Dick Turpin
Richard Turpin was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's trade as a butcher early in his life but, by the early 1730s, he had joined a gang of deer thieves and, later, became a poacher, burglar, horse thief, and killer. He is also known for a fictional overnight ride from London to York on his horse Black Bess, a story that was made famous by the Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth almost 100 years after Turpin's death.
Turpin's involvement in the crime with which he is most closely associated—highway robbery—followed the arrest of the other members of his gang in 1735. He then disappeared from public view towards the end of that year, only to resurface in 1737 with two new accomplices, one of whom Turpin may have accidentally shot and killed. Turpin fled from the scene and shortly afterwards killed a man who attempted his capture.
Later that year, he moved to Yorkshire and assumed the alias of John Palmer. While he was staying at an inn, local magistrates became suspicious of "Palmer" and made enquiries as to how he funded his lifestyle. Suspected of being a horse thief, "Palmer" was imprisoned in York Castle, to be tried at the next assizes. Turpin's true identity was revealed by a letter he wrote to his brother-in-law from his prison cell, which fell into the hands of the authorities. On 22 March 1739, Turpin was found guilty on two charges of horse theft and sentenced to death. He was hanged at Knavesmire on 7 April 1739.
Turpin became the subject of legend after his execution, romanticised as dashing and heroic in English ballads and popular theatre of the 18th and 19th centuries and in film and television of the 20th century.
Early life
Turpin was born at the Blue Bell Inn in Hempstead, Essex, the fifth of six children to John Turpin and Mary Elizabeth Parmenter. He was baptised on 21 September 1705, in the same parish where his parents had been married more than ten years earlier.Turpin's father was a butcher and innkeeper. Several stories suggest that Dick Turpin may have followed his father into these trades; one hints that, as a teenager, he was apprenticed to a butcher in the village of Whitechapel, while another proposes that he ran his own butcher's shop in Thaxted. Testimony from his trial in 1739 suggests that he had a rudimentary education and, although no records survive of the date of the union, that in about 1725 he married Elizabeth Millington. Following his apprenticeship they moved north to Buckhurst Hill, Essex, where Turpin opened a butcher's shop.
Essex gang
Turpin most likely became involved with the Essex gang of deer thieves in the early 1730s. Deer poaching had long been endemic in the Royal Forest of Waltham, and in 1723 the Black Act was enacted to deal with such problems. Deer stealing was a domestic offence that was judged not in civil courts, but before justices of the peace; it was not until 1737 that the more severe penalty of seven years' transportation was introduced. However, in 1731 seven verderers became so concerned by the increase in activity that they signed an affidavit which demonstrated their worries. The statement was lodged with the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State, who responded by offering a reward to anyone who helped identify the thieves, plus a pardon for those thieves who gave up their colleagues. Following a series of nasty incidents, including the threatened murder of a keeper and his family, in 1733 the government increased the reward to.The Essex gang, which included Samuel Gregory, his brothers Jeremiah and Jasper, Joseph Rose, Mary Brazier, John Jones, Thomas Rowden and a young John Wheeler, needed contacts to help them to dispose of the deer. Turpin, a young butcher who traded in the area, almost certainly became involved with their activities. By 1733 the changing fortunes of the gang may have prompted him to leave the butchery trade, and he became the landlord of a public house, most likely the Rose and Crown at Clay Hill. Although there is no evidence to suggest that Turpin was directly involved in the thefts, by summer 1734 he was a close associate of the gang, which may indicate that he had been known to them for some time.
By October 1734 several in the gang had either been captured or had fled, and the remaining members moved away from poaching, raiding the home of a chandler and grocer named Peter Split, at Woodford. Although the identities of the perpetrators are unknown, Turpin may have been involved. Two nights later they struck again, at the Woodford home of a gentleman named Richard Woolridge, a Furnisher of Small Arms in the Office of Ordnance at the Tower of London. In December Jasper and Samuel Gregory, John Jones, and John Wheeler, attacked the home of John Gladwin and John Shockley, in Chingford. On 19 December Turpin and five other men raided the home of Ambrose Skinner, a 73-year-old farmer from Barking, leaving with an estimated.
Two days later, the gang—minus Turpin—attacked the home of a Keeper, William Mason, at Epping Forest. During the robbery Mason's servant managed to escape, and returned about an hour later with several neighbours, by which time the house was ransacked and the thieves long gone. On 11 January 1735 the gang raided the Charlton home of a Mr. Saunders. For the robbery of a gentleman named Sheldon, one week later at Croydon, Turpin arrived masked and armed with pistols, with four other members of the gang. In the same month two men, possibly from the same gang, raided the home of a Reverend Mr. Dyde. The clergyman was absent but the two cut his manservant around the face "in a barbarous manner". Another brutal attack occurred on 1 February 1735 at Loughton:
The gang lived in or around London. For a time Turpin stayed at Whitechapel, before moving to Millbank. On 4 February 1735 he met John Fielder, Samuel Gregory, Joseph Rose, and John Wheeler, at an inn along The Broadway in London. They planned to rob the house of Joseph Lawrence, a farmer at Earlsbury Farm in Edgware. Late that afternoon, after stopping twice along the way for food and drink, they captured a shepherd boy and burst into the house, armed with pistols. They bound the two maidservants, and brutally attacked the 70-year-old farmer. They pulled his breeches around his ankles, and dragged him around the house, but Lawrence refused to reveal the whereabouts of his money. Turpin beat Lawrence's bare buttocks with his pistols, badly bruising him, and other members of the gang beat him around the head with their pistols. They emptied a kettle of water over his head, forced him to sit bare-buttocked on the fire, and pulled him around the house by his nose, and hair. Gregory took one of the maidservants upstairs and raped her. For their trouble, the gang escaped with a haul of less than.
Three days later Turpin, accompanied by the same men along with William Saunders and Humphrey Walker, brutally raided a farm in Marylebone. The attack netted the gang just under. The next day the Duke of Newcastle offered a reward of in exchange for information leading to the conviction of the "several persons" involved in the two Woodford robberies, and the robberies of the widow Shelley and Reverend Dyde. On 11 February Fielder, Saunders, and Wheeler, were apprehended. Two accounts of their capture exist. One claims that on their way to rob the Lawrence household the gang had stopped at an alehouse in Edgware, and that on 11 February, while out walking, the owner noticed a group of horses outside an alehouse in Bloomsbury. He recognised these horses as those used by the same group of men who had stopped at his alehouse before the Lawrence attack, and called for the parish constable. Another account claims that two of the gang were spotted by a servant of Joseph Lawrence. Regardless, the three, who were drinking with a woman were promptly arrested and committed to prison. Wheeler, who may have been as young as 15, quickly betrayed his colleagues, and descriptions of those yet to be captured were circulated in the press. In The London Gazette, Turpin was described as "Richard Turpin, a butcher by trade, is a tall fresh coloured man, very much marked with the small pox, about 26 years of age, about five feet nine inches high, lived some time ago in Whitechapel and did lately lodge somewhere about Millbank, Westminster, wears a blue grey coat and a natural wig".
Breakup of the Essex gang
Once Wheeler's confession became apparent, the other members of the gang fled their usual haunts. Turpin informed Gregory and the others of Wheeler's capture, and left Westminster. On 15 February 1735, while Wheeler was busy confessing to the authorities, "three or four men" robbed the house of a Mrs St. John at Chingford. On the following day Turpin parted company with Gregory and Haines, and headed for Hempstead to see his family. Gregory and Haines may have gone looking for Turpin, because on 17 February they stopped at an alehouse in Debden and ordered a shoulder of mutton, intending to stay for the night. However, a man named Palmer recognised them, and called for the parish constable. A fracas ensued, during which the two thieves escaped. They rejoined Turpin, and along with Jones and Rowden may have travelled to Gravesend before returning to Woodford. Another robbery was reported at Woodford toward the end of February—possibly by Gregory and his cohorts—but with most avenues of escape cut off, and with the authorities hunting them down, the remaining members of the Essex gang kept their heads down and remained under cover, probably in Epping Forest.Six days after the arrest of Fielder, Saunders, and Wheeler – just as Turpin and his associates were returning from Gravesend – Rose, Brazier, and Walker were captured at a chandler's shop in Westminster, while drinking punch. Fielder, Rose, Saunders and Walker were tried at the Middlesex General Session between 26 February and 1 March 1735. Turpin and Gregory were also named on the indictments for burglary. Walker died while still in Newgate Prison, but the remaining three were hanged at Tyburn gallows on 10 March, before their bodies were hung to rot in gibbets on Edgware Road. Walker's body was hung in chains. Two days before the hanging, a report of "four suspicious men" being driven away from an alehouse at East Sheen appeared in a newspaper, and was likely describing Gregory and his companions, but the remaining members of the Essex gang were not reported again until 30 March, when three of them tried to steal a horse from a servant of the Earl of Suffolk.
Turpin was present with four of the gang at another robbery, reported on 8 March. Jasper Gregory meanwhile was captured, and then executed late in March. His brothers were arrested on 9 April in Rake, West Sussex, after a struggle during which Samuel lost the tip of his nose to a sword, and Jeremy was shot in the leg. He died in Winchester gaol; Samuel was tried in May, and executed on 4 June. His body was later moved, to hang in chains alongside those of his colleagues at Edgware. Mary Brazier was transported to the Thirteen Colonies. Herbert Haines was captured on 13 April, and executed in August. John Wheeler, who had been instrumental in proving the cases against his former colleagues, and who was freed, died at Hackney in January 1738. The reason for his death is not recorded, but is assumed to be natural causes.