From the Ilkeston Pioneer of 6 September 1912
A man who gave the name of ‘Ben Warren’ the ex-Derby County footballer, but who turned out to be the notorious George William Atkin, alias ‘Fatty Atkin’, a native of Ilkeston, was found wandering in a nude condition in Derby Road, Nottingham at one o’clock on Wednesday morning. Some men at the top of Derby Road saw a man, practically naked, running rapidly across the open space near the fountain – a place which at that hour was otherwise deserted. They at once followed him down Derby Road. Apparently he was under the delusion that he was about to engage in a game of football, for he shouted out that he was on his way to a match at Trent Bridge and kept indulging in kicks at an imaginary ball. Otherwise he showed no disposition towards violence.
Except for a collar and tie he had nothing on, and the weirdness of what at such a time and place looked like an apparition was accentuated if possible by the cigarette which he was smoking.
A police officer who came up placed his own overcoat round the man’s shoulders and after some persuasion induced him to walk to the Guildhall where some wild remarks that he made led to the mistaken supposition that he was Ben Warren the ex-Derby County footballer. Enquiries made by the authorities in the course of the day seemed to have established his identity beyond all doubt, and when he was asked why he had given the name Ben Warren he said that it was the first that came into his head when he was asked who he was, and as he seemed to be believed he thought he might as well stick to it. Atkin was born in Pimlico, Ilkeston and in his younger days caused a good deal of trouble to the schools attendance authorities because of his truant ways.
On the 11th July last, Atkin was sent by the Ilkeston Magistrates to prison for two months for smashing panes of glass at the Stanton Gate station of the Midland Railway Company. Addressing the magistrates on that occasion, Superintendent Daybell said Atkin had been sent to the asylum, but after a time the authorities let him out. Then they found him one night at the back of the Ilkeston theatre, and, handing him over to Mr Nelson Nunn the relieving officer, took him to the workhouse. He smashed the windows of the cab on the way and ‘gave the mester a good hiding’ when he got there.
Though Ilkeston born he has been connected a good deal with Stapleford and was seen in that carriage as late as 11 o’clock on Tuesday night. So far as it is possible to trace his movements, it is clear that he did not waste much time in getting to Nottingham. From the fact that his clothes were found on Wednesday morning in the canal near Coventry Bridge, the bridge on the road which leads from the Hemlock Stone to the Balloon Houses at Wollaton, it would seem that he made his way hurriedly to that structure, divested himself of his clothing, except for his collar and tie, and walked to Nottingham via Wollaton, Radford and Ilkeston Road. Atkin, who is 35 or 36 years of age and a single man, had no settled home, his parents having died some years ago.
