Category: Art & Cultural Property Theft

• James Young and the Museum Robbery: New Zealand’s First Art-Theft Case?

  On 3 March 1866, the Supreme Court at Wellington dealt with a small, strange, and very early piece of New Zealand cultural heritage crime: R v James Young. Young pleaded guilty to burglary and housebreaking after property stolen from the Colonial Museum at Thorndon was recovered from behind the walls of an empty house. The…