Jack Sheppard
Jack Sheppard | |
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ghostwritten by Daniel Defoe . |
John "Jack" Sheppard (4 March 1702 – 16 November 1724), or "Honest Jack", was a notorious English thief and prison escapee of early 18th-century London.
Born into a poor family, he was
Sheppard was as renowned for his attempts to escape from prison as he was for his crimes. An
Early life
Sheppard was born in White's Row, in
Unable to support her family without her husband's income, Jack's mother sent him to Mr Garrett's School, a
By 1722, Sheppard was showing great promise as a carpenter. Aged 20, he was a small man, only 5'4" (1.63 m) and lightly built, but deceptively strong. He had a pale face with large, dark eyes, a wide mouth and a quick smile. Despite a slight
Joseph Hayne, a button-moulder who owned a shop nearby, also managed a tavern named the Black Lion off Drury Lane, which he encouraged the local apprentices to frequent.[7] The Black Lion was visited by criminals such as Joseph "Blueskin" Blake, Sheppard's future partner in crime, and self-proclaimed "Thief-Taker General" Jonathan Wild, secretly the boss of a criminal gang which operated across London and later Sheppard's implacable enemy.
According to Sheppard's autobiography, he had been an innocent until going to Hayne's tavern, but there began a preference for strong drink and the affections of Elizabeth Lyon, a
Criminal career
Sheppard began habitually drinking and whoring. Inevitably, his carpentry suffered, and he became disobedient to his master. With Lyon's encouragement, Sheppard began criminal activity in order to augment his legitimate wages. His first recorded theft was in Spring 1723, when he engaged in petty shoplifting, stealing two silver spoons while on an errand for his master to the Rummer Tavern in Charing Cross.[7] Sheppard's misdeeds were undetected, and he progressed to larger crimes, often stealing goods from the houses where he was working. Finally, he quit the employ of his master on 2 August 1723, with less than two years of his apprenticeship left,[11] although he continued to work as a journeyman carpenter.[12] He was not suspected of the crimes, and progressed to burglary, in company with criminals in Jonathan Wild's gang.
He relocated to Fulham, living as husband and wife with Lyon at Parsons Green, before relocating to Piccadilly.[11] When Lyon was arrested and imprisoned at St Giles's Roundhouse, the beadle, a Mr Brown, refused to let Sheppard visit, so he broke in and took her away.[13]
Arrested and escaped twice
Sheppard was first arrested after a burglary he committed with his brother, Tom, and his mistress, Lyon, in Clare Market on 5 February 1724. Tom, also a carpenter, had already been convicted once for stealing tools from his master the previous autumn and burned in the hand. Tom was arrested again on 24 April 1724. Afraid that he would be hanged this time, Tom informed on Jack, and a warrant was issued for Jack's arrest.[14]
Jonathan Wild was aware of Sheppard's thefts, as Sheppard had fenced some stolen goods through one of Wild's men, William Field.[11] Wild asked another of his men, James Sykes (known as "Hell and Fury") to challenge Sheppard to a game of skittles at Redgate's public house near Seven Dials.[15] Sykes betrayed Sheppard to a Mr Price, a constable from the parish of St Giles, to gather the usual £40 reward for giving information resulting in the conviction of a felon. The magistrate, Justice Parry, had Sheppard imprisoned overnight on the top floor of St Giles's Roundhouse pending further questioning, but Sheppard escaped within three hours by breaking through the timber ceiling and lowering himself to the ground with a rope fashioned from bedclothes.[16] Still wearing irons, Sheppard coolly joined the crowd that had been attracted by the sounds of his breaking out. He distracted their attention by pointing to the shadows on the roof and shouting that he could see the escapee, and then swiftly departed.[16]
On 19 May 1724, Sheppard was arrested for a second time, caught in the act of
Third arrest, trial, and third escape
Sheppard's thieving abilities were admired by Jonathan Wild. Wild demanded that Sheppard surrender his stolen goods for Wild to fence, and so take the greater profits, but Sheppard refused. He began to work with
Sheppard was imprisoned in
Fourth arrest and final escape
By this time, Sheppard was a hero to a segment of the population, being a
Meanwhile, "Blueskin" Blake was arrested by Wild and his men on Friday 9 October, and Tom, Jack's brother, was transported for robbery on Saturday 10 October 1724.[27] New court sessions began on Wednesday 14 October, and Blueskin was tried on Thursday 15 October, with Field and Wild again giving evidence. Their accounts were not consistent with the evidence that they gave at Sheppard's trial, but Blueskin was convicted anyway. Enraged, Blueskin attacked Wild in the courtroom, slashing his throat with a pocket-knife and causing an uproar.[28] Wild was lucky to survive, and his control of his criminal gang was weakened while he recuperated.
Taking advantage of the disturbance, which spread to Newgate Prison next door and continued into the night, Sheppard escaped for the fourth time. He unlocked his handcuffs and removed the chains. Still encumbered by his leg irons, he attempted to climb up the chimney, but his path was blocked by an iron bar set into the brickwork. He removed the bar and used it to break through the ceiling into the "Red Room" above the "Castle", a room which had last been used some seven years before to confine aristocratic
Final capture
Sheppard's final period of liberty lasted just two weeks. He disguised himself as a beggar and returned to the city. He broke into the Rawlins brothers'
This time, Sheppard was placed in the Middle Stone Room, in the centre of Newgate next to the "Castle", where he could be observed at all times. He was also loaded with 300 pounds of iron weights. He was so celebrated that the gaolers charged high society visitors four shillings to see him, and the King's painter James Thornhill painted his portrait.[34] Several prominent people sent a petition to King George I, begging for his sentence of death to be commuted to transportation. "The Concourse of People of tolerable Fashion to see him was exceeding Great, he was always Chearful and Pleasant to a Degree, as turning almost everything as was said onto a Jest and Banter."[8] To a Reverend Wagstaffe who visited him, he said, according to Defoe, "One file's worth all the Bibles in the World".[8]
Sheppard came before Mr Justice Powis in the Court of King's Bench at Westminster Hall on 10 November. He was offered the chance to have his sentence reduced by informing on his associates, but he scorned the offer, and the death sentence was confirmed.[35] The next day, Blueskin was hanged, and Sheppard was moved to the condemned cell.
Execution
The next Monday, 16 November, Sheppard was taken to the
A joyous procession passed through the streets of London, with Sheppard's cart drawn along
Legacy
There was a spectacular public reaction to Sheppard's deeds, which were cited favourably as an example in newspapers. Pamphlets, broadsheets, and ballads were all devoted to his amazing experiences, real and fictional,[40] and his story was adapted for the stage almost immediately. Harlequin Sheppard, a pantomime by one John Thurmond (subtitled "A night scene in grotesque characters"), opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on Saturday 28 November, only two weeks after Sheppard's hanging.[39][41] In a famous contemporary sermon, a London preacher drew on Sheppard's popular escapes as a way of holding his congregation's attention:
Let me exhort ye, then, to open the locks of your hearts with the nail of repentance! Burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts! – mount the chimney of hope! – take from thence the bar of good resolution! – break through the stone wall of despair![42]
The account of his life remained well-known through the
Perhaps the most prominent play based on Sheppard's life is
Sheppard's tale may have been an inspiration for
Sheppard's tale was revived during the first half of the 19th century. A
The story generated a type of cultural mania, embellished by pamphlets, prints, cartoons, plays and souvenirs, not repeated until
The Sheppard story has been revived three times as movies the 20th century: The Hairbreadth Escape of Jack Sheppard (1900), Jack Sheppard (1923), and Where's Jack? (1969), a British historical drama directed by James Clavell with Tommy Steele in the title role.[54] Jake Arnott features him in his 2017 novel The Fatal Tree.[55] In Confessions of the Fox, a 2018 novel by Jordy Rosenberg, the Sheppard story was recontextualised as a queer narrative.[56]
In 1971 British popular music group
In
The reasons for the lasting legacy of Sheppard's exploits in the popular imagination have been addressed by Peter Linebaugh, who suggests that Sheppard's legend was based on the prospect of excarceration, of escape from what Michel Foucault in Folie et déraison termed the grand renfermement (Great Confinement), in which "unreasonable" members of the population were locked away and institutionalised.[59] Linebaugh further says that the laws applied to Sheppard and similar working class criminals were a means of disciplining a potentially rebellious multitude into accepting increasingly harsh property laws. Another nineteenth-century opinion of the Jack Sheppard phenomenon was offered by Charles Mackay in Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds:
Whether it be that the multitude, feeling the pangs of poverty, sympathise with the daring and ingenious depredators who take away the rich man's superfluity, or whether it be the interest that mankind in general feel for the records of perilous adventure, it is certain that the populace of all countries look with admiration upon great and successful thieves.[60]
Notes
- ^ Compiled for Applebee's Original Weekly Journal, probably by Daniel Defoe, and endorsed by Sheppard at his hanging in November 1724.
- ^ a b c d e Moore, p.31.
- ^ Lynch, para.2.
- ^ Moore, p.38.
- ^ a b Moore, p.33.
- ^ Moore, p.96.
- ^ a b Moore, p.98.
- ^ a b c d e f Defoe, History.
- ^ Defoe's History reports that he called Edgworth Bess "the sole author of all his misfortunes" and said he "cared not what became of her".
- ^ Linebaugh, Ch.1. "The Common Discourse of the Whole Nation: Jack Sheppard and the Art of Escape", in The London Hanged, pp.7–42. On the comparison with the Levellers, see p.164.
- ^ a b c Moore, p.99.
- ^ Lynch, para.7.
- ^ Lynch, para.8.
- ^ Lynch, para.11.
- ^ Moore, p.100.
- ^ a b Moore, p.104.
- ^ Moore, p.105.
- ^ Defoe's History reports that she was "more corpulent than himself".
- ^ Moore, p.110.
- ^ Moore, p.111.
- ^ Trial summary on three charges of theft, 12 August 1724, where his name is incorrectly recorded as Joseph Sheppard. Retrieved 5 February 2007. Archived 27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Linebaugh, p.29.
- ^ Moore, p.206.
- ^ Moore, p.207.
- ^ Moore, p.208.
- ^ Norton, The Daily Journal for Thursday 17 September 1724.
- ^ Moore, p.158.
- ^ Moore, p.159.
- ^ Moore, p.162.
- ^ The closeness of the resemblance is praised in a poem published in the British Journal on 28 November 1724, which recites that "Thornhill, 'tis thine to gild with fame // Th' obscure, and raise the humble Name; // To make the form elude the Grave, // and Sheppard from oblivion save ... Appelles, Alexander drew, // Caesar is to Aurellius due, // Cromwell in Lilly's works doth shine, // and Sheppard, Thornhill, lives in thine."
- ^ Moore, p.164.
- ^ Lynch, para.46.
- ^ The London Journal, 7 November 1724. Mullan, p.186.
- National Portrait Gallery. The Daily Journal records that the sketch was taken on Friday 13 September, by "an eminent painter". Retrieved 5 February 2007.
- ^ Moore, p.168.
- ^ Moore, p.219.
- ^ Moore, p.222.
- ^ The Weekly Journal (Read's Journal), October 1724. Mullan, p.187.
- ^ a b Moore, p.225.
- ^ Fiction was readily mixed with fact. Applebee's Journal had a letter from one "Betty Blueskin", supposed niece of Moll Flanders, telling of her life of crime and her passion for Jack Sheppard. Mullan, p. 187.
- ^ Norton, The Weekly Journal or Saturday's-Post for Saturday 5 December 1724. See also William Hogarth's print satirising the production: A Just View of the British Stage.
- ^ Oh, that ye were all like Jack Sheppard! ... Let me exhort ye then to open the locks of your hearts with the nail of repentance! Burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts, mount the chimney of hope ..." etc. Quoted by Mackay, p. 638, from Annals of Newgate, 1754.
- ^ The Bloody Register, p. 324.
- ^ The Bloody Register, pp. 325–330.
- ^ Moore, p. 227.
- ^ Moore, p. 231.
- ^ Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard at Project Gutenberg. See also an analysis at The Literary Encyclopedia. Retrieved 5 February 2007.
- ^ Buckley, p. 432, from Meisel, pp. 247–8.
- ^ Buckley, p. 426.
- ^ Buckley, p. 438, quoting Meisel, p. 265.
- ^ Reported in Buckley, p. 427.
- ^ Moore, p. 229.
- ^ Linebaugh, p. 7.
- ^ a b Sugden
- ^ Menmuir, Wyl (26 March 2017). "The Fatal Tree by Jake Arnott review – a double helping of love and loss". The Observer. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
- ^ Confessions of the Fox Archived 20 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine, Kirkus Reviews.
- ^ I Love Onions
- ^ "Chicory Tip discography". Archived from the original on 24 October 2015. Retrieved 20 September 2017.
- ^ Linebaugh describes excarceration as "the growing propensity, skill and success of London working people in escaping from the newly created institutions that were designed to discipline people by closing them in." The London Hanged, pp. 7–42.
- ^ Mackay, p. 632.
References
- Anon. The Bloody Register vol. II London, 1764.
- Buckley, Matthew. "Sensations of Celebrity: Jack Sheppard and the Mass Audience", Victorian Studies, Volume 44, Number 3, Spring 2002, pp. 423–463
- Defoe, Daniel. The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard. London: 1724. Retrieved 5 February 2007.
- Howson, Gerald. Thief-Taker General: Jonathan Wild and the Emergence of Crime and Corruption as a Way of Life in Eighteenth-Century England. New Brunswick, NJ and Oxford, UK: 1970. ISBN 0-88738-032-8
- Linebaugh, Peter. The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century. Verso, 2003, ISBN 1-85984-638-6
- Lynch, Jack (editor). Jack Sheppard, from The Complete Newgate Calendar. Retrieved 5 February 2007.
- Mackay, Charles. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Wordsworth Editions, (1841) 1999 edition. ISBN 1-890151-40-8.
- Moore, Lucy. The Thieves' Opera. Viking, 1997, ISBN 0-670-87215-6
- Mullan, John, and Christopher Reid. Eighteenth-Century Popular Culture: A Selection. Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-19-871134-4.
- Norton, Rictor. Early Eighteenth-Century Newspaper Reports: A Sourcebook, "Jack Sheppard, Jail-Breaker". Retrieved 5 February 2007.
- Sugden, Philip. "John Sheppard" in Matthew, H.C.G. and Brian Harrison, eds. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. vol. 50, 261–263. London: OUP, 2004.
Further reading
- Proceedings from the Old Bailey. Ordinary's Account of 4 September 1724. Reference (docket) t17240812-52.
- Anon (often attributed to Defoe). A Narrative of All the Robberies, Escapes, Etc. of John Sheppard. 1724.
- ISBN 1-56169-117-8.
- G.E. Authentick Memoirs of the Life and Surprising Adventures of John Sheppard by Way of Familiar Letters from a Gentleman in Town. 1724.
- Gatrell, V.A. The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People 1770–1868. Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-19-285332-5.
- ISBN 0-14-139023-9)
- Linnane, Fergus. The Encyclopedia of London Crime. Sutton Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-7509-3302-X.
- Meisel, Martin. (1983) Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century England. Princeton.
- Rawlings, Philip. Drunks, Whores, and Idle Apprentices: Criminal Biographies of the Eighteenth Century. Routledge (UK), 1992. ISBN 0-415-05056-1.
- Rogers, Pat. Daniel Defoe: The Critical Heritage. Routledge (UK), 1995. ISBN 0-415-13423-4.
External links
- Jack Sheppard, from the Newgate Calendar, including contemporary sermon. Retrieved 5 February 2007.
- Project Gutenberg etext of William Harrison Ainsworth's novel.
- The Thief-Taker Hangings: How Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Wild, and Jack Sheppard Captivated London and Created the Celebrity Criminal by Aaron Skirboll