Even before her offer of £500 for information leading to the capture of Byrne and Butler Smith, Lady Lara Bloomberg had made a reputation for herself as a woman who liked to get ‘involved’ in things. Her  charitable works often saw her estate in Plumbstead playing host to all manner of functions and fund raisers. Throughout the year she had ‘Open Bath’ days where local waifs and strays could visit the house for a good soaking and a healthy scrub with some carbolic.

Such gestures were typical of Lady Bloomberg, or Lady B. as she preferred to be called. When she learnt of an elderly parishioner nearby losing the last of his remaining teeth, Lady B had a set  of false dentures made for him, fashioned from local clay. On another occasion, unhappy with the length of grass throughout her estate, and not wishing to exploit local labour by employing a gardener, Lady B. purchased hundreds of Calico rabbits to graze on the land. Her novel idea for keeping the grass neat, had the added attraction of allowing her to sit on the lawn and drink tea whilst enjoying the pleasant sight of scores of cute little rabbits, gaily gamboling all around. This idyllic scenario, however, was very soon to be dispelled. Calico rabbits are notoriously virile, and when frisky males cannot sate themselves on their does, they will attempt to copulate with just about anything they can mount. Within a week, the rabbits had wandered from the estate and were wreaking havoc with local farmers poultry. Many of the rutting rabbits were shot, and their carcasses unceremoniously dumped on Lady B’s doorstep. One irate farmer left a curt  note stuck to a rabbit, asking for the ‘interfering busybody to leave natural things well enough alone’. Needless to say it wasn’t long before the remaining Calico rabbits were rounded up and unceremoniously  dispatched. Whenever Lady Bloomberg’s plans went awry like this, they were always accepted with incredible sangfroid accompanied with a small shrug; nothing it seemed, would upset her for long. In fact, a close companion of hers, Dorking Collis, in his memoirs entitled Plumbstead Hoy! makes note of only one occasion when Lady Bloomberg reacted angrily to   public criticism of one of her suggestions; to change the ‘course and raffish name of Plumstead Common, to the more refined and gentile sounding ‘Plumstead Uncommon’. This suggestion by Lady Bloomberg was immediately dismissed by the vast majority of Plumbstead residents who, Collis notes, ‘raised their collective eyes and smirked broadly at poor poor Lara’, Lady Bloomberg’s uncharacteristic response to this was to call her detractors ‘a bunch of smelling commoners with silage for brains’.

With a clearer picture of Lady Bloomberg now painted, it is easier for us to appreciate the motives behind her offer of money being made to catch the rogues in nearby SE23; not so much ‘public duty to see justice done’ but more along the lines of ‘nothing to do Thursday, could relieve the ennui of a dull weekend’.

It is a sad and sorry blot in the history of Forest Hill, that the weekend following Lady Bloomberg’s  publicised offer would be anything but dull; with rioting, arson and murder doing their best to lift ‘the ennui’.