JOHN [

See also:

• JACK

JACK]

See also:

• JOHN [JACK] SHEPPARD (1702-1724)

SHEPPARD (1702-1724)  , English criminal, was born at Stepney, near London, in December 1702 . His father, who, like his grandfather and great-grandfather, was a carpenter, died the following year, and Jack Sheppard was brought up in the Bishopsgate workhouse . One of his father's old employers apprenticed him to the family trade, but young Sheppard fell into bad company at a neighbouring Drury Lane tavern . Here he met Elizabeth Lyon, known as " Edgeworth Bess," a woman of loose character with whom he lived, and to gratify whose tastes he committed many of his crimes . At the end of 1723 he was arrested as a runaway apprentice, and thence-forward, he says, " I fell to robbing almost every one that stood. in my way," Joseph Blake, known as " Blueskin," being a frequent confederate . In the first six months of 1724 he twice escaped from gaol, and towards the end of that period he was responsible for an almost daily robbery in or near London . Eventually, however, his independent attitude provoked the bitter enmity of Jonathan Wild, who procured his capture at the end of July . Sheppard was tried at the Old Bailey and condemned to death, but, largely thanks to " Edgeworth Bess," he managed to escape from the condemned cell, and was soon back in his old haunts . In September he was rearrested and imprisoned in the strongest part of Newgate, being actually chained to the floor of his cell, but by a combination of strength and skill he escaped through the chimney to the roof of the prison, whence he lowered himself into the adjoining house . After a few days' concealment he was rash enough to reappear in the Drury Lane quarter . He was captured, hopelessly drunk, in a Clare Market tavern and reimprisoned, his cell being now watched night and day . On the 16th of November 1724 he was hanged at Tyburn .

He was then not quite twenty-two . Sheppard has been made the unworthy

hero of much romance, of which Harrison Ainsworth's novel, Jack Sheppard (1839), is the most notable instance . In truth he was merely a vulgar scoundrel, who did not hesitate to rob his only real friend . See A Narrative of all the Robberies, Escapes, &c., of John Sheppard, attributed to Daniel Defoe (London, 1724) ; Newgate Calendar, ed . Knapp and Baldwin; Griffiths, Chronicles of Newgate; British Journal (August, October 1724) ; Weekly Journal (August, September, November 1724) ; Celebrated Trials .