In 1913, the Grand Hotel made the headlines as the venue for a jewelry robbery involving the Wartski Company (whose solicitor was the future prime minister Lloyd George). On the 14th August, business was beginning as usual at the Wartski shop. A bag filled with the most valuable items for the hotel’s kiosk, was packed from the shop’s safe and taken to the hotel. Here, the shop assistant would normally open up the kiosk and place the items on display ready for sale. On this particular morning, Miss Bennet; another employee of the shop, accompanied the assistant for her walk to the hotel. The jewelry was carried in a brown leather bag. On reaching the hotel, Miss Bennett paused to take off her hat and coat and open up the jewelry displays. When she turned back to get the bag, she found that the key she had to unlock on the bag didn’t work. When the bag was eventually opened, it was to find it contained no jewelry, just some books. It seems that at some time when Miss Bennett or the assistant accompanying her were distracted, the bag containing jewels was substituted for the one containing books. By this time whoever took the jewels had gone. It is a crime, which could have been written by Agatha Christie herself, in fact I think similar Poirot stories were written. The total value of the diamonds stolen was reported to be just short of £9000, which was a huge amount of money at the time, in today’s terms it would be just under £1,000,000.
A little over two months later a man was arrested for the robbery. Edward Rowland Jones lived with his wife in a flat above the Wartski jewelers shop on Mostyn Street. When the police searched his flat they found several items of the haul stolen at the hotel. In the November of the same year, the other assistant who went to the hotel with Miss Bennett, now identified as Mr. Trevor Pritchard Jones, aged 17, was arrested in connection with the robbery. It seems that Mr. Edward Jones was the ringleader and Trevor Jones was recruited by him and encouraged to help in exchange for money. In January 1914, the trial was held at Caernarvonshire Assizes Court. In the end six people were charged with the robbery. As well as the two men who were arrested, an employee of the Grand was also charged along with three dealers accused of receiving stolen goods. The verdict of the trail saw Trevor Jones and Edward Jones jailed along with one of the dealers, Mary Robbins. The hotel employee and other two dealers were acquitted. The jail terms ranged from 9 months for Edward Jones and six months for the other two. Much of the jewelry stolen was never recovered, but Wartski’s were well insured.
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