Jane Cakebread

Jane Cakebread (1827 or 1828 – 17 December 1898) was a 19th-century British homeless woman who gained notoriety for her frequent arrests for public "drunkenness". According to official records, Cakebread appeared in police court 277 times for her behaviour in public. By the time of her death, she had achieved international notoriety, as both The London Telegraph and The New York Times claimed in her obituary that she had been "convicted 281 times". Cakebread had mental illness, alcohol intoxication, cirrhosis of the liver, and visual impairment. She is often credited for inspiring the Inebriates Act 1898, and other legislation. Her father was a carter and carpenter from Clavering, Essex; her mother was from Sawbridgeworth. Her family was poor. and entitled to a fortune.

Homelessness In the weeks when Cakebread was out of jail, she stayed outdoors all day and night, unless Holmes was able to find shelter for her.

Interactions with the police and magistrate Cakebread willingly gave herself up to police custody on a regular basis. In the late 1880s, articles about her also appeared in The Morning Post, Reynolds's, The Leeds Mercury, and even The Times. The Daily Chronicle gave "special attention" to her case, and also commissioned the famous sketch of Jane Cakebread by caricaturist Phil May. She brought Cakebread there to dry out, but Cakebread complained she was "buried alive". At the same time, she wrote letters about living in a beautiful country cottage, where the birds sang, the trees gave a shade, and the breeze blew.

Lady Henry found the recidivist alcoholic to be quarrelsome and spiteful and sent her back to London after three months, Cakebread returned to sleeping on Stamford Hill, begging and being inebriated. – "a forerunner of the modern probation officer". At one point, Cakebread proposed marriage to Holmes, who said that "she bestowed her affections on me". The Inebriates Act 1898 was mainly focused on women, and they represented more than 90 percent of the people sent to reformatories for drunkenness.

The 1924 edition of the Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem: Volume Two includes her notorious case and photograph noting how her record led to a change in the law which had previously just sent inebriates to prison.