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There
have been over the centuries several criminals who by their charisma,
perceived or otherwise, have captured the imagination of generations.
People such as the legendary Robin Hood (possibly yet another
Yorkshireman!!), the Great Train Robbers and Dick Turpin. There should
however be no mistaking the fact that they were hardened criminals who
were prepared to kill for their ill gotten gains, and it is only by
later writers who have seen fit to romanticise their exploits, that a
notion of them very far removed from reality has come down to us as
perceived history.
As for
the myths concerning Dick Turpin the murderer, highwayman, thief, and
possible rapist, we have the work of the 19th century fiction
author Harrison Ainsworth to thank in the main, for it was he who
imbibed Turpin and his subsequent legendary accomplishments with the air
of a hero, ascribing to him exploits both imaginary and some would say,
plagiarised. In his fictional work Rookwood (1834) Ainsworth
credited to Turpin many of the stories that had originated from the
exploits of other people, and almost overnight turning Turpin into
someone he most certainly never was.
So
then, who indeed was this Dick Turpin, in reality?
In the
3rd year of the reign of our sovereign Lady, Anne, queen of
England, Scotland and Ireland, the year of our Lord 1705, in either
Hempstead or Thacksted in the county of Essex, was born to John Turpin a
son, who was baptised on the 25th day of the month of
September of the same year, and named Richard Turpin. There is, it has
to be said, even some uncertainty as to the actual year of his birth,
for there are equally as many people state it as 1705 as there are those
who insist upon it being a year later, 1706. I herein make no claim to
know which, but it is indicative of the poor research conducted by some,
or yet, mistaken interpretation by others, which has left the amateur
like myself open to such errors.
John
Turpin, Richard's father, has been described as an innkeeper, but in
truth he was only a some-time victualler, possibly of the Crown inn in
Hempstead or Thackstead (this too is tentative, but should not be so),
the rest of his time was spent farming a small holding. That was not
the life for Richard however, and he became apprenticed to a butcher in
Whitechapel, then on the outskirts of London. It has been reported that
during his apprenticeship he "conducted himself in a loose and
disorderly manner." (Lives, 202), perhaps even then showing that his
attitude towards society was unconventional and that he lacked both
respect and honesty.
Turpin's criminal career began almost as soon as he had completed his
apprenticeship and set up on his own as a butcher. In order to maximise
profits presumably, he began to steal sheep and cattle for his own
butcher's block. Never it seems a clever man or a wise criminal; Turpin
was soon discovered after stealing two oxen. He was forced to flee into
the Essex countryside, where, in order to prevent himself from dying of
starvation, he began a short spell of smuggling, which proved to be as
unsuccessful as his earlier illegal activities. Also during this period
he began to break into outlying houses, and if he considered it
necessary, torturing the women in the houses to tell him where they had
hidden any valuables.
One
story from this time illustrates perfectly the mean, cowardly and
callous nature of the man, when at Louton in Essex, an elderly widow,
rumoured to have some £700 pounds hidden in her house, upon showing some
resistance to Turpin's demands, he shoved her onto an open fire, and
kept her there until she gave way, and told the gang what they wished to
know. Such was the fear with which Turpin and the gang of which he was
part were held, that by 1735, the Essex or Gregory Gang,
as they were known, had a price of £50 on their heads for their capture.
See
http://www.stand-and-deliver.org.uk/highwaymen/dick_turpin.htm for a
full list. A year later, after an appallingly violent attack in a farm
house occupied by a Mrs. Francis, at Mary-le-Bone, who was, together
with her daughter badly beaten until they surrendered any valuables in
their possession, caused the reward was doubled to £100. Shortly
afterwards, two members of the gang were captured, but not Turpin. He
it is said made his escape by leaping through a window. This was the
first reported time Turpin used such method of evading capture it has to
be said, leading to the suspicion that some license has been taken with
Turpin's athleticism. Some say that the gang was betrayed by a man
called Wheeler, one of their own, for the reward money, which whilst not
being out of character, the tale has little by way of substantiation.
In
the summer of the same year, 1735, after escaping back to the relative
wilderness of Essex, Turpin reunited with a previous gang member called
Thomas Rawdon, a former pewterer, and for the following months they set
too robbing travellers on the King's Highways from Essex to Kent.
Turpin had become a highwayman. His main area of activity seems to have
been the highways traversing the forest of Epping and Hampstead heath.
The story continues that it was during this period that Turpin one day
near Cambridge, happened upon a dandified individual riding a
particularly fine horse; whereupon Turpin acted in haste and due his
pistol on the traveller. He in his turn simply laughed at Turpin, and
as legend would have it said to him "What, dog eat dog? Come come
brother Turpin - if you don't know me, then I know you, and shall be
glad of your company." Turpin had tried to rob 'Captain' Tom King,
one of the best-known highwaymen of the time, who it is said was a sort
of swashbuckling, devil-may-care kind of man (seems all highwaymen
eventually acquired a similar reputation).
The
pair decided that for a time they should team up, and on the local
knowledge presumably of King, they holed up in a cave of sorts in Epping
Forest between King's Oak and the Loughton road, which they extended and
disguised with brambles and other foliage so that they could view out
but none could view them within. It was not long before even peddlers
were shy about travelling the roads, so in fear were they of being
robbed by the pair. Then in the year 1737, a further £100 was added to
the bounty on Turpin's capture, and on the 4th of May that
year, a gamekeeper named Morris decided it was worth a try to collect
the reward. Perhaps he was not as hardened as was Turpin, because, as
the story goes, upon challenging Turpin at gunpoint, Turpin had time to
draw his own pistol and shoot Morris stone cold dead. As a result of
Morris's murder, a royal proclamation was issued for the arrest of
Turpin,
"It
having been represented to the King that Richard Turpin did, on
Wednesday, the 4th day of May last, barbarously murder Thomas Morris,
servant to Henry Thompson, one of the keepers of Epping Forest, and
commit other notorious felonies and robberies near London, his majesty
is pleased to promise his most gracious pardon to any of his
accomplices, and a reward of £200 to any persons that shall discover
him, so that he may be apprehended and convicted. Turpin was born at
Thackstead in Essex, is about thirty, by trade a butcher, about five
feet nine inches high, very much marked with the small-pox, his
cheek-bones broad, his face thinner towards the bottom, his visage
short, pretty upright, and broad about the shoulders.."
The
physical description of Turpin as contained within the proclamation is
of interest, and adds flesh to the bare bones of the Turpin story. It
brings the man closer to us in some way, which no other part of this
narrative seems to do. In the same year of 1737, in Whitechapel, one
evening, the 'Runners' took Tom King, and in an attempted rescue, Turpin
shot at one of them hitting instead King who died of the wound. It was
time for a change of scenery for Turpin, and he headed northwards to
places less likely to know him. Not however the through the night dash
on Black Bess from London to York. Black Bess only ever existed in
romantic fiction, and the head long dash from London to York was not
achieved by Turpin, but by that other Yorkshire highwayman, John
(William) 'Swift Nick' Nevison.
About this time there appeared in certain hostelries of the East Riding
of Yorkshire, a new face, that of horse dealer John Palmer. The locals
of Brough, Beverley and Welton would have known him to have come some
distance on account of his accent, the differences in which would have
been even more pronounced than of today. Palmer the horse dealer
arrived at the Ferry House Inn (Now called the Ferry Inn) in June 1737,
there is some confusion here as to whether Palmer had arrived from the
Continent, or from the South, but given the time constraints, then there
really does not seem to have been enough time for a spell abroad.
Whether or not John Palmer aka Richard Turpin, double murderer and
highway robber, intended to make a new life in East Yorkshire, or to
begin a new criminal career is not known, what is known is that he was
soon up to his old tricks, horse stealing in Lincolnshire, bringing the
animals across the estuary back to Brough, where he would sell them on.
He was even known to have boasted about it, on one occasion, as reported
the following year by William Harris the innkeeper of the Ferry House,
who told of Palmer offering to take him into Lincolnshire, and there to
get £20 as easily as the two pennies on the table for his ale.
A
scant few miles east from Brough is the yet smaller habitation of Welton
wherein lies the old 'Green Man Inn' presently called by the sign of the
'Green Dragon' which Palmer was known to frequent. Legend has it that
Palmer had learnt of a secret means of crossing the Humber, which, in
the face of so much local knowledge, seems highly questionable apart
from the fact that any such crossings, other than by a ferry would be
very much dependant upon the season of the tides.
It
was at the Green Man in Welton where Palmer is said to have leapt to his
freedom through yet another window, an exercise well used it seems by
members of the highwaymen's' profession. Legend also has it that Palmer
then lodged at the Ferry House Inn, attempted another daring escape,
this time by jumping over the toll-gate at the corner of Cave Road on
his horse (Black Bess of cause!) However, history has a way of
providing evidence for the fabrication of such things, and in this case,
the toll-gate was not introduced for another 30 years (1771).
It
was after one of his late night drinking sessions the Palmer became the
author of his own downfall. A particularly vociferous cockerel, likely
belonging to John Robinson, a labourer, was killed by a gunshot by
Palmer, who then threatened Robinson, allegedly telling him if he would
only stay still whilst he charged his piece, he would shoot him too.
Robinson however was not to be bullied in such a manner, and made a
complaint against Palmer to the Justices. They, during their inquiries,
began to suspect that the John Palmer in question might in fact have a
far more interesting history than first imagined. Suspicion had
already fallen on Palmer for the theft of three horses, the property of
Thomas Creasy from Hecklington in the county of Lincoln.
Palmer meanwhile, for that was how he was then still known, was
transported to the House of Correction in Beverley, which is also still
standing, although its use has been changed to a domestic one. It is
said that Palmer aka Turpin was brought before magistrates at the
Beverley Arms, then an inn, now an hotel, which lays in North Bar
Within. It is likely that it was from either here, or from the House of
Correction that Turpin was taken under a heavy guard to the Debtors
Prison, quite newly built in York. It was about this time, February
1739, that Palmer made what was to be his fatal mistake. He penned a
letter to his brother in Hempstead in Essex asking him back up his
story, but Palmer's brother, for whatever reason, decided not to pay the
outstanding postage on the letter, which was then returned to the local
post office. The letter read
"Dear
Brother,
York,
Feb. 6, 1739.
"I am
sorry to acquaint you, that I am now under confinement in York Castle,
for horse-stealing. If I could procure an evidence from London to give
me a character, that would go a great way towards my being acquitted. I
had not been long in this county before my being apprehended, so that it
would pass off the readier. For Heaven's sake dear brother, do not
neglect me; you will know what I mean, when I say,
I am
yours,
"JOHN PALMER."
There it was seen by of all people, James Smith, not only a resident of
Hempstead, but also a schoolteacher. He, having seen the writing on the
letter, identified it as being written by Richard Turpin. In the
prison, Turpin was lodged in the condemned cell, now open to the viewing
public, then too by all accounts as Turpin received paying guests. It
was while Turpin was imprisoned at York that James Smith, his one time
teacher, travelled north from Hempstead to make the official
identification, which was duly done, and Turpin was subsequently found
guilty on two indictments and sentenced to death by hanging. As befits
one of his profession, Turpin seems to have determined to put on a brave
show for his execution, knowing full well one suspects that he was
likely to have a large crowd watching. He therefore bought a new suit
of clothes whilst in prison especially for his own execution, and even
paid for some mourners to attend him during his final performance.
Visitors came from far and near to peer and gawp at him, even engaging
in wagers as to whether he was the infamous Turpin or not!
On
the 7th April 1739, Dick Turpin took his final ride, not on
horseback, but in an open wooden cart to the Tyburn on York's Knavesmire.
It was a timber built gallows consisting of three conjoined uprights,
known then as the "three legged mare".
Waiting
for him there was one Thomas Hadfield, also a convicted and condemned
prisoner who was to perform that day the act of hangman. There were
huge crowds to see him off, and he did not disappoint them for a show.
He did however find it necessary to stamp his left leg in order to stop
it from trembling, maybe the only sign of his real state of mind. After
engaging his executioner in chitchat for it is said, half an hour, he
threw himself off the ladder, and so the story goes, died within
minutes. So affected were some of the spectators that they removed the
corpse from the gallows and took it to the Blue Boar Inn in Castle Gate,
where it stayed until the following morning. It was then taken to the
graveyard of St. George for burial in a coffin bearing Turpin's initials
and his age. Despite the efforts of the mourners to make the grave
secure, by three o'clock the next morning Turpin's body had been
removed, but the local populace, not being ignorant of such
desecrations, soon discovered whither it had been taken, and discovered
it in the garden of a local surgeon. It was immediately retrieved and
borne aloft upon a board, once more to the graveyard, where it was
re-interred in the original grave and covered in quicklime to prevent
further indignities. A stone was placed on the grave bearing the
crudely carved inscription
"JOHN
PALMER otherwise
RICHARD
TURPIN
The
notorious Highwayman and Horse Stealer
Executed
at Tyburn, April 7th 1739
And
buried in St. GEORGE's Churchyard"
Thus
ended the life and career or Richard Turpin, a hardened criminal with
violent tendencies. Some these days are heard of some current criminals
that "hanging is too good for 'em", but in the cases above, that of
Nevison and Turpin, the death sentence was certainly good enough. It
curtailed their criminal careers and made for the safer travelling of
the King's highways. Whether or not people agree with capital
punishment, it has to be kept in mind that in the 17th and 18th
centuries, death by hanging was an almost daily event, people perceived
crime and criminals in a different light (maybe), and life was cheap.
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