Jack Sheppard

 

Jack Sheppard, one of England’s most notorious historical criminals, was a non-violent legend in his own time. During his two-year crime career he mixed with the criminal elite of the day and was known as a thorn in the side of the infamous Jonathan Wild. He was hailed by the people and hated and pursued by the law.

Jack Sheppard, née John, was born into a poor London family on March 4, 1702. The area in which he was born was famous for the presence of highwaymen, but Sheppard managed to start his life out on the right track. Sheppard’s father died when he was very young, and when he was six years old his mother decided that she could no longer care for her sons and sent them to a boarding school to learn carpentry. He started to work for and apprentice with various carpenters before he started working for the man with whom he would stay with the longest, William Kneebone.

By the time Sheppard was in his late teens he showed great promise in his chosen career. The young criminal mastermind in the making was known to frequent a pub near his place of work. Despite his slight stutter he was considered to be quite witty. It was only when Sheppard looked to expand his social horizons by going to a different tavern than his usual haunt, that he began to realise that there was more in the world than carpentry. Sheppard started to frequent another pub near his work called The Black Lion. He met some of the day’s most notorious criminals including his future arch-enemy, Jonathan Wild and future partner in crime Joseph ‘Blueskin’ Blake. It was while drinking at the same establishment that Sheppard became attracted to Elizabeth Lyon, a prostitute who went by the nickname of Edgeworth Bess.

Because of Sheppard’s growing interest in drink and his love interest, his work life suffered. Elizabeth was not only Sheppard’s love interest she also served to advise him. It was partly due to her mis-guided advice that Sheppard started his career, albeit a short one, in crime. His first crime is believed to be the theft of a pair of silver spoons from a local tavern while making a delivery for his boss. Sheppard’s crimes went unnoticed and his youthful overconfidence construed this as a sign of his criminal prowess. He began to steal on a regular basis, pilfering from homes and businesses in which he was doing carpentry work. It was not long before Sheppard began to work with the gang of master criminal, Jonathan Wild. It was also around this time that Sheppard decided to hand in his resignation, with just two years left of his apprenticeship.

Meanwhile the relationship between Sheppard and Lyon was blossoming and they decided to move away and live together and found a home in Fulham, London. A short time later they moved to Piccadilly and within a very brief period Lyon was arrested and jailed for a petty crime. When Sheppard was told he could not visit her he defied the guards’ instructions, broke Elizabeth from her cell and they made their escape. This was to be the beginning of several journeys to and from jail for Sheppard, only next time it would be him who was behind bars.

On February 5, 1724, Sheppard, along with his girlfriend and his brother Tom, plundered ‘Clare’s Market’, a meat shop in greater London. Sheppard’s brother already had a criminal record and had the scars to prove it. Tom was arrested for this crime and leaked the details of who was involved in attempt to ease his sentence. Because of this information, the police started looking for Jack and Elizabeth. Sheppard was arrested after another criminal, who was also associated with Jonathan Wild, called James Sykes, informed the police as to his whereabouts. His interest was limited to the cash reward. Jack was sent to St. Giles Roadhouse and imprisoned on the top floor.

Sheppard had not been in prison for more than three hours, before he escaped with a makeshift rope fashioned from bed clothes. His ingenuity did not end there. Sheppard joined the crowd who had gathered at the commotion of his escape and pointed to the roof exclaiming that he could see himself escaping. With this distraction in place and the crowd fooled, Sheppard fled the scene.

It was not long before Jack was re-arrested. He was caught red-handed picking pockets on the city streets. He was sent back to the same prison that he had recently escaped from. Because of primitive law enforcement methods he was simply placed back in a cell, something he had proved he could easily circumvent. On the second day of his latest incarceration Elizabeth came to visit him. The guards recognised her and put her in the cell with Jack. They went to court and were sent to New Prison in Clerkenwell by Judge Walters. It was a short-lived prison stay, however, because the two seasoned outlaws scaled the near twenty-foot prison perimeter wall to their freedom.

Jack Sheppard’s reputation circulated throughout the criminal underworld and soon caught the attention of Jonathan Wild. Wild was a clever man, holding the position of number one gangster in England, while appearing to be England’s number one policeman. This of course gave him enormous power and influence and he used it when he ordered the arrest of Sheppard. Wild had a group of his men spy on Sheppard in an effort to learn more about his movements. The appointed group informed on Sheppard to Wild just as he was getting ready to pull off yet any another robbery. Sheppard started working with Joseph ‘Blueskin’ Blake and the two robbed Sheppard’s previous employer, William Kneebone.

Wild was becoming irritated with this criminal, because he could not get him under his direct control. He doubled his efforts to get him arrested. Wild used Lyon to get to Sheppard by getting her drunk and asking her questions, until she gave vital information about Sheppard’s whereabouts. After a short time, on July 23, 1724, Sheppard was arrested at his partner’s mother’s liquor shop. Wild had got what he wanted, although the seemingly invincible Sheppard was not going to stay locked up for long!

Sheppard once again found himself at Newgate Prison awaiting trial. When he eventually faced the jury he was charged with three crimes but the first two were dismissed for lack of evidence. Sheppard was, however, convicted of the burglary at the Kneebones. William Kneebone, Jonathan Wild and one of Wild’s henchmen, testified at Sheppard’s trial and the sentence was passed on August 12, 1724. Sheppard was sentenced to death but before the death warrant could be issued, less than six days after the conviction, Sheppard escaped and fled to nearby Blackfriars Stairs. The news of his latest escape delighted the public who saw him as a folk hero. Sheppard quickly went into deeper hiding but Jonathan Wild was in pursuit. By the beginning of September 1724 Wild had assembled a posse and they started to hunt for Sheppard. On September 9, Wild’s gang was hot on Sheppard’s heels and he was arrested and dragged back to his cell at Newgate Prison. For the next few weeks Sheppard tried to escape a few more times but his attempts were prevented by the watchful eye of the prison guards. They found cutting and grinding implements in his cell and decided that, after repeated threats that he would escape easily, to lock Sheppard in metal arm and leg irons. When Sheppard bragged even more about how easily he could escape and how it was useless to try and hold him, the guards only tightened his bindings. It was during this time that Sheppard’s co-hort Blake was arrested. On October 15, 1724, Sheppard used the distraction created during the trial by none other than his ex-partner Blake to escape the confines of the prison.

Sheppard worked himself free from the bindings and, still wearing leg irons, made his way through the prison towards freedom. He got past one barred door after another and climbed multiple floors with makeshift ropes made of blankets, as he had done many times before. Once he was outside of the prison Sheppard took to hiding in a barn. When he was discovered by the farmer Sheppard told him a completely concocted story about why he was wearing the irons. A few days later, Sheppard bribed a blacksmith to cut him free of the bindings. Sheppard did not have long before he was recaptured but he made the best he could of the time. He disguised himself as a beggar and broke into a pawn shop and stole many valuable items including a new suit. He wore the suit and for a few days lived the highlife in London, enjoying everything the city had to offer.

Sheppard was finally arrested again November 1, 1724. He was apprehended while he was drunk and dragged once again, back to prison. Once there the guards placed him in the highest security cell they had in the middle of the prison, where he could be watched at all times. He became something of a celebrity and admission was charged for people to come and view him. Sheppard’s exploits had reached such acclaim, that wealthy people wrote to the Royal Family to have charges against him reduced to exile. A famous artist of the time was even commissioned to come and paint Jack Sheppard. On November 16, 1724, Jack Sheppard was executed by way of hanging. Those noose was placed round his neck, but after the usual fifteen minutes he was still alive. The execution crew cut him down and the crowd that had gathered around to watch, fell upon Sheppard. That evening Sheppard’s badly mutilated remains were taken and buried.

Jack Sheppard became a legend in his own time but it wasn’t until after his death that public interest in his exploits exploded. Many plays, books, operas and short stories were written, produced and performed with rave reviews. People delighted in his crime adventures well over a hundred years after his death. After some controversy and claims that the plays and books telling of Sheppard’s life caused people to misbehave and, in some cases, commit murder, in 1840, any publication with the name ‘Jack Sheppard’ was banned. This ban was to last for a period of forty years. Jack is still referenced today almost three-hundred years after he committed his crimes and baffled the police.