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If anyone is interested in the ongoing saga of Frank's criminal career I've just discovered that his residence in the reform school in 1891 resulted from a March 1890 conviction for "forging a request for the payment of money", for which he was rewarded with 14 days hard labour and two years in the reform school.

I'm now beginning to wonder whether he was related to the Thomas Greening I have found who was given five years in Birmingham in August 1884 for what appears to be possession  of a counterfeit coin press or the Walter Greening given 10 years for burglary at Warwick Assizes in March 1891. Do we have a criminal dynasty?

Keith

Thanks to both ladies for yesterday's PMs, which have unravelled a very interesting story.

Frank Greening was in trouble with the law from at least the age of 16. In 1891 he was in a Reform School at Weston under Wetherly, between Warwick and Coventry, described as a schoolboy under sentence. By 1893, aged 18, he was arrsted for robbing a tobacconist shop in Birmingham and given 8 months hard labour. In August 1894 he was arrested for shooting a woman who had refused to live with him, commenting to the arresting officer that if she wasn't dead he would kill her when he got out of prison and by 1900 he was back in prison for a shop break-in.
In 1913 he had discovered his girlfriend, an alcoholic, in a "house of ill repute". He shot her, was convicted for her murder and subsequently hanged.

Throughout all the reports his birthplace is given as Birmingham but I am still unable to confirm this through GRO.

Thanks to all concerned for your very considerable help with this matter.

Keith

Pete,

The entire Greening family appears elusive. Apart from Harry, born 1903, I can find no reference to them and when I saw the reference to a Frank Greening I hoped it might give me an 'in' to the family's background. No such luck, so newspapers appear to be my last hope.

Thanks for having tried to help.

Regards,

Keith

Pete,

Like you, I thought an approach through the girlfriend might help but she is proving just as elusive as Greening.

I am merely trying to determine whether he was a member of a family which married into my my maternal ancestral family in Birmingham (about which I can find equally little) but it's as though he is only traceable through his various incarcerations. Neither he nor the girlfriend appear on any family tree I have found.

I assume that the murder would have taken place within say the two years before his death. This would allow for capture, trial, sentence and the automatic appeal which would have preceded execution.

Keith