brought off at protracted intervals (and of which, it must be admitted, our documentary knowledge is of the scantiest), could not even approximately have satisfied Turpin's professional ambition or his craving for professional work, of which we are assured that he was a glutton. In order to give a fairly connected idea of his general activity at this period, we can perhaps do no better than transcribe a few pages from the Newgate Calendar of 1776. Most of the incidents therein related were obtained in the first instance either from notes at the trial, or from the malefactor's own dying confession, but the majority of them have also been corroborated, to a partial extent, by contemporary records. It has only been incumbent upon us, in a spirit of earnest revolt from any possible shocking of the delicate perceptions of the refined reading public of the present day, to refrain from obtruding a certain class of detail, with which the blunted susceptibilities of a Newgate Ordinary of the eighteenth century were unable to prevent his sullying the imperishable annals of British Crime. On 11th January, 1735, Turpin, with Fielder, Walker, and three other companions, went to the house of Mr. Saunders, a wealthy farmer of Charlton, in Kent. Arriving between 7 and 8 o'clock in the evening, they knocked at the door and enquired if Mr. Saunders was at home. Being answered in the affirmative, they rushed into the house and found Mr. Saunders, his wife, and a few friends playing cards in the parlour. They told the company that they should remain uninjured if they made no disturbance. Having made prize of a silver snuff-box which lay on the table, a part of the gang stood guard over the company while the others compelled Mr. Saunders to accompany then: through the house, whence they stole about 100, exclusive of plate and other articles. Finding some mince pies and some bottles of wine, they sat down to regale themselves, and compelled each of the company to drink a glass of brandy. Mrs. Saunders fainted away at this juncture, but was politely handled by the robbers, who applied the conventional remedies with the accustomed effect. Having stayed in the house a considerable time to the accompaniment of screams from a servant maid who had locked herself in her attic, the marauders coolly retired and divided their plunder in an empty house on Ratcliffe Highway. A week later they attacked the house of a Mr. Sheldon, near Croydon, and obtained a considerable booty in money and jewels. After this coup they reassembled at the Black Horse, in Broadway, and concerted the robbery of Mr. Lawrence at Edgeware-Bury, near Stanmore, to the commission of which they proceeded on 4th February, 1735. Their robberies had hitherto been carried on entirely on foot, with only the occasional assistance of a hackney coach, but now they aspired to appear on horseback, for which purpose they hired horses at the Old Leaping Bar in High Holborn. On these they set out first to the Ninepin and Bowl at Edgeware and then to the Queen's Head near Stanmore. They arrived at the scene of their intended outrage about seven, when Mr. Lawrence had just discharged his workmen, mostly labouring hands. After quitting their horses at the outer gate, Fielder was just getting over the hatch into the sheep yard, when he met a boy putting up some sheep. Fielder said he would shoot the boy if he offered to cry out. Taking off the boy's garters the thieves tied up his hands, and bade him direct them to the door, and when they knocked, to answer and bid the servant open it. The boy was so terrified that he could not speak. Turpin, therefore, knocked at the door and a manservant, imagining it to be a neighbour, opened it. Thereupon all the thieves rushed in, and, presenting pistols, seized Mr. Lawrence and his servant, threw a cloth over their faces, and taking the boy into another room, demanded what fire arms were in the house. He replied that there was only one old gun, which they broke in pieces. They then bound Mr. Lawrence and his man and made them sit by the boy, and Turpin searching the gentleman took from him a guinea, a Portugal piece, and some silver; but, not being satisfied with this booty, they forced him to conduct them upstairs, where they broke open a chest and stole some money and plate. Being dissatisfied they swore that they would murder Mr. Lawrence if some further booty were not produced, and one of them took a kettle of water from the fire and threw it over him. Happily the maid had quite recently re-filled the kettle. Another maid, who was churning butter in the dairy, was shamefully treated by the robbers. Having despoiled the house of all the valuables they could find, they locked the family into the parlour, threw the key into the garden-house, and took their plunder to London. Some of the goods were traced to Duck Lane and others to Thieving Lane, where two of the miscreants, Rose and Walker, were taken. A few days after this six of the gang assembled in the White Bear in Drury Lane and agreed to rob Mr. Francis, a farmer, at Marylebone. Proceeding to his home, they seized the men in out-houses and bound them in the stable. They next caught the master as he was returning home and tied him up to keep them company. Then they rushed into the house, tied Mrs. Francis, her daughter, and maid-servant, and beat them in a most cruel manner. Bush and Turpin then stood sentry while the rest rifled the house, in which they found a silver tankard, a medal of Charles I., a gold watch, several gold rings, a considerable sum of money, and a variety of valuable linen and other effects, which they conveyed to London. These transactions alarmed the whole county, nobody thinking himself safe; upon which Mr. Thompson, one of the King's keepers, went to the Duke of Newcastle's office, and obtained His Majesty's promise of a reward of one hundred pounds for whoever should apprehend any of them. This made 'em lie a little more concealed. However, some of the keepers and others having intelli. gence that they were all regaling themselves at an ale house in an alley at Westminster they pursued them thither, and bursting open the door found Turpin, Fielder, Rose and Wheeler and two women. Fielder, Rose, and Wheeler, after a stout resistance were taken, but Turpin made his escape out of a window, and taking his horse rode away immediately; Wheeler was admitted an evidence, and the other two were hanged in chains.* This rude severance of the ties of comradeship led inevitably to the formation of new habits and intimacies by Turpin, and *On Monday, 10th March, 1735, the following malefactors, attended by a guard of 50 soldiers, were executed at Tyburn, appearing bold and undaunted, viz., Rose, Saunders, and Fielder, the Country R bbers" (and 10 others.] Gent. Mag., 1735, 50, 162; cf. 1734, p. 702. Walker, another of the gang, is stated to have died in Newgate. was in all probability the immediate occasion of his withdrawal to the recesses of Epping Forest. In the intervals of highway and byway robbery on horseback or on foot, we get a few glimpses of Turpin taking his ease in his inn and enjoying the varied relaxations of metropolitan existence. One of Turpin's earliest haunts in the vicinity of London is said to have been Beresford's White House, on Hackney Marsh, where he sought unostentatious retirement as far back as 1732. A mezzotinto engraving of this house executed by Duncan after W. I. Huggins, was published in 1830*. Another favourite haunt of the outlaw in this neighbourhood was Tyler's Ferry, near Joe Sowler's cock-pit at Temple Mills. Few constables, we are credibly informed, were bold enough to approach this spot. In a semi-professional capacity, Turpin is said to have infested Holloway and the back lanes of Islington. A gentleman whom he encountered in this locality told him, with ill-timed levity, that one Turpin had reigned long enough. "'Tis no matter for that," replied Dick gaily, "I am not afraid of being taken by you, so don't stand hesitating, but stump up the coriander seed."+ For our next item of topographical information we turn to the Times newspaper of 22nd August, 1838. "The rear of the houses on Holborn Bridge," says the "Thunderer," in unwonted strain, "has for many years been the receptacle for characters of the most daring and desperate condition: there in a secret manège (now a slaughter-house for her species) did Turpin suffer his favourite Bess to repose for many a night previously to her disastrous journey to York." The neighbourhood of Finchley is liberally honeycombed with reputed Turpin haunts, and is especially rich in subterranean passages and caves, in which, to all appearance, Turpin must have led the life of a veritable troglodyte. It should be admitted that there is no evidence to convict Turpin of these cave-dwelling propensities. Nor is there even a scrap of proof that he was ever more than quite temporarily in the neighbourhood of Finchley at all. Equally fictitious, in all probability, are See Robinson's Hackney, 1842. I., p. 226. +In order the more to impress his readers with this veracious anecdote, the laborious Thornbury in his Old and New London repeats the story twice in connection with different localities and in slightly variant form. He dates it 22nd May, 1737. the Turpin lurking-places still pointed out at Hounslow, and at Camlet Moat, Enfield.f But we now come to a far more tangible link with the personality of our hero. At the Coach and Horses tavern at Hockley-in-the-Hole, was found, early in the Nineteenth Century, "a small leather portmanteau, with the ends of wood, large enough to contain a change of linen, besides other little etceteras. On the inner side of the lid, lightly cut in the surface of the leather, is the name of its former owner, R. TVRPIN.' Whether or no this portmanteau (such a one as horsemen formerly carried behind them, strapped to the saddle), belonged to that famous highwayman, we will not attempt to decide," says the judicious Mr. Pinks, in his History of Clerkenwell, but he gives a picture of the portmanteau as Dick Turpin's, and says there can be little doubt that the tavern was a favourite resort of the outlaw. We must in candour point out that the name is of very old standing in Clerkenwell, and that Margaret, daughter of Edward Turpyn, was married to Sir Thomas Docwra, at St. John's Priory there, in the thirteenth year of King Henry VIII. We have, ourselves, quite recently seen the name of Turpin-was it over a butcher's shop ?-in the appropriate neighbourhood of Farringdon Market. The time had now arrived, in 1737, when no landlord, however rascally, would entertain rough riders with methods of barbarism so accentuated as those of Turpin and King. The two men accordingly dug a cave hidden by ferns and brambles, hazels and thorns, on the eastern side of Epping Forest, on the high road between King s Oak and Loughton. The cave, depicted in one of our illustrations, and large enough to hold both the bandits and their horses, was well situated for reconnoitring. Turpin's wife supplied them with food. From this point of vantage, to select one from many robberies, they one night stopped at FairMaid-Bottom a Mr. Bradele, and their treatment of him is typical of the highwayman's code of etiquette. Mr. Bradele gave up his money readily, but was loth to part with his watch, till his little girl cried and begged him to surrender it. King then insisted upon having an old valueless mourning-ring, but seeing Mr. Bradele prized it, he said that he and his pal were far too much of gentlemen to deprive him of anything he valued so much. Mr. † See Thorne's Environs of London and Robinson's History of Enfield. Bradele thereupon offered to leave 6 guineas (the maximum price given by receivers) at the bar of the Dial in Birchin Lane and to ask no questions, if he might keep his watch and his ring. King assented to the terms, which were duly fulfilled. Soon after this, on 24 April 1737, one Thomas Morris (a servant of Keeper Thompson, of Epping Forest), in company with a daring higgler, set out to trap Turpin in his cave. Turpin took them for poachers, until Morris presented his gun and called on the highwaymen to surrender. "No, I haven't got a a rabbit," shouted the servant to his companion, "but I have got a Turpin Turpin "worth just a cool hundred guineas, it may be noted. Turpin, meanwhile gradually retreating to his cave, took up his loaded carbine, and shot the too venturous Morris dead; as for the higgler, he ran off as fast as his legs could carry him. The cave became now almost too hot to hold any longer the person, steed and armament of our knight of the road. Having been nearly surprised at an Inn at Hertford, he thought it best to make his way with all possible speed to one of his haunts in East London. Riding rapidly through the Forest, and finding that his horse was overdone, he stopped a certain Mr. Major, owner of the famous racer, White Stockings, changed horses and whips with this gentleman and was off, in a flash, to London. Mr. Major confided his loss to Mr. Boyes, landlord of the Green Man, at Epping Mr. Boyes took the matter very much to heart, and devoted his time to the discovery of Turpin's lair. On May 3 he found Mr. Major's horse at the Red Lion, at Whitechapel, confirming his identification by recognising the monogram on the stock of the whip. He promptly seized the lad who came to fetch the horse. This proved to be King's brother, who was frightened into confessing that a tall lusty man in a white duffil coat was waiting for the nag in Red Lion Street. Boyes pounced out, and, with the aid of a constable, succeeded in collaring King. At this juncture Turpin rode upon the scene. "Shoot, Dick, for God's sake, or I'm taken," shouted his ally. Turpin fired, but missed his man, and shot the trusty "Tom" through the breast.* King *The accounts of this incident in contemporary prints are somewhat conflicting, and we Tom," cannot pretend to decide whether " Bob," or Mat" King met his death in the fracas. Far from being intimidated by the greatness of his peril, "Turpin, the renowned Butcher-highwayman, committed a robbery almost every day this month" [May, 17371-so the newspapers assure us. Rowden, one of the gang, was taken and transported in July, but Turpin get clear away. (See Gent. Mag.. 1737, 315, 316, 370, &c.) In the London Gazette of 25th June, 1737, was a Proclamation offering £200 reward for the capture of Turpin. His height is there given as 5 feet 9 inches. |