The Kray Twins: London’s Most Notorious Gangsters

oh hello there this episode of biographics is brought to finish my mouth [Music] this episode of biographies is brought to you by magic spoon if you're a regular viewer of my channel you know that i love cereal unfortunately doesn't always love you bad given the most cereals are over processed and absolutely slammed with sugar there were several years where i just never ate any cereal because it just has more sugar than i need in my life well along comes a magic spoon you're like look fact boy we've got a cereal that has no sugar lots of protein and just three grams of net carbs per serving and it's only 110 calories cool i think i don't know much about protein and carbs other than the former is good and the latter probably not so much but that zero sugar thing had me sold and it turns out you'd be like oh that's not gonna taste very good is it and it actually tastes amazing it's like it's loaded with sugar except that it's not now originally they had four flavors cocoa fruity frosted and blueberry but just recently much to my delight they've added some new ones including peanut butter and cinnamon right now for a limited time magic spoon is bringing back their small batch birthday cake flavor which you can buy in a special 5-pack in honor of their birthday everyone really loved it last year so it's sure to be popular again this year i haven't actually got my package of it yet but i know it'll be good because it's from magic spoon use my promo code biographics you're at five dollars off magic spoon is a 100 happiness guarantee so if you don't like it they'll give you a money back perfect and let's get into today's video [Music] the east end of london is not a place that has always benefited from a positive reputation quite the opposite in fact for centuries it was regarded as one of the city's poorest and most crime-ridden areas this image was reinforced by writers such as george gissing who referred to it as the city of the dead and american author jack london who actually lived there for a few weeks and gave a first-hand account of the hellish conditions he witnessed in the people of the abyss the area was filled with working-class people many of them immigrants who were jammed into overcrowded and dilapidated buildings and often resorted to vices such as drinking and prostitution to forget about the pain of their squalid existence wherever there weren't tenement buildings there were glue factories rendering plants tanning yards coal works soap boilers and slaughter houses all the dirty and foul trades were confined to the east denser as not to tarnish the richer more fashionable west end of london consequently the east end was also rife with crime the radcliffe highway is located there a road historically infamous for many seedy businesses but also where the notorious ratcliffe murders took place whitechapel is also in the east end the area once prowled by jack the ripper during the mid-20th century the area became more and more associated with organized crime and two brothers soon emerged as the undisputed kings of the east end they were the cray twins and alongside their gang which they dubbed the firm they were responsible for most criminal rackets in the area during the 1950s but this was just the beginning for ronnie and reggie as they used their influence and money to open nightclubs in the west end these were popular and fashionable and all of a sudden the cray twins were celebrities in their own right mingling with stars and socialites from both london and across the pond the craze became an integral part of the pop culture of the swinging 60s in the uk just as much as miniskirts mods and music ronald and reginald cray were born on october 24 1933 in hoxton east london to charles senior and vile at annie cray they were twins although reggie was 10 minutes older than ronnie they also had another brother charles james who was six years older than both of them their father was a traveling trader who roamed the country buying and selling various items particularly clothing and jewelry his presence in the twin's life was sporadic not only due to his job but also because he had to go on the run in 1942 after refusing to be conscripted into world war ii the boy's upbringing was mainly handled by the many women in their lives their mother their aunts and their grandmothers ronnie and reggie left school when they were both 15 years old looking for employment they worked various odd jobs including six months in the billingsgate fish market which would end up becoming the longest legitimate job that they would ever have the twins also started developing a reputation as neighborhood tough guys always getting into fights and other scrapes their maternal grandfather jimmy cannonball lee used to be a boxer in his day so he turned them onto the sport both siblings were quite proficient although reggie was the standout in 1948 he became the london schoolboy champion and made it to the finals of the great britain schoolboy event her other brother charlie recalled that boxing was one of the first things to showcase the different personalities of the twins reggie was cool and calculated he showed skill and willingness to learn from advice ronnie on the other hand was a bit more of a raging bull who charged headfirst and usually won by overpowering his opponent one personality trait they did share however was that neither brother responded well to authority as was exemptified in 1952 when they were called up for national service in the british army back then all young healthy males between 17 and 21 years of age were required to serve two years in the armed forces in the case of ronnie and reggie they were assigned to an infantry regiment called the royal fusiliers at the tower of london but immediately got into trouble when they arrived there they got into an argument with one of the training sergeants they beat him up and left the barracks to go back home the twins were arrested the following day and sent to military prison in fact most of their time doing national service was spent either in a military prison or going on the run they often got into fights left their barracks without permission and unsurprisingly they both got court-martialed and received dishonorable discharges after which they were transferred to a civilian prison to serve some time for several offenses that they committed off-base [Music] the court marshals pretty much sunk both of their boxing careers so after they got out the craze needed to find something new to do they started out small they got a loan from their older brother and leased a pool hall in bethnal green during their time spent in jail ronnie and reggie had already befriended plenty of other shady characters and the pool hall soon turned into a regular haunt for many of their army buddies and other local hoodlums the twins and their entourage would often gather at the club then go out at night to the pubs where two things were always guaranteed to happen drinking and rolling as a means of making money the twins took advantage of the fact that their billiard hall wasn't yet on the police's radar so they allowed a few local fences to store their stolen goods there and even conduct business with a cut of the profits going to the crate of course inevitably this got them unwanted attention from some of the other neighborhood gangsters who did not appreciate the twins doing business on their turf specifically the craze received a message from three brothers all dock workers who invited the twins to stop by their pub on a sunday morning for a drink and a talk of course ronnie and reggie understood that this was a trap but they went anyway as soon as they entered the door was locked and the pub landlord made himself scarce as the three dockers lunged at the twins to teach them a lesson but it didn't go as they planned when the landlord returned he found two of the dock workers unconscious while the third one was still being pummeled senseless by ronnie cray although young the craze made it pretty evident that they were legitimate tough guys who could not be intimidated and their gang grew pretty quickly by the time they turned 21 years old the craze had their fingers in a lot of pies including extortion theft gambling robbery and cons this was all still local though and the craze were ready to move up in the world in 1956 they became embroiled in a gang war as the two top kingpins of the east end billy hill and jack spot coma fought for power coma used the craze for muscle but ultimately they were on the losing side one night coma and his wife were attacked by hill's enforcer mad frankie frasier and his men he had his face slashed very badly and eventually coma decided to call it quits while he was still alive despite coming up on top billy hill didn't remain involved in the underworld of london's east end for long the departures of him and coma created a power void and several new gangs rose up to fill it unsurprisingly one of them belonged to the craze who called their burgeoning crime outfit the firm ronnie and reggie were of course at the head of the table their older brother charlie cray was also a member although he later claims not to have been involved in the violent stuff and mainly to have acted as the legitimate front man for many of their operations a cousin named ronnie hart was also part of the firm as were dozens of other men we're not going to name them all but just a few other key members were john dixon albert donahue ian barry and connie whitehead in just a few years the firm emerged as one of london's most dangerous gangs as the craze controlled a large area of the east end where every business be it legitimate or illegal paid its dues to the twins of course with this ascendancy within london's criminal underworld also came more attention from the police the craze first got into hot water in late 1956 when ronnie shot someone for the first time the target was a man who threatened to beat up a car dealer under the protection of the firm only got into a flight with him and during the struggle shot the guy once in the leg the man later went to the police but the craze got off using a bit of twin trickery the authorities picked up one of the craze they formally charged him and the victim id'd him only after this was done did the accused reveal himself to be reggie crane not ronnie and presented an airtight alibi for the time of the shooting embarrassed that police had no choice but to release him and the whole matter was dropped after the victim received some unofficial compensation from the firm for his suffering now not all altercations went this smoothly later that same year the craze became partners in a west end club called the stragglers located in soho it was the first of many such ventures but in this particular case the role of the craze was to keep out the troublemakers looking to start fights so the club could begin attracting a higher class of clientele unsurprisingly this led to conflict bobby ramsey the guy who brought in the craze on the deal got on the wrong side of a gang called the watmey streeters who ambushed him one night and gave him a serious beating the craze had no choice but to respond to this attack so a few weeks later the firm raided a pub called the britannia which was a hangout of the watneys however the latter got wind of the attack so everybody managed to escape out of the back door except for a guy called terry martin who was stabbed and beaten with an inch of his life later that night as cars with firm members prowled the east end looking for more watneys one of them was stopped by a police patrol it contained ramsay and ronnie cray who were both arrested for the assault of terry martin reggie was also brought in but he was later released ronnie on the other hand got three years in jail in november 1956 he went to warnsworth prison leaving reggie cray as the sole boss of the firm at first rodney took to prison life reasonably well thanks to his connections and entourage that provided him with all the comforts that one could find on the inside however things got worse after he was transferred away from london he was showing signs of paranoia which only got worse after he heard that his aunt rose had passed away nowadays he would have been deemed a paranoid schizophrenic with homicidal tendencies but in the 1950s he was simply diagnosed with prison psychosis and certified insane on the outside reggie crate was doing significantly better although he was a very violent man he was more cool and collected than his brother was and he was more interested in becoming a successful businessman than a tough gangster reggie also thought it was time to move out of the old pool hall into new headquarters so he opened the double r club on bell road it became quite a trendy london hangout and gave the craze their first taste of mingling with the stars charlie cray who was brought in to handle the day-to-day running of the club even had a six-month fling with an actress and future dame barbara windsor most famous for her roles in the carry-on films in 1959 ronnie cray was released from prison the following year the betting and gaming act of 1960 was passed which legalized additional forms of gambling in the uk the craze were among the first to take advantage of this new law when they opened a gambling cub called esmerelda's barn it became a giant gold mine for the twins but trouble struck again as this time reggie was given an 18-month prison sentence for attempted extortion [Music] finally in 1961 both crays were out and free of legal troubles the firm was established as one of london's biggest and baddest criminal outfits collecting tributes each month from a long list of businesses that extended beyond the east end furthermore the crazed developing reputation of successful club owners meant that they kept receiving new offers from other clubs wanting to take them on as partners business was booming the crays were making a lot of money while living out their fantasy lifestyles and rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful strangely enough when the twins did find themselves embroiled in scandal it had nothing to do with their criminal empire but rather for their sexual exploits for most of his life ronnie cray was openly gay and had a lot of relationships with young men who worked in his nightclubs and gambling halls later on he married two women while incarcerated elaine mildener and kate howard but he divorced them both after a few years reggie preferred to keep it more private he was also married twice and to the world at large he maintained that he was straight although rumors that he was bisexual had always persisted it was mainly after reggie's death some other people close to him mentioned that he had had several relationships with men the reason this became relevant was because in 1964 a british tabloid ran a story about a prominent politician a member of the house of lords who was having an affair with a notorious gangster they even had a photograph of the two together but due to british libel laws they could not publish it or even mention the name of the politician the foreign press however had no such concern for these laws so a german publication named the bose ronnie cray and lord boothby obviously the member of parliament denied this allegation claiming that he only met ronnie cray for a business meeting he sued the tabloid and won a large settlement plus a public apology which discouraged other newspapers from covering the story however decades later declassified files showed that the home office took the matter very seriously and had boothby secretly investigated by mi5 the report described lord boothby as a kinky fellow but mentioned that the tabloids got the story wrong he and ronnie cray were not having an affair but they did attend a few gay parties together as they both preferred younger men ultimately ni5 concluded that the matter was of no national concern so the boothby affair was largely forgotten once again the craze were back to business as usual but it would not be until long after that business was disrupted permanently the firm seemed pretty protected from the law but the same could not be said when it came to other gangs there were still plenty of dangerous criminals in london's underworld who had no love for the crate twins and chief among them was the richardson gang they were rivals of the firm throughout the 1960s and often butted heads over the same racquets they were quite vicious with a reputation for torture and included members such as the leaders charles and eddie richardson the aforementioned mad frankie frasier and a giant bull of a man with a mean streak named george cornell a former member of the watney street gang the conflict between the two groups reached its peak on march the 8th 1966 when a large-scale fight between the two sides erupted at a club named mr smith the three men were seriously injured during a brawl and an associate of the craze named dickie hart was shot and killed roddy and reggie were not present during the fight and neither was cornell on the side of the richardson's two days later however george canal went to the hospital to visit one of the gang members who got injured in the fight after he left he stopped for a drink at a pub in white chapel called the blind beggar unbeknownst to him the craze and a few other members of the firm were drinking in another pub just a few hundred yards away somebody called to inform them of cornell's whereabouts at which point ronnie craig got into a car with john dixon and zee and barry and drove to the blind beggar as soon as they entered the pub george cornell turned around and said something along the lines of well just look who's here those were his last words as ronnie craig walked up to him pulled out a nine millimeter pistol and shot him in the head berry shot a few times in the ceiling for intimidation and the couple calmly walked out of the blind beggar and drove away despite the obvious nature of the crime ronnie was safe from the law for the time being the police were finding it hard to build a case against him as nobody wanted to testify either that or they were waiting for the right moment when they would be able to send both twins to prison at once they didn't have to wait too long although reggie was usually the more level-headed sibling in 1967 he too fell into a deep depression with violent mood swings after his wife francis shear died of an apparent suicide this led him to committing his first and as far as we know only murder something which he did at the insistence of his brother who up until that point had been annoyed by the fact that reggie never took that fatal final step the target was a criminal named jack the hat macvittie he wasn't a member of the firm but he was an associate used for the occasional job at the time he was on bad terms with the twins chiefly for bungling a hit he was supposed to carry out and then refusing to pay back the advance he was given on the night of october 28 1967 most of the firm was drinking at a pub called the carpenter's arms when word came in that mcvitty was on his way the craze cleared the place of other guests and got into an argument with him as soon as he walked through the door reggie pulled out a gun and squeezed the trigger but it jammed he then pounced on mcvitty and with his brother screaming next to him he began to stab him in the face neck and chest once the deed was done some of the other firm members disposed of the body which has never been recovered [Music] the death of jackie macvittie proved to be the beginning of the end for the crate wins for starters it caused a lot of tension within the firm as members felt like what had happened to macvittie could also happen to them furthermore unbeknownst to the craze scotland yard had been collecting evidence and testimonies against them since 1964 under the command of leonard nipper reed in may 1968 the police decided that it was now or never and arrested almost 20 members of the firm hoping that the evidence they had gathered would be enough to convince some of them to take deals fortunately the craze did a lot of the hard work for them because their master plan to avoid jail time any murders was simply to have other members of the firm take the blame on their behalf shockingly this wasn't well received and some of those gang members gave evidence against the craze of particular importance was the testimony of a former business partner of the firm named leslie payne he was the one that jack the hat failed to kill so naturally since the craze had put a hit out on him he didn't feel particularly loyal towards them lastly the barmaid at the blind beggar accepted police protection and identified ronnie cray as the man who killed george cornell in 1969 ronnie and reggie cray were each found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 30 years served this was at the time the longest sentence for murder given out at the old bailly eight other gangsters were found guilty of murder or being accessories to murder bringing an end to the firm for a few years the brothers were together in the maximum security wing of parkhurst prison however with ronnie schizophrenia getting worse he was transferred to broadmoor mental hospital where he spent the rest of his life until his death in 1995 at the age of 61. reggie cray was released from prison on compassionate grounds in september 2000 due to terminal cancer and he spent the last few weeks at home before dying the following month age 66. the crazed grasp on the criminal london underworld might have ended over 50 years ago but the notoriety and unique place in pop culture is still going strong so i really hope you enjoyed today's video if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe once again thanks to magic spoon for sponsoring there's a link to them below and thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Biographics

Views: 427,647

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler

Id: OG4trKTdP0w

Length: 18min 17sec (1097 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 29 2021