Martin Limon tells the story of the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin who was executed at York 270 years ago

The Castle Museum is one of the many attractions York has to offer visitors. Housed in 18th century buildings that were once a gloomy prison for some of the county’s most infamous and dangerous criminals a recent £200,000 refurbishment tells the story of the people who were once incarcerated there. Probably the most celebrated was Dick Turpin, although when he was first brought there his true identity was unknown as he was masquerading as someone called John Palmer.

Turpin was born in Essex around 1705, the son of a local farmer. After serving an apprenticeship as a butcher he began stealing cattle and sheep to supply his business but after this was discovered he fled to the countryside. By late 1734 Turpin had joined Samuel Gregory and a band of desperados who became known as the Essex Gang. The group specialised in breaking into lonely farmhouses and terrorising the female occupants into handing over their money and valuables.

Narrowly escaping capture at an alehouse in Westminster, Turpin went on the run again and became a highwayman swooping down on travellers. A £100 reward for his capture led to gamekeeper Thomas Morris tracking Turpin to his lair but in the ensuing confrontation this would-be hero was shot dead. The murder intensified the hunt for Turpin who it was said he was broad about the shoulders and ‘much marked by smallpox’.

Turpin made his escape northwards and it was now that the East Yorkshire phase of his criminal career began. He adopted the alias of ‘John Palmer’ (his mother’s maiden name) and halted his journey north at Long Sutton in Lincolnshire. Here he was involved, for a few months, in horse stealing, sheep rustling and, perhaps, highway robbery. As complaints about him grew he moved again and, by early 1738, he was staying at several addresses in East Yorkshire including North Cave, Welton and Brough. However, to finance the lifestyle of a country gentleman he made frequent excursions into Lincolnshire to commit more crimes.

In a sworn statement to three East Riding justices, the publican of the Ferry Inn at Brough, William Harris, claimed that Palmer had lodged with him for four or five months. Harris said that Palmer had made numerous trips into Lincolnshire returning with several horses at a time which he then sold. The innkeeper told the magistrates that Palmer had claimed that his father and sister lived at Long Sutton but that he had been forced to flee from his father’s house because of his debts. These lies were soon to be exposed.

If Turpin’s aim, in masquerading as John Palmer, was to keep a low profile and avoid suspicion then his boastful and bizarre behaviour in Brough had the opposite effect. It was Turpin’s erratic, and probably drunken, antics at Brough, which proved to be decisive. Two farm labourers claimed he had shot dead ‘a tame fowl which did belong to Francis Hall of Brough and did throw the said fowl into the fields of Elloughton.’ One of these witnesses said when he tried to remonstrate with ‘Palmer’ he threatened to shoot him too.

For the three East Riding magistrates meeting at Beverley in October 1738 the evidence presented was enough for them to initiate further action. A warrant for the arrest of John Palmer was issued and, according to legend, he was apprehended at the Green Man Inn in Welton (now the Green Dragon). He was committed to the Beverley House of Correction while further enquiries took place. Checks made at Long Sutton in Lincolnshire revealed that Palmer had no family at the place as he had claimed and that he had been arrested there on suspicion of sheep-stealing but had escaped custody. Faced with the evidence of this villainy, George Crowle, one of the East Riding JPs who had questioned him, ordered that he should be moved from the insecure Beverley institution to York Castle. An entry in the County Treasurer’s Account Book held in the East Riding Archive records a payment of £2  2s  0d (£2.10) to  ‘George Smith and another for conveying John Palmer to York Castle.’

For four months ‘Palmer’ languished in the cells at York with the authorities unaware that their prisoner was really the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin, wanted in the Home Counties for robbery and murder. The manner in which they discovered his true identity was almost as ludicrous as the circumstances of his arrest in East Yorkshire. To aid his defence Turpin wrote to his brother asking him to obtain character evidence from London ‘that would go a great way towards my being acquitted.’ Unfortunately for Turpin someone who knew his handwriting - despite it being written in the name of John Palmer - intercepted the letter. When it was revealed that ‘Palmer’ was really ‘Turpin’ his fate was sealed. The charges against him were recorded in a document now held by the National Archives in London. In the indictment of March 1st 1739 against John Palmer, otherwise Richard Turpin, the jurors found him guilty of stealing, at the parish of Welton, a black mare worth £3 and a filly foal worth 20 shillings.

In an age when execution was commonly used for a wide range of crimes, the two charges of horse stealing were enough to warrant the death sentence. In the weeks that followed the trial Turpin achieved celebrity status and received many visitors in the condemned cell. When facing death he also showed a more generous side to his nature. On the day of his execution in 1739, he gave £3  10s   0d (£3.50) to five men who had agreed to act as official mourners and a gold ring to a woman from Brough with whom he had formed a relationship. Determined to make a good show of his final moments Turpin dressed in new clothes and shoes and was taken by horse-drawn cart from York Castle to the gallows situated on the Tadcaster Road. These were known as the York Tyburn and were built, like their more famous counterpart in London, as a triangular structure with three beams supported by three uprights; locally it was known as the ‘three legged mare.’

The public execution attracted a large crowd and they gathered around the gallows to watch Turpin’s demise. Thomas Hadfield, another condemned prisoner, who had been pardoned on condition that he would carry out the execution, performed the grisly job of hangman. A report in the York Courant newspaper records that Turpin died bravely: after talking to the executioner for about half-an-hour he threw himself off the ladder and died of strangulation by the noose in about five minutes.

So ended the life and career of one of Britain’s most notorious criminals. It seems clear that, in spite all the romantic stories written about Turpin, that the house robber, turned highwayman, turned horse -stealer was a menace to a society which had few means to maintain effective law and order. Like so many of his kind Turpin’s undoing was his brash over confidence. When taking chances before he had always managed to stay one step ahead of the law, but his reckless behaviour in East Yorkshire, as John Palmer, meant that his luck finally ran out.