Kylie Minogue’s ancestor was a thief who became one of the oldest women to be hanged in Britain
Kylie and Dannii Minogue's relative Dinah Riddiford was hanged in Britain for stealing butter and bacon at Gloucester prison nearly 200 years ago
POP star Kylie Minogue’s ancestor was hanged in Britain for stealing bacon and butter from her neighbour, it has been revealed.
Believed to be the Australian singer’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, she was publicly put to death in Gloucester prison in 1816 in an execution known as “The Granny Hanging”.
Genealogists found court records showing 69-year-old Dinah Riddiford - related to Kylie, 49, and her 46-year-old sister Dannii - was one of the oldest women ever to be hanged in Britain.
Records reveal Dinah and her son Luke were jailed for stealing two sides of bacon and two pigs’ cheeks, along with a piece of tongue, a large pat of butter in an earthenware pot and a small copper tea kettle.
The petty crime resulted in Dinah’s hanging before a jeering crowd on September 7, 1816, while her son Luke escaped death and was instead sent to a penal colony in Australia.
Her execution was part of the August Assizes – courts which sat every few months that saw 17 death sentences issued.
Paul Ross manages Jailhouse Tours, a company organising tours around historic prisons including the now-defunct Gloucester prison.
"Dinah was executed for something she probably wouldn't go to jail for today,” he said.
"I think in the early days going to a hanging would have been like watching Gloucester Rugby on a Saturday afternoon.''
The brutal practice of capital punishment would continue nearly 150 years long until 1964, when the last hangings took place in the UK.
Kylie, who has found international stardom for her pop hits including I Should Be So Lucky and Spinning Around, might well be shocked to discover her ancestors’ other jailhouse records.
Prior to Dinah’s death, Kylie's great-grandfather George Morgan Riddiford, the father of singer's maternal grandmother Millie, also spent time in HM Prison Gloucester for indecent assaulting a 14-year-old farm girl as she wandered through a field near Bristol.
When he was released he relocated to the small town of Nantyffyllon in South Wales where he started a family.
His daughter Millie would later emigrate to Australia after the Second World War as a '£10 pom' assisted by a government scheme.
Together with husband Dennis and children Jean, Carol, Suzette and Noel, she set sail in 1955 on the SS New Australia before settling in Queensland, north east Australia.
Carol, who was just ten at the time, met and married Ron Minogue a decade later.
Together they had three children - Kylie, Dannii and Brendan.
Jailhouse Tours employee Lucy Tyndall expressed her amazement at the star connection.
"We didn't know anything about it until a man came in one day and told us Kylie was related to somebody who was hung here,” she said.
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"We don't know where Dinah was kept, but we are pretty sure we know where she was executed."
Her colleague Paul Ross was optimistic about the Minogues’ desire to retrace their unusual family history, saying: "It would be great if Kylie and Dannii could come to visit."
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