Dick Turpin: Fact v. Fiction
| Published date | 01 April 1931 |
| Date | 01 April 1931 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X3100400213 |
Dick
Turpin:
Fact v. Fiction
PART
II.
THE
HIGHWAYMAN
(Continued from page
145)
During the rest of 1735 and throughout 1736
Turpin
worked in company with
Rowden-the
' little thin man
,-
chiefly on Wandsworth and Barnes Commons. Reports of
their '
hold-ups'
are frequent. On Thursday night,
loth
July (1735) they attacked Mr. Vane of Richmond and Mr.
James Bradford of Southwark between Wandsworth and
Barnes, and after robbing them of all their valuables rode off
towards Roehampton, where they held up another traveller.
Four days later a resident of Southwark, meeting them, tried
to escape by clapping spurs to his
horse;
but
they overtaking
him, forced him to dismount, and Turpin, 'suspecting,' says
the Grub Street Journal, 'that he knew him, would have shot
him,
but
was prevented by the other, who pulled the pistol out
of his hand.' 1
They
seemed to be immune from arrest.
In
October
1735 we read
that'
On Thursday
Turpin
and Rowden had the
insolence to ride through the city at noonday, and in Watling
Street they were known by two or three porters, who had not
the courage to attack them,' and on several other occasions
Turpin
was'
seen and spoken to ' in the streets of London in
the daytime. Once he would have shot a citizen of South-
wark who addressed him by name, had not Rowden once again
knocked up his pistol. Once a constable caught sight of him
at a public-house in Whitechapel, and he was obliged to decamp
without paying his reckoning-which he sent next day by a
penny post-letter.
In
the Spring of 1737he parted company with
Rowden-
IGrrtbStreet
JOfITfIIll,
17th July, 1735.
285
286
THE
POLICE
JOURNAL
why or how I know
not-and
returned to his native county.
He soon found another partner, Robert King by name, a
highwayman who worked the Cambridge and Chelmsford
roads out of Epping. A legend relates that
Turpin
held up
King, whereupon King laughed and
said:
'What!
Dog eat
dog
?'
I find no corroboration of
this;
but
it is a pleasant
story and impugns no historical truth, so we wi11let it stand.
On Saturday afternoon, 16th April,
Turpin
and King
held up a carriage containing several persons who were going
to dine at Epping.
The
owner of the carriage at once took aim
at
Turpin
with a carbine loaded with slugs;
but
it flashed in
the pan.
Whereupon,'
G-
d-
you,' said Turpin,
'you
have missed me,
but
Iwon't you,' and immediately fired into
the carriage. Happily the bullet passed between its objective
and a lady beside him.
The
carriage was a closed one, and
without waiting to see what effect this shot had had, the high-
waymen turned their horses' heads and rode off.
Afortnight
later-it
was on Saturday evening, the rst
of
May-near
the Green Man
Inn
at Epping, Turpin, accom-
panied by Robert King and a fellow-spirit named Stephen
Potter, robbed aMr. Major of his purse and his horse.
The
victim at once made his way to the Green Man and described
his assailants so well that none of his hearers had any doubt
as to the robbers' identity. Major spent the night at Epping,
and next morning he and the landlord of the Green Man set
off for London. Bayes, the landlord, was a stout fellow, and
he had gleaned much information about Turpin's haunts.
They visited several inns and stables in Whitechapel, and at
last, at the Red Lion, Major recognized his horse.
The
ostler
informed them that it had been taken there the previous night
and that
its'
owner'would callfor it in the afternoon. Accord-
ingly Bayes and Major took up their position in the bar parlour,
which commanded a view of the stable yard. At four o'clock
Matthew King, the younger brother of
Turpin's
partner, came
into the yard and went to the horse, whereupon Bayes and
Major challenged him. Being threatened that he should hang
for horse-stealing unless he told them where his brother and
Turpin
were, he informed them that they would find the men
they wanted at an inn in Gloucester Street, Goodmansfields.
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