Dick Turpin is probably the best known of Britian's Highwayman Outlaws, but who was he really?
Dick Turpin was born in the county of Essex in 1706 to a country farmer. As a young man, he became apprenticed to a butcher and soon set up his own shop on the outskirts of London. But Dick Turpin was never one to fly the straight and narrow. At night he roamed the countryside stealing sheep and cows. The next day, he would slaughter his stolen goods and sell away the evidence. Despite its ingenuity, such a system could not last. On one of his nightly forays, he was discovered. Leaving his shop and wife behind, Dick Turpin became an outlaw and fled into the countryside.
For a while Turpin lived in caves along the coast of east Anglia, smuggling and robbing smugglers. Eventually he fell in with the Essex Gang, a group famous for poaching the King's dear. Soon after Turpin joined the group, they took to breaking into houses and robbing the owners at gunpoint. The king put a bounty of £50 out on the outlaw gang, and soon a group of constables tracked the gang down to a tavern. As the constables charged through the doors, Dick Turpin and another gang member, burst through a window and escaped. Many others of the gang were not so lucky, and three would end up swinging from the gallows.
With the Essex gang finished, Turpin teamed up with a well-known highwayman named Tom King. Tom King was the classic highwayman, a dashing man of manners, who flattered his victims as he relieved them of their purses. Tom King was the classic highwayman that legend would mistakenly assign to Dick Turpin.
Together the two men terrorized the area around Epping forest. Operating out of a cave, they stopped and robbed everyone they could find. Such were their exploits that the King offered the huge sum of £100 for Dick Turpin's capture.
Soon afterwards, things began to unravel for Turpin. One night as he robbed a gentleman on the road, Turpin took a fancy to the man's horse, a large black thoroughbred. Unable to resist, Turpin stole the horse and road off. Unfortunately, such a horse was easy to identify. When it was discovered in a tavern, the constables laid a trap for Turpin. That night, Tom King actually came to collect the horse and was captured. No one knows exactly what happened at this point, but the stories are numerous. Suffice it to say that Turpin saw that Tom King had been arrested and attacked the constables. During the confusion, Turpin shot and mortally wounded Tom King before fleeing into the night. It is thought by most that this was accidental, but no one can say for sure.
After this incident, Dick Turpin decided to lay low. He moved to the north of England and took a new identity as John Palmer, horse dealer. Unfortunately, Turpin could never live inside the law and was soon stealing horses. After one unsuccessful night of attempted horse stealing, Turpin got drunk and landed himself in prison. Although the authorities didn't know his identity, they were suspicious. From prison, Turpin wrote to his brother-in-law requesting help. When the letter was delivered, his brother-in-law refused to pay for its delivery. It wound up in the hands of the local postmaster who recognized the handwriting of Dick Turpin. Thus, John Palmer was unmasked as the infamous highwayman.
In April of 1739, Dick Turpin was driven through the streets of York in a wagon to the hangman's noose. Dick Turpin waved and smiled. Upon reaching the gallows, he launched into a thirty minute speech to entertain the crowd. Then he grabbed the noose, threw it about his neck, and jumped off the ladder. He died five minutes later.
It is only in his last act of death, that Dick Turpin showed any of the bravado that would characterize the Dick Turpin of legend. Like most outlaws, Dick Turpin was a nasty, brutal, and uncaring man. Yet somehow, he has earned a measure of immortality in the stories of the great outlaws.
