Jack Sheppard was a notorious English thief and prison escapee of early 18th-century London. Born into a poor family, he was apprenticed as a carpenter but took to theft and burglary in 1723, with little more than a year of his training to complete. He was arrested and imprisoned five times in 1724 but escaped four times from prison, making him a notorious public figure. Ultimately he was caught, convicted, and hanged at Tyburn, ending his brief criminal career after less than two years.
About Jack Sheppard in brief
Jack Sheppard was a notorious English thief and prison escapee of early 18th-century London. Born into a poor family, he was apprenticed as a carpenter but took to theft and burglary in 1723, with little more than a year of his training to complete. He was arrested and imprisoned five times in 1724 but escaped four times from prison, making him a notorious public figure, and wildly popular with the poorer classes. Ultimately he was caught, convicted, and hanged at Tyburn, ending his brief criminal career after less than two years. The character of Macheath in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera was based in part on Sheppard, keeping him in the limelight for over 100 years. He returned to the public consciousness around 1840, when William Harrison Ainsworth wrote a novel entitled Jack Sheppard. Peter Linebaugh offers a romantic view of Sheppard’s sudden transformation from drudgery to drab labour. He claims that sheppard was the source of his ruin, but later claimed that his later life was more romantic than his criminal past. He is also known as Edgworth Bess, or Edg Worth, and as ‘Honest Jack’ or ‘Gentleman Jack’ Sheppard died in 1763, aged 48, and was buried at Edgeworth in Middlesex, Middlesex. He had a pale face with large, dark eyes, a wide mouth and a quick smile. Despite a slight stutter, his wit made him popular in the taverns of Drury Lane.
He served five unblemished years of his apprenticeship but then began to be led into crime. The inability of the notorious \”Thief-Taker General\” Jonathan Wild to control Sheppard led to Wild’s downfall. According to his autobiography, he had been an innocent until going to Hayne’s tavern, but there began an attachment to Elizabeth Lyon, a prostitute. He later claimed she was the main lodestone in attracting him up to London. He also claimed that he was a victim of Guilt Guilt, and later claimed he had a romantic relationship with Eminence Bess. He died in London in 1761, aged 50, and is buried at Ty burn, near St Helen’s Bishopsgate, London, where he lived with his wife and two children. He left behind a wife and three children, including a son and two daughters, who died in childhood. He never remarried or had any children of his own. His last will and testament was published in 1762, and he is buried in St Dunstan’s, Stepney, near London, with his mother and two brothers. He has a son, Thomas, and a younger sister, Mary. His parents named him after an older brother, John, who had died before his birth. By 1722, He was a small man, only 5’4\” and lightly built, but deceptively strong. Aged 20, He had been showing great promise as aCarpenter, but by 1722 he was showing great.
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