Drunks, Whores and Idle Apprentices: Criminal Biographies of the Eighteenth Century

by PHILIP RAWLINGS

  99 See also The Life of Patrick Madan, London, 1781; An Account of John Westcote, p. 21.

  100 McKeon, Origins of the English Novel, p. 99.

  I THE HISTORY OF… JOHN SHEPPARD (1724)

  1 INTRODUCTION

  John Sheppard’s skill as a thief seems to have been fairly ordinary, but he had an aptitude for escaping from prison and this made him famous. He was born in Spitalfields in March 1702 and was hanged, for housebreaking, at Tyburn in November 1724. In September 1724, after an escape from Newgate Prison, he was described by the prison authorities as ‘about 23 Years of Age, about 5 Foot 4 Inches high, very slender, of a pale Complection, has lately been very sick, did wear a light Bobb Wigg, light colour’d Coat and white Waistcoat, has an Impediment in his Speech, and is a Carpenter by Trade.’1 According to another report at about the same time, he ‘appears to be very young, having a perfect Boy’s Countenance and Stature, and not like one of 22 Years’,2 a description which is confirmed by Sir James Thornhill’s portrait of him.

  Although the newspapers of the time loved to refer to him as ‘the famous House breaker’,3 neither he nor his crimes attracted any significant media attention until after his first escape from Newgate on 31 August 1724, and even then one of the main London newspapers, the Daily Post, did not begin to print reports about him until after his recapture.4 It may have been that the degree of attention which was given to his escapes from Newgate was as a result of what the London Journal had referred to earlier in the summer as ‘this Dearth of News’.5 Certainly, both attempted and successful escapes from prisons, including Newgate, were common. In June 1724 Peter Curtis and John Parkinson dug a large hole in the wall of the condemned cell in Newgate in their attempt, and in July Thomas Fox actually escaped;6 in the following October, whilst Sheppard was still at liberty after his second escape, a number of felons in Newgate tried a mass break-out;7 and in November Sheppard’s comrade, Joseph Blake, and a forger called Abraham Duval or Deval damaged the condemned cell so badly during their escape attempt that all the prisoners had to be removed and put elsewhere.8

  In any event, Sheppard’s fame was at its peak from September to November 1724, that is, during the period of his two escapes from Newgate and up to the time he was hanged. Crowds of the gentry and aristocracy flocked to see and to talk to him in Newgate, Sir James Thornhill, the royal painter, sketched him, George II ordered prints depicting his escapes, and a leading actor in a play about him called Harlequin in Newgate went to study him in person. As the Daily Journal reported, he had become a major tourist attraction: ‘The Country People as come to London flock daily to see three great Curiosities as this Town at present affords, viz. The two young Lyons stuff’d at the Tower; the Ostrich on Ludgate-Hill; and the famous John Sheppard in Newgate.’ The gaolers were said to have made £200 from the visitors.9 Sheppard featured in ballads, ballad operas, plays, satires, prints and biographies, and almost twenty years later one commentator remarked, ‘I don’t remember any Felon in this Kingdom, whose Adventures have made so much Noise as Sheppard’s.’10 Indeed, he was still ‘spoken of and sung with applause’ by children in the streets of London at the end of the century,11and William Ainsworth’s popular novel, Jack Sheppard (1839), assured the continuation of his fame into the next century and beyond.12

  To a large extent Sheppard’s fame was a product of newspaper reporting—perhaps the first instance of newspapers building up a popular image of an individual. His first escape from Newgate was reported by the newspapers as a dextrous piece of work in which he had been aided by two women. He was quickly recaptured, but he escaped again during the night of 16 October 1724. The newspapers now put his abilities onto a different level of skill. This time the involvement of outside help was positively refuted and magical explanations advanced. According to the Evening Post, ‘This Escape has astonish’d the World, and ‘tis demonstrable, that he had not the least Assistance from any Persons whatsoever’,13 while the Weekly Journal, or Saturday’s Post reported that the escape ‘hath struck the Keepers with such Amazement, that they think he was assisted, in this last Enterprize, by the Devil himself’.14 Other newspapers noted the ‘great Astonishment’ of the Newgate officers and ‘the great Admiration of all People’ for Sheppard’s escape.15 His recapture at night on 31 October, while drinking brandy at a chandler’s shop in his old neighbourhood of Drury Lane, did not lead the newspapers to view his skills as in any way diminished. For instance, the Daily Post concluded its report of his recapture with Sheppard defying the gaolers to hold him ‘with all their Irons, Art and Skill’.16 All the newspapers recorded in great detail the elaborate precautions which the gaolers took to prevent another escape, but the reports are underpinned by the idea of Sheppard’s omnipotence. So, although he was said to have been chained to the floor by ‘300 Pounds of Weight of Irons’, it was noted that this alone was not sufficient and there were also ‘two Persons…appointed to watch him Night and Day’.17 The expectation of a third escape was kept alive by false stories of his having actually escaped again,18 and reports that he had offered to demonstrate his escapology skills to the judges of the Court of the King’s Bench.19

  It is within this context of newspaper reporting that The History Of the remarkable Life of John Sheppard must be read, for a key element in the construction of the narrative is the way in which it is a response to Sheppard’s popular fame. His escapes are, apparently, portrayed very much in the same way as they were in the newspapers; indeed, if anything, their supernatural element is heightened by being introduced very early on. He enters, with ease, the home of his master and mistress, Mr and Mrs Wood, in spite of being locked out, ‘such was the power of his early Magick’ (p. 4); after starting on a life of crime and being arrested he makes what is referred to as a ‘Miraculous’ escape from New Prison (p. 10); his first escape from Newgate reveals him as ‘a Creature something more than Man, a Protoeus, Supernatural’ (p. 47). His ‘magic’ enables him not only to escape from prisons, but also to overthrow the authority of those whom he previously served as an apprentice or employee. Those employers who oppose him or who have testified against him, such as Kneebone, live in fear when he escapes from Newgate and as a result are ‘put to great Expence and Trouble to Guard themselves against this dreadful Villain’ (p. 24). His power is such that ‘none durst attempt him’ (p. 22), so while Kneebone is cowering in his fortified house, Sheppard is out drinking brandy and eating oysters in a nearby alehouse (p. 22).

  The History also describes a frenzy among the labouring poor over Sheppard’s exploits. Amongst them no work is done because they are ‘all engag’d in Controversies and Wagers, about Sheppard’ (p. 27). So it is that the portrayal in The History of Sheppard as a supernatural being seems to subscribe to the general mood of the newspapers and, perhaps, of the people. But this image is built up only to be demolished. There is a telling episode early in the biography when Sheppard steals a suit from Barton. Barton is described as ‘a Master Taylor, a Man of Worth and Reputation’, in other words, the epitome of a successful member of the middling classes who had been Sheppard’s employers. Sheppard has the suit altered for his own use (pp. 10–11). This act at first seems to symbolize his assumption of the role of the master, but what it actually reveals is the shallowness of his power. Putting on the suit which does not fit him hints at the lack of substance in his power.

  Undoubtedly, The History sought to gain a market by exploiting the excitement of Sheppard’s escapades, but ultimately he is portrayed as subhuman and rather pathetic. After meeting Elizabeth Lyon and leaving the ‘good and careful patronage’ of his master, Wood, he is no longer a human with the power to reason, but an animal reacting to brute passions. He is ‘a Dog’, ‘the slippery Ele’ and ‘a Lost Sheep’. His inability to reason like a human being is revealed by his failure to take even the most elementary precautions against capture: after his escape from New Prison he returns to his old neighbourhood, ‘like a Dog to his Vomit’, and is, therefore, easily recaptured. Ove
rall, his crimes and his escapes are portrayed as rather pointless, and the message that no one can overturn or escape from the ‘natural’ social order is clear. All of which was doubtless reassuring to the middling-class readers who, while presumably enjoying the excitement of the tale, ultimately identified not with Sheppard, but with the fears and vulnerability of the Woods and of Kneebone.

  Other biographies of Sheppard present similar points of view. For instance, one, which was probably published in 1725, said that he was pitied by ‘both Rich and Poor, Noble and Ignoble’, and added that,

  the Boldness in his Attempts, and the Presence of Mind he always had to release himself out of Difficulties, made him pitied even by his Enemies, and those very Persons whom he had injured, could not but say, it was pity such an ingenious Fellow should be a Thief; which puffed him up with so much Ambition, that he even took a Pleasure in telling of his Rogueries, and usually sent the Company away, who came to see him in his Chains, with as much Pleasure as Admiration.20

  In the long term, the subtleties of The History did not undermine the myth of Sheppard. Indeed, since the interest in him was the reason for the publication, it was in the continuation of that interest that its hope for popular success lay, and, of course, merely writing about Sheppard ensured that the biography reinforced his fame. Moreover, Sheppard’s recapture and death after The History had been published led its astute publisher, John Applebee, to replace it with another, up-to-date, although rather inferior product, A Narrative Of all the Robberies, Escapes, &c. of John Sheppard.

  The History is also a classic illustration of a plot structure which has been mentioned in the General Introduction to this book. A male apprentice from a poor background meets a woman who turns him from his apprenticeship and into crime. Before meeting Lyon, Sheppard was an excellent worker ‘and had the Character of a very sober and orderly Boy’ (p. 2). It is his ‘fatal Acquaintance’ with Lyon which ‘laid the Foundation of his Ruin’ (p. 2). The theme is that youths, like Sheppard, are vulnerable to the temptations of vice, symbolized by Lyon, and their only protection is ‘the good and careful Patronage’ of a master within the context of a disciplined apprenticeship. There is implicit criticism of Wood, who fails to maintain adequate control over Sheppard, but such criticism is only made significant because of the implicit view that social control could best be achieved by the middling classes. In this way even the element of criticism asserts the importance of their hegemony. This plot structure reveals a tension between shifts in capitalism and class and concern about social order. The development of laissez-faire capitalism was clearly opposed to, first, what were seen as the stifling effects of apprenticeship on the free market, in which the balancing of supply and demand was all-important, and, second, the desire of the middling classes to improve their status by emulating the gentry while at the same time reducing their contact with their employees. On the other hand, for some apprenticeship seemed to offer the hope of social order controlled by an employer who combined that role with those of parent and spiritual adviser.

  Women, such as Elizabeth Lyon, play an important part in biographies of this type. Lyon’s role in Sheppard’s life is a reversal of what was regarded as the proper and natural role of women, in that it was she who dominated Sheppard, rather than the other way around. Her independence, autonomy and dominance over Sheppard are seen as unnatural and, therefore, as symbols of her corruption. Unlike Sheppard, Lyon is presented as almost totally devoid of any traces of human nature. She personifies evil, and as such mirrors the role which many took to be Eve’s in the Garden of Eden, namely, that the Devil turned her to evil and then left it up to her to persuade Adam to break God’s command.21 The biography reproduces this set of relationships. Lyon takes Sheppard from honest work and leads him into crime: Lyon/women embodied the evil which tempted Sheppard/men from the ‘good and careful Patronage’ of the middle-class employer (Wood/God).

  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

  a contemporary wrote of having seen ‘six or seven different Histories of [Sheppard’s] Life’,22 and the leading publisher of criminal biographies at that time, John Applebee, was at the forefront of this rush. No doubt sensing the market, he published The History just after Sheppard’s second escape from Newgate, and then produced the first edition of A Narrative Of all the Robberies, Escapes, &c. of John Sheppard on the day Sheppard was hanged. A notice confirming the authenticity of A Narrative was published in the Daily Journal—a newspaper in which Applebee was involved—wo days before Sheppard’ death, purportedly signed by Sheppard and witnessed by Lewis Houssart, who was also in the condemned cell.23 The Daily Journal and, apparently, Parker’s London News, or the Impartial Intelligencer, reported one of Applebee’s marketing coups. On the day of the hanging, when Sheppard ‘arrived at the Tree, he sent for Mr. Applebee, a Printer, into the Cart, and in the View of several thousands of People, deliver’d to him’ a printed copy of A Narrative.24

  Scholars have argued that there was a connection between Defoe and Applebee, that it was Defoe who took delivery of the pamphlet at Tyburn, and that he wrote both The History and A Narrative, as well as essays on Sheppard for Applebee’s Original Weekly Journal. There is no real evidence to support any of this. It seems unlikely that someone in their sixties, as Defoe was, would have relished the prospect of getting into the middle of what was certain to be a large and rather volatile crowd.25 Furthermore, a glance at the two texts reveals quite a difference in the quality of the writing which does at least suggest that there were two writers.

  A biography of Sheppard seems also to have been included in another of Applebee’s publications, the Ordinary of Newgate’s Account. However, although this was advertised as published in November 1724, it does not seem to have survived. It is likely that it was based on the work referred to in the title-page of The History as written by Rev. Wagstaffe, the deputy for the absent Ordinary, Thomas Purney. Presumably Wagstaffe’s account was originally intended for publication in the Account which appeared in early September, following the original day appointed for Sheppard to be hanged. However, the Authentic Memoirs of the Life and Surprising Adventures of John Sheppard says that the Account of Sheppard was published on 17 November 1724, by Purney, and, according to The History of the Lives and Actions of Jonathan Wild, Purney did return from the country to visit Sheppard before he was hanged.

  Moore, in his bibliography of Defoe’s works,26 includes both The History and A Narrative without providing evidence for such an ascription. He also dates A Narrative as the earlier of the two, which is certainly wrong: A Narrative was advertised in eight editions, the first being published on 16 November 1724;27 whereas The History was advertised in three editions, the first appearing on 19 October 1724, the second on 24 October and the third some time before 2 November. The last advertisement for The History appeared on 13 November, the day before the publication of Applebee’s more up-to-date biography, A Narrative, was announced as imminent.28

  Apart from those already mentioned, there were several other biographies of Sheppard published in 1724–5: A Narrative of the Life and Robberies, and further Surprising Escapes of John Sheppard. To which is prefix’d, exact Draughts of the several Locks he broke, and the Breaches he made in the Rooms through which be pass’d, when he made his Escape out of Newgate; with a particular account of his being Retaken, and an exact Draught of the Manner he is now fetter’d down in the Stone Room in Newgate, London, T.Turner, 1724. This was advertised in the Evening Post, 14 November 1724, but I have been unable to trace a copy. Authentic Memoirs of the Life and Surprising Adventures of John Sheppard; Who was Executed at Tyburn, November the 16th, 1724. By way of Familiar Letters from a Gentleman in Town, to his Friend and Correspondent in the Country, London, J.Marshall, 1724. The text itself suggests that it was published on 17 November. J.Thurmond, Harlequin Sheppard. A Night Scene in Grotesque Characters: As it is Perform’d at the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane, London, J.Roberts and A.Dodd, 1724, Introduction, pp. 5–12. The History of the
Lives and Actions of Jonathan Wild, Thief-Taker. Joseph Blake alias Bleuskin, Foot-Pad. And John Sheppard, House-breaker, London, Edw. Midwinter, [1725?]. J.Villette, The Annals of Newgate, or the Malefactor’s Register, 4 volumes, London, 1776, vol. I, pp. 253–72, prints a biography, the source of which is unclear, although perhaps Villette’s post as Ordinary of Newgate gave him access to the lost Ordinary of Newgate’s Account of Sheppard.

  For modern biographies see H.Bleackley and S.M.Ellis, The Trial of Jack Sheppard, Edinburgh, 1933. C.Hibbert, Road to Tyburn, London, 1969. G. Howson, Thief-taker General: The Rise and Fall of Jonathan Wild, London, 1970, passim.

  NOTES

  1 Daily Post, 4 September 1724; Daily Journal, 4 September 1724; Evening Post, 10 September 1724; Daily Courant, 4 September 1724, 20 October 1724.

  2 Parker’s London News, 11 November 1724.

  3 London Journal, 7 November 1724; British Journal, 7 November 1724; Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer,7 November 1724.

  4 Although see The Original London Post, 27 February 1724.

  5 London Journal, 22 August 1724.

  6 Daily Post, 15 June 1724. They failed and were hanged the next day: Daily Post, 16 June 1724. For Fox’s escape see GLRO, MJ/SBB/823/1724 July, p. 68.

  7 Daily journal, 14 October 1724.

  8 British Journal, 14 November 1724. Twelve years later Daniel Maden escaped twice from the condemned hold in Newgate, only to be recaptured and eventually hanged, but, although he attracted a certain amount of attention, it was nothing like that accorded to Sheppard: London Evening Post, 25 May 1736, 29 May 1736, 15 June 1736, 18 September 1736, 25 September 1736, 28 September 1736, 7 October 1736, 16 October 1736, 30 October 1736, 2 November 1736.