Talk by John Putley of Gloucestershire Archives in May 2023. Report by Stephen Griffiths.
Although the story of Dick Turpin is a fabrication, from W H Ainsworth’s 1834 gothic novel Rookwood, Adam Ant is most definitely a real person. I saw him myself in 1981. Both are examples of the glamourisation of highwaymen from the 19th and 20th centuries. The glamour stems perhaps from the Frenchman Claude Duval, gentleman turned highwayman, who came to England with the returning Charles II. But the reality is that most highwaymen were violent thugs looking to feed their gambling and other addictions with stolen cash and tobacco. John Putley, dressed to kill, told the honest truth to the May meeting of the Society.
The term ‘Highwayman’ is Saxon and first appears in a document from 1017, but the ‘golden’ age was from 1700 to 1830. The 1700s saw a commercial boom in England and many more people travelled from town to town. But the roads at this time were dreadful and a stage coach could only average about seven miles per hour, easy enough to ambush with the tools of the trade. A pair of flintlock pistols were, by 1700, fairly light, accurate, cheap and easy to get hold of. The cleverer chaps would use a stolen horse rather than their own, since horses were easily recognized, just as cars can be used to incriminate someone today.
The majority of highwaymen were ex-soldiers and servants, and only occasionally a young aristocrat in debt. They would often have accomplices and informants who were servants or dishonest landlords. A favourite spot for an ambush was on the brow of a hill, hidden by a copse or bush, on the London road outside a town like Gloucester, Cheltenham, Bristol or Bath. Thus at Birdlip, as you crest the long climb out of Gloucester, watch out for highwaymen. Similarly at Dowdeswell reservoir on the A40 outside Cheltenham. They can see you coming a mile off.
Women were not averse to a spot of highway robbery. One notorious example was Moll Cutpurse (real name Mary Frith) who didn’t turn highwayman until the age of 60. Another, Katherine Ferrers, is the subject of the film The Wicked Lady, starring Margaret Lockwood and James Mason, which broke box-office records in the 1940s. Katherine inherited a considerable estate at the tender age of 8, was married off by unscrupulous relatives at 14 and subsequently asset-stripped. She turned to highway robbery for excitement and revenge and died of wounds received during a robbery at the age of just 26.
Most notorious in Gloucestershire were the Dunsdon brothers, Tom, Dick and Harry (I kid you not). After holding up the Gloucester to Oxford stage coach they attempted to rob a house named Tangley Hall. But the house had received a tip-off and when Dick put his arm through the window it was grabbed and roped. His brothers had to chop his arm off to free him, but poor Dick bled to death anyway. His brothers were caught and ended up hanging in the gibbet soon after.
Perhaps the most farcical was William Crew from Wotton-under-Edge. He never disguised himself and was easily caught. During the American war of independence he was let out of prison to enlist. Obviously, he deserted. He stole a blind horse which ran straight into a quarry leaving him seriously injured. Eventually achieving fame at the end of his career, 10,000 spectators attended his execution at Gloucester. Perhaps the most popular was the aristocrat James Maclaine, who received 3,000 paying visitors in Newgate prison, making enough to pay for a new suit of clothes to be hanged in.
By the 1830s, turnpikes had improved the roads so that coaches were faster and less easy to stop. Also, the wise traveller would carry new-fangled cheques rather than cash. The only highwaymen hanging around were those in the gibbets that became popular tourist attractions. One last word from an ex-highwayman, ‘never travel on a Sunday’, the roads are too quiet and all the good people are in church.