hat and evening wear that were central to the cat burglar’s image. Other operating tools included a kind of putty-knife, for slipping window catches and jewel-box locks. Also, always, according to one account, “around his trimly-tailored waist, he coiled four yards of black silk rope”.
He needed athleticism too, however, and had it to a prodigious extent.
When one of his regular accomplices, George William Enright, was jailed in 1928, reports relayed the grudging admiration of investigating detectives:
“The two men were regarded by police as the finest climbers engaged in burglary. A thirty feet stack pipe was nothing to either, and they would scale it with the greatest ease.”
It took another Irishman to bring Delaney down from his criminal high life.
Or so claimed the Irish Press in 1937 when noting the retirement of a Kerry-born veteran of Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad, Jeremiah “Jerry” Lynch.
Among Lynch’s achievements, the Press said, “his patiently planned capture of the super cat burglar Robert Delaney . . . would do justice to Conan Doyle”.
Speculating that the retired detective might “treat us later on to his reminiscences”, the reporter perhaps made a bid to ghost-write the memoir by describing Lynch’s personality as being “breezy as the salt winds that sweep up his native Cahirciveen”.
Unfortunately, Lynch does not seem to have taken the hint.
But another Scotland Yard veteran, Robert Fabian, was less reticent. He inspired a 1950s BBC drama series, Fabian of the Yard, and among many other boasts claimed credit for Delaney’s capture.
In a 1950 article for an Australian newspaper, “The Case of the Crepe-Soled Shoes”, Fabian recalled his part in the investigation and a crucial detail that gave the master burglar away.
While making inquiries in a bar on London’s Half Moon Street one night in 1924, the then young detective saw a man pass in formal evening dress, including “pointed shoes”.
The floor of the bar was parquet but, suspiciously, the shoes made no sound.
One thing then led to another and soon afterwards, in the phrase beloved of detective novels, it was a “fair cop, guv’nor”.
By the time Delaney died, on December 14th, 1948, he had spent a cumulative 20 years in prison, an experience that took a toll on his cultivated image.
“His shoulders had gradually drooped,” wrote Fabian, and in the brief intervals of freedom, “his polished, pointed, immaculate shoes had scarcely time to become worn at the heels”.
Of the many who attempted to emulate him, however, not all were as successful, or even as fortunate in ending up behind bars.
Fabian again: “Two men died trying to imitate Delaney. ‘Irish Mac’ impaled himself on spiked railings. ‘The Doctor’ – who should have known better – fell 40 feet from a portico in St. James. He had £8,000 [worth] of jewels in his pocket, and crawled grimily for two miles before death froze him.”
