Today's Object of the Week is a new sculpture of a Victorian child who was jailed for a 'mild transgression'.

Sophia Constable was so hungry that she stole a loaf of bread from a shop.

For her crime, the 11-year-old was jailed for three weeks, the youngest female inmate ever incarcerated in Northallerton’s former prison.

Now the sad 19th century tale has been immortalised in a new sculpture which aims to provide a focal point for a town centre development

The “Ballad of Sophia” by artist Ray Lonsdale was installed this week, 150 years after the girl's conviction, on the Treadmills site in Northallerton.

Sophia and 20 year-old Fanny Goodchild were both accused of obtaining, by false pretences, a threepenny loaf of bread from a shop in Church Street, Whitby in October 1872.

Shopkeeper Frances Mackintosh said that Sophia entered her shop and asked for a loaf.

She claimed to have been sent by one of her neighbours, Ann Galilee, and to put it on her account.

After handing over the loaf, Mackintosh suspected that she had been tricked and asked her husband to follow Sophia, who met up with Fanny before disappearing out of sight.

The police were called and, familiar with both suspects, immediately apprehended both Sophia and Fanny.

The case was heard at Northallerton in January 1873 where both prisoners pleaded guilty to the offence, stating that it was only through hunger that they resorted to theft.

Fanny received a one-month prison sentence with hard labour and Sophia received three weeks in prison followed by four years in a reform school.

The £85,000 sculpture depicts Sophia clutching a loaf of bread, with a prison warden placing a hand on her shoulder. 

The Northern Echo: The statue has been likened to tragic figures in Victor Hugo’s Les MiserablesThe statue has been likened to tragic figures in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT)

A plaque at the foot of the statue reads: "A life without choice, a future restricted, but all the same found guilty - convicted.

"Guilty of stealing by 'devious deception', and the law to be followed without exception.

"Sophia and her mild transgression, Sophia Constable aged just eleven."

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The work was created by Ray Lonsdale, one of the region's foremost sculptors who is responsible for a series of artworks - most famously the sculpture of 'Tommy' in Seaham, County Durham.

The historic building behind the statue had been the women’s wing of the prison, the first custom-built jail in England, where Sophia had been incarcerated. 

The prison site is now a retail, business, education and leisure destination.