The Ballad of Sophia Constable

Constable was imprisoned at HM Prison Northallerton for three weeks' hard labour in 1873 – its youngest female prisoner – for stealing a loaf of bread worth three pence from a shop in Whitby. The alleged offence took place on 12 October 1872, and the loaf belonged to Thomas Macintosh. The case was dealt with at the North Riding Quarter Sessions in Northallerton on 31 December 1872, when Constable and Fanny Goodchild, a single woman aged twenty, were found guilty of obtaining the loaf under false pretences after both had pleaded guilty. Goodchild was sentenced to one month's imprisonment. Constable received three weeks' imprisonment, to be followed by four years in a Reformatory. One…

The Ballad of Sophia Constable, by artist Ray Lonsdale, depicts an 11-year-old girl, Sophia Constable, holding a loaf of bread while a prison warder places her hand on Sophia's shoulder. The statue was installed in 2023, 150 years after Constable's imprisonment. Lonsdale said in an interview with ITV reporter Tom Barton that the only known photo of Constable is a mugshot, and that was the main source material on which he based the statue. He has said that the statue shows Constable looking towards the prison and is a reminder of "how harsh life was then". The statue was approved at a Hambleton District Council meeting in April 2023, when one councillor compared the story to that of Jean…