The (Jonathan) Wild Bunch

In my last entry, I mentioned that Jonathan Wild was deserving of an entry on his own. So here it is. Wild, as I said earlier, was a deeply unpleasant man. How unpleasant? Well, he literally invented the double-cross.

A little background information. Back in the early eighteenth century, London didn’t really have any police force to speak of. The concept of a police force was seen as the sort of thing that was all very well in France, but wouldn’t do for the freedom-loving people of Britain. I’d say that in these times of constant surveillance and stopping-and-searching we can see that they had a point, only they actually didn’t, being as how crime was rife. Many parts of London were simply no-go areas. Even in busy parts of the city, robberies took place in broad daylight. Laws became increasingly harsh in an effort to combat the crime rate, with hanging or transportation (to America in those days) being the standard sentence for crimes as minor as pickpocketing.

Henry Fielding, alias Captain Hercules Vinegar. Yes, really.

Novelist and magistrate Henry Fielding pointed out that this was a stupid idea, as people would cease to be deterred by hanging if it was happening on a daily basis and, furthermore, that if you could be hanged for a minor crime, why not commit a major crime if the sentence was the same? By the way, he and his half-brother John would later go on to found the Bow Street Runners, the first police force in the city.

Law enforcement was a strictly local affair, organised on a parish-by-parish basis. There were the constables, who were elected from the ordinary citizens. The position was unpaid and untrained. Then there were the watchmen. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, but if you are, think Sergeant Colon. They were usually elderly and unemployable elsewhere, so they didn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of wrongdoers. Worse, because their jurisdiction was only within the boundaries of the parish, all a criminal had to do was go into another parish and the watchman couldn’t give chase.

The solution was the thief-takers. These chaps, much like modern-day bounty hunters, would track down the criminals and turn them in for the substantial reward money. Jonathan Wild was the best-known of these, and the most effective. He was imprisoned for debt in 1710, and swiftly figured out how to play the (corrupt) system, becoming top dog through a combination of bribery and toadying to the gaolers.

When he was released, he became a pimp and a fence. As he had done in prison, he developed an understanding of how things worked. A gentleman named Charles Hitchen suggested to Wild that he try the profitable career of thief-taking. Hitchen himself was Under-Marshal for London, and made a tidy profit both from his post enforcing the law and from bribery and extortion on the side. Wild was persuaded, and took up office in the Old Bailey.

The service he provided was unique. Victims of robbery would come to Wild and ask for his assistance in retrieving their stolen property. Wild would gladly oblige, for a price. To be fair, he was superb at recovering the stolen goods. That’s largely because he controlled a huge gang of thieves. If it hadn’t been one of his thieves who’d taken the property, he could usually find out who it was. He would work through agents in order to reduce the risk of being fingered for handling stolen goods (I’ve just realised how dirty that sounds).

Not only was he hugely successful as a law enforcer, but his official position also made him hugely successful as London’s first Godfather. He was able to pressure his rivals into joining forces with him or, if that failed, have them executed, thus gaining a virtual monopoly on organised crime in the city. And if any of his own thieves messed up or weren’t showing ’nuff respect, he’d turn them in as well. He even had Hitchin, his old mentor, arrested for sodomy and imprisoned (although that sounds a bit like punishing an alcoholic with a trip to a pub if you ask me). His knowledge of brothels and gambling dens meant he was also able to indulge in a bit of blackmail here and there. Effectively, he was untouchable – he controlled crime and punishment.

To legitimate society, he was a hero. He was a man who made a difference, the most effective law enforcer in the entire country. And he wallowed in it, enjoying the high life much as the prominent East End gangsters would in the twentieth century. He would attend upper-class parties and took to pimping his outfit up with a sword. To the criminal underworld, he was a two-faced snake who would get his yet.

And so he did. You may recall in the previous entry that he made the mistake of going after the popular lovable cockney thief Jack Sheppard. Out of the two, respectable society infinitely preferred Sheppard, who wasn’t on the side of hated authority. His repeated failure to put Sheppard away (or at least, to put Sheppard away without him escaping twenty minutes later) caused others to doubt his infallibility.

He eventually managed to capture Joseph “Blueskin” Blake, Sheppard’s partner-in-crime. Now, remember what I said about how the death sentence might prompt people to commit worse crimes than they might otherwise have done? Well, when Blueskin went to trial, he requested a penalty of transportation, hoping that Wild might be lenient given that they had worked together in the past. This was crediting Wild with too much humanity, and Blueskin was sentenced to death. Deciding things couldn’t get any worse, he knifed Wild in the neck and observed that “never did such a rogue as Wild live, and go unpunished for so long.” At this point, one assumes the guard responsible for searching Blueskin discreetly slipped out.

And then the poo really hit the air circulation device. Some constables, who generally couldn’t be relied upon to find their arses with both hands and very specific directions, somehow managed to arrest Roger Johnson, one of Wild’s men. Suddenly, Wild was exposed. What little of his reputation as remained swiftly evaporated and he was arrested.

Even in gaol, he considered himself untouchable, even continuing to advertise his services. He simply couldn’t believe that respectable society would turn its back on him, and didn’t seem to make the connection between “respectable society” and “those people who’d just found out he’d been robbing them for years.”

When he went on trial in May 1725, he found himself the victim of two ironies. Firstly, he was presented with an incredibly detailed list of his crimes. So much so, one might almost think the forces of justice had used insider knowledge. You know, much as Wild had been doing all these years. And secondly, when he produced a list of all the criminals he’d had executed, the jury took it as a sign not that he was a tireless servant of the law, but that he was a heartless bastard. In desperation, Wild even petitioned the king, pointing out that he hadn’t actually committed murder or treason. When that’s the best thing you can say to recommend yourself, you know you’re in trouble.

And so Wild was sentenced to hang. The mob at his execution was exactly the opposite in temperament to that which had turned out for Jack Sheppard. Mock invitations were sold with the words,

To all the Thieves, Whores, Pick-pockets, Family Fellows &c. in Great Brittain & Ireland.

Gentlemen & Ladies, You are hereby desir’d to accompany yr. worthy friend ye. Pious Mr. J___ W__d from his seat at Whittington Colledge to ye. Tripple Tree, where he’s to make his last Exit on __________, and his Corps to be carry’d from thence to be decently Interr’d amongst his ancestors.

Pray bring this ticket with you.

Wild had attempted suicide the previous night with an overdose of laudanum, and was, as they say, tripping balls at this point. The crowd didn’t care, they were baying for blood and actually urged the hangman on when they thought he was being too slow.

Even his death wasn’t enough for them. A few days later, it was discovered that his grave had been opened and his remains cast about the churchyard.

After his death, he provided much fuel for popular writers, with biographies appearing by Daniel Defoe and Captain A Smith among others. John Gay put him into The Beggars’ Opera in the disguised form of the character Peachum. Arthur Conan Doyle would compare Professor Moriarty to Wild a century and a half later. And even Henry Fielding got in on the act with his satirical novel The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, The Great – a vicious attack that satirises the corrupt Prime Minister, Robert Walpole (remember him?) as much as it does Wild.

Jonathan Wild is neither forgotten nor entirely gone. If you should get the chance to visit the Hunterian Museum, you can take a gander at his skeleton. If that’s your pleasure.

Wait, what’s that you said at the beginning about the double cross?

Ah, thanks for reminding me. Yes, we get the term “double cross” from Jonathan Wild. You see, in order to keep an eye on his vast criminal empire, he had a big ledger of thieves in his employment. Those who were active had a cross next to their name. For those who weren’t up to scratch, he’d put a second cross next to their name, indicating he was going to turn them in. Thus, betrayal was represented by the double-cross.

Mack the Knife – the true story

Mack the Knife is a fine addition to the canon of “cheerful songs about serial killers” (others including Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and Still Alive). It’s been covered by Bobby Darin, Louie Armstrong and (ugh) Robbie Williams among others. Of course, it originates in Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, albeit in a less swinging and more disturbing form. This in turn was based on John Gay’s 18th century play The Beggars’ Opera. Which in turn was based on the exploits of a real person.

The real-life model for Mack the Knife was, it has to be said, somewhat different from the character envisioned by Brecht and Weill. His name was Jack Sheppard, and he was a thief and folk hero operating in the 1720s.

Now, I tend to take the view that most folk heroes are just thugs with good publicity. However, in Sheppard’s case, it’s easy to understand. First of all, he was the original lovable rogue. Born into poverty in Spitalfields, he gave up the life of an apprentice carpenter for a more profitable career in thievery. He was a handsome and witty chap, and probably the closest thing you could get in those days to the “working-class boy made good.” He had a particular knack for escapology, and first came to public attention by escaping from the Roundhouse in St Giles (a sort of temporary prison) by cutting through the roof and using the classic rope-made-of-sheets trick. He was discovered to have escaped almost immediately, and the alarm was raised. Jack’s trick was to hide in the crowd, point towards the rooftops and shout, “Look, there he is!”

Not put off by his encounter with the law, Sheppard took up residence with a young lady known as Edgworth Bess, real name Elizabeth Lyon, and continued in the filching trade. Alas! Within a month he was captured once again, this time for pickpocketing. Bess visited him in prison and was arrested herself. The authorities thought it would be a good idea to put them both in the same cell, a secure one in the New Prison. Unfortunately, visiting friends were able to smuggle tools in, and Jack and Bess were able to saw their way out of their irons. They cut through the window bars and lowered themselves to the ground using a rope made of bedlinen and petticoats. Unfortunately, they discovered that they had just lowered themselves into the yard of Clerkenwell Prison (d’oh!). Undeterred, Jack drove spikes into the wall and the two of them climbed out again.

At this point, he incurred the wrath of Jonathan Wild, who was simultaneously the best policeman in London and the biggest gangster. Wild deserves his own entry, really, but suffice it to say for now that he was a two-faced bully and generally an utter shit. A thief-taker, his legitimate job was to capture criminals for the authorities. Meanwhile, he secretly operated the biggest gang of thieves in London and used his day job (as it were) to keep his criminal employees in line and to remove any obstacles to his position as the city’s Godfather. Sheppard observed of him and his ilk, “They hang by proxy while we do it in person.” Wild saw Sheppard as a potential rival. He got Edgworth Bess hammered on gin and managed to get the whereabouts of Jack out of her.

Jack was arrested and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison, pictured left. He was sentenced to hang under the Bloody Code, a draconian system of laws by which one could be executed or transported for stealing as little as a pocket handkerchief. Of course, this wasn’t the end of the story. Bess made up for her inadvertent betrayal by smuggling a dress into his cell. Meanwhile, Jack loosened a bar in his window and, the very night before he was due to be turned off, Bess and an accomplice pulled him out of the window and they fled.

By this stage, Sheppard was an infamous figure. Wild’s men were in hot pursuit, and I like to imagine at this point that Wild was sitting at his desk muttering, “I’ll get you, Jack Sheppard, if it’s the last thing I do!” Jack was recaptured on Finchley Common, and this time they decided it was going to stick.

He was kept in the most secure cell in Newgate, chained to the floor with specially-made leg irons and under constant observation. Nevertheless, somehow one of the warders caught him strolling around entirely unencumbered, to which he observed that “‘Twas troublesome to always be in one posture.” By this stage I think he was just taking the piss. Nonetheless, they loaded him down with bigger, heavier and even less escapable chains.

And yet, he managed to escape again. That very night he picked one the locks on his irons using a bent nail and then, using bits of the actual irons and pieces of metal found along the way, he broke through various walls in the prison and ended up on the roof. Then – this is my favourite part – he rethought his plan and returned to his cell to get a sheet. Then he went back up to the roof, used the sheet to lower himself on to the next building and simply walked down the stairs to freedom.

Robert Walpole, first Prime Minister of Britain

Things were getting embarrassing for poor old Jonathan Wild (the arsehole), whose previously impeccable reputation was taking a dive. Furthermore, the general public were very clearly on the side of Sheppard. Bear in mind that, as I have said, the laws in place were excessive. One could be hanged for such offences as “kicking Westminster Bridge,” “being seen on the King’s highway with a sooty face” and “impersonating an Egyptian.” The modern prison system didn’t exist, and so if one was found guilty of a felony, the penalty was transportation or death. Mysteriously, though, these harsh sentences didn’t seem to affect the wealthy quite as often as the poor. The Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, was himself an utterly corrupt individual with interests in dodgy speculation and smuggling, and was so good at covering up the activities of himself, his friends and associates that he became known as “Skreen-Master General” to satirists (which he loathed – Walpole could not take a joke). So it’s really not surprising, given the hypocrisy of the upper classes and the poverty of the working classes, that people were on Shepperd’s side.

He was arrested for the last time on 1st November 1724. By this stage, he had developed the belief that he was all but untouchable, and it could be argued that had he fled the country, as advised by friends, he might have avoided justice entirely. Alas, it was not to be, and he was sent to hang fifteen days later.

The execution at Tyburn was not the sobering and educational lesson in justice that the authorities hoped it would be, and the route from Newgate to the gallows was lined with women throwing flowers and men wanting to shake his hand. Abuse was hurled at the chaplain present. Jack’s slight build meant that he found himself throttled by the rope, and sympathetic onlookers rushed forward to pull on his legs in the hope of breaking his neck and shortening his suffering. The mob also protected his body from the surgeons eager to dissect him. The hope had been that Jack might be revived by a local physician, but alas, this didn’t quite work out.

Various dramatisations of Sheppard’s life were produced in the years following. Of course, the best known is the aforementioned The Beggars’ Opera, which premiered in 1728 and not only dramatised the struggle of Sheppard and Wild (in the form of the characters Macheath and Peachum), but satirised the Walpole government viciously. Walpole, as I say, could not take a joke and had John Gay’s next play banned. Which, I think, was perhaps the most effective satirical punchline one could hope for.