England’s Beloved Criminal and His Nemesis: Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild
During the early eighteenth century, there was only one name on everyone’s lips: Jack Sheppard. As only a young man, his daring exploits and many escapes from prison captivated the nation. By successfully creating an exaggerated form of himself, he became an instant celebrity. Biographies about him helped to spread news about his criminal undertakings but also fuelled public opinion against Jonathan Wild, the man who eventually helped to seal Sheppard’s executionary fate.
Jack Sheppard turned to criminal life when he stopped his carpenter’s apprenticeship after only six years, due to becoming involved with the prostitute Elizabeth Lyons. Eighteenth century biographers condemned her as the one to tempt Sheppard away from the possibility of a respectable life. From then on, he was committed to a life of theft and housebreaking. Whilst he was arrested for these four times, it also meant that he was good at escaping prison. His first escape in 1723 was with Elizabeth Lyons from New Prison in Clerkenwell and they escaped from a window using a rope made from sheets. The second was from Newgate, where he filed the spikes of a hatch on his condemned cell so that Lyons and a friend of hers, Moll Maggot, could squeeze him through the gap.
At this point, the Newgate authorities were determined to track Sheppard down and put him back in prison because of the criticism they had faced for the escape. The authorities eventually tracked him down and placed him back in Newgate, along with a ball and chain on both legs, rather than handcuffs. This third and final escape was his most famous. Somehow, a file and chisel were found in Sheppard’s cell concealed in a bible, clearly showing his intent to make another escape, probably passed to him by some visitor, as visitors were not searched before entering the prison. Once these tools were found, he was moved into a more secure part of the prison called ‘the Castle’. It was here that he escaped from by tunnelling through into another cell and then climbed out the window using a rope made from sheets.
During his final stint in Newgate, Sheppard became a celebrity. Many people, rich and poor, came to catch a glimpse of the most famous criminal in Britain at the time. The successful prison escapes had turned him into a sensational news story that captivated Britain. Even the royal painter, James Thornhill, sketched him and George II also ordered prints about his escapes from custody. The visitors would have had stories told of Sheppard’s criminal dealings first hand and it was here that his public image would have been created. Magical explanations were given for his escapes which were spread by the newspapers to fuel further interest in Jack Sheppard’s already popular image.
Sheppard’s execution was attended by around 100,000 spectators who wished to witness a final and even more extravagant escape than his previous ones. Some women showed their admiration for him by laying flowers for Sheppard to walk on or threw petals over him as he passed. A pocket knife he was going to use for this escape was found and confiscated, thwarting any possible plans. His back up option of a friend, John Applebee, assisting in the escape was also hindered. Applebee was mistaken for a body snatcher, so Sheppard was never saved.
Jonathan Wild is intrinsically linked to the life and legacy of Jack Sheppard. Wild was a thief-taker, a role which allowed civilian men to be hired by victims of crime to bring the thieves to justice. Wild was a corrupt criminal who was paid protection money by others who had taken part in crime, whilst his gangs were responsible for crimes that victims paid him to investigate and catch the perpetrators. He was believed to have been responsible for sending seventy five criminals to the gallows before he himself was finally executed for being the organiser of the crimes instead. One of those criminals was Jack Sheppard and so, with public opinion so positive for Sheppard, Wild was seen as the scapegoat for Sheppard’s eventual execution. This feeling increased when he attempted to overdose on laudanum before his own execution, leading to stones, excrement and dead animals being thrown at him, contrasting to the flowers used for Jack Sheppard. This behaviour indicates that the image of Sheppard and his own sense of celebrity had directly influenced the way in which they viewed Wild and accused him of the downfall of a beloved and public hero. The newspapers played a huge role in spreading this image for they portrayed Sheppard as greater than he was. This helped to close the gaps of previous social, physical or psychological divides between the audience and the criminal.
Sheppard’s criminal exploits, particularly his escapes from prison, helped to mock authority and pronounced him, the criminal, a hero instead. For Sheppard had come to embody the source of fascination the public had with criminality through a mixture of elegance and danger that it possessed. Just as Wild was seen as the exact opposite of Sheppard, this was easily fuelled by his representation in Henry Fielding’s novel Jonathan Wild. Wild’s villainous ways are exaggerated in this as his underhand behaviour is compared with heroic deeds of classical figures The lives of these two people will be forever linked because it was Jonathan Wild who helped create the final capture of Jack Sheppard, the nation’s sweetheart criminal.
Basdeo, S., The Lives and Exploits of the Most Notes Highwaymen, Rogues and Murderers (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2018), p. 65.
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Amazing-Escapes-of-Jack-Sheppard/; Basdeo, S., The Lives and Exploits of the Most Notes Highwaymen, Rogues and Murderers, pp. 66-67.
Basdeo, S., The Lives and Exploits of the Most Notes Highwaymen, Rogues and Murderers, p. 71.
Basdeo, S., The Lives and Exploits of the Most Notes Highwaymen, Rogues and Murderers, pp. 68 and 71.
Basdeo, S., The Lives and Exploits of the Most Notes Highwaymen, Rogues and Murderers, p. 72.
Rawlings, P., Drunks, Whores and Idle Apprentices: Criminal Biographies of the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 39-40.
Rawlings, P., Drunks, Whores and Idle Apprentices, p. 40.
Arnold, C., Underworld London, p. 105.
McDonald, F., Gentleman Rogues and Wicked Ladies, p. 23.
Arnold, C., Underworld London, p. 108-109.
Brewer, J., The Pleasures of the Imagination, p. 346.
Arnold, C., Underworld London, p. 110.
British Journal 17 October 1724, Weekly Journal 17 October 1724 and London Journal 24 October 1724 cited in Rawlings, P., Drunks, Whores and Idle Apprentices, p. 40.
Chris Rojek, Celebrity cited in Zionkowski, L., ‘Celebrity Violence in the Careers of Savage, Pope and Johnson’, p. 169.
Arnold, C., Underworld London, p. 99.
Brewer, J., The Pleasures of the Imagination, p. 350.
Rawson, C., ‘Henry Fielding’, in Richetti, J. (eds) The Cambridge Companion to the Eighteenth Century Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 139; Terry, R., ‘Key Critical Concepts and Topics’, in Day, G. and Keegan, B. (eds) The Eighteenth Century Literature Handbook (London: Continuum, 2009), pp. 127-128; Farrell, W. J., ‘The Mock-Heroic Form of “Johnathan Wild”’, Modern Philology, 63.3 (1966), p. 221; Goring, P., Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture, p. 86.
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