Dastardly Dick

This is an article about Dick Turpin that I wrote remotely at the start of lockdown during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. It was a commission from John Good Ltd, where I was working at the time, and intended for use as a stock article for any Dick Turpin-based pantomime programmes.

In the highwaymen hall of fame, one name stands (and delivers) above the rest – Dick Turpin. Legend cuts a figure dressed elegantly in a tricorn hat, frock coat and riding boots atop his loyal mare, Black Bess; a dashing and daring knight of the road, who held up swooning ladies' stagecoaches with gallantry and defied authority with derring-do.

In reality, Dick Turpin was far from being fine and dandy. He was a ruthless and violent criminal, who robbed, killed and tortured innocent people unscrupulously – a stark contrast to the gentleman thief of legend.

Richard Turpin was born in Hempstead in Essex in 1705, the fifth of six children born to John Turpin and Mary Elizabeth Parmenter. Little is known about his early life; in 1725, he supposedly married a maidservant, Elizabeth “Betty” Millington (who later robbed alongside him), and he initially followed in his father's footsteps as a tavern keeper and butcher.

It was his trade in butchery that saw Turpin enter a life of crime. Unlike legitimate butchers who bought from traders and farmers, he began to deal in illicit meat, stealing cattle and trading with poachers. By the 1730s, he was receiving venison poached from the royal forests, supplied by a notorious band of criminals called the Essex gang.

Led by blacksmith Samuel Gregory, the Essex gang recruited Turpin into its ranks and progressed from poaching to robbery, targeting houses and farms of people thought to have money or valuables. The crimes committed by the gang were particularly nasty. One notorious incident saw them raid the farm of Joseph Lawrence, where they assaulted his servant girl and held the farmer over the fireplace to get him to divulge where he had hidden his money.

The law finally caught up with most of the Essex gang, but Turpin remained at large. He moved back to Hempstead, where he began his career as a highwayman. In 1735, he robbed with Thomas Rowden, operating in the Essex and London areas. After parting ways with Rowden, he teamed up with Stephen Potter and Matthew King in Leicestershire and London. His association with King was to end in a violent fashion. After stealing a horse, the two robbers were involved in an altercation with an innkeeper, Richard Bayes. During the fracas, Turpin shot dead his accomplice.

He hid out in Epping Forest, where he operated from a secret cave. The area was patrolled by forest keepers, who knew of Turpin. Upon being discovered by one of the keeper's servants, Thomas Morris, he took a second life. While King's death could have been construed as an accident, there was no doubt Turpin killed Morris in cold blood.

With a £200 bounty on his head, Turpin fled to Lincolnshire, where he set himself up as a livestock dealer under the name “John Palmer”. He began rustling horses and sheep to sell in Yorkshire, which saw him associate with the landed gentry. Many of the gentlemen he went shooting and hunting with had no idea they were rubbing shoulders with one of Britain's most-wanted criminals.

It was following an unsuccessful hunting trip that Turpin met his downfall. After shooting a cockerel in the street and threatening to shoot a witness, he was imprisoned for disturbing the peace. The magistrates also suspected him of stealing livestock, which was confirmed by Thomas Creasy, whose horses had been stolen by Turpin. With horse theft a capital offence, he was moved to York Castle.

Awaiting trial at York assizes, Turpin sent a letter to his brother-in-law, “Pompr” Rivenell, back in Hempstead, probably asking for character witnesses. When Rivenell saw the letter at the post office, he refused to open it. In a twist of fate, James Smith, who had taught Turpin how to write, spotted the letter and recognized the handwriting of his former pupil. Smith then travelled to York, where he identified John Palmer as Dick Turpin.

On 22 March 1739, Turpin was sentenced to death, officially charged with horse stealing. In a harbinger of his posthumous dapper image, he bought new shoes and a coat for his execution. He also hired professional mourners to follow his procession towards the gallows at Knavesmire (now York Racecourse), where he was hanged on 7 April.

With most of Turpin's contemporaries glad to see him at the end of a rope, how did this career criminal become the heroic figure of folklore? It was largely William Harrison Ainsworth's 1834 novel, Rookwood, that spawned the contemporary image of Dick Turpin. This was where he became a romanticized Robin Hood figure, where his steed was named Black Bess, and where he rode 150 miles in a day from London to York to provide an alibi (a feat originally attributed to another highwayman, John “Swift Nick” Nevison).

It's a legend that has persisted since, from ballads, plays and penny dreadfuls to films, TV series and even pop music. But as history shows, the real Dick Turpin was callous, not chivalrous; deadly, not dandy. Perhaps that's how he should be remembered.