People are drawn to the rich, and many folks will bend over backwards to please them. If one is perceived as very wealthy, they will be offered free things, loans, and even forgiveness for crimes. Quite a few women have leveraged this perception to their advantage as they posed as heiresses, always waiting for their inheritance to come through, while living a glamorous life at others’ expense. And often all it takes is a good story that people want to believe.
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Violet Charlesworth made her money gambling a stolen fortune on the stock market. She grew up in Stafford, a town in the West Midlands, where her father worked as a mechanic. On a trip to nearby Derby, a city of silk mills, Violet Charlesworth launched herself as Miss Violet Gordon. It was 1905 and she was 21 years old. To a shopkeeper in the city, Violet explained that she was the goddaughter of the famed war hero General Charles George Gordon. Almost to her surprise, she managed to elicit a number of silk dresses on credit, including a cherry-red motor cloak, designed to be worn in open-top luxury cars. She made the trip to Derby more often.
After several afternoon teas with a patriotic widow, the story solidified: on her 25th birthday, Miss Gordon would inherit £100,000 from the general, who, after amassing a great fortune, had died rather grandly during the 1888 siege of Khartoum. Violet spoke with confidence, holding her teacup with a pinch. By the end, she convinced the widow to lend the dear general’s goddaughter her entire savings.
An article at affidavit tells the tales of several fake heiresses from the 19th century to 2019. -via Digg
Source: neatorama