Scoundrel’s Alley Presents: The Scholarly Scoundrel on A Continuing Series of Thoughts Pertinent to Historical Scoundrels Everywhere.

To be Hanged by the Neck for the Sake of an Opera Written by a Beggar!-Capt. MacHeath (The Beggar’s Opera. Dir. Peter Brook, Warner Bros., 1953. Film)
Bad company corrupts good character. Apostle Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15 verse 34, quoting the Greek poet Menander.

In 1715, a select group of men that included Alexander Pope, Thomas Parnell and John Arbuthnot joined John Gay and Jonathon Swift to create the ‘Scriblerus Club’, a group dedicated to mercilessly satirizing the contemporary literature of the time. Swift and Gay would strike up a close friendship, writing to each other their thoughts on ideas, literary consideration and even court gossip. It was Swift who suggested that Gay enlarge his poem ‘Newgate Garland’, about the influence Jonathon Wild had on the criminal elements of the time, into a longer more thoughtful work. Thus the ‘Beggar’s Opera’ was born.

But who WAS the criminal Jonathon Wild, and why was he interesting enough to be the basis for not only a ballad poem, but the foundation of ‘musical theater’? What of the others that we can see so heavily influencing the characters Gay will create? What made them so interesting as to capture the imagination of theatergoers for well over 150 years? Three real life people figured heavily in influencing Gay’s libretto of ‘The Beggar’s Opera’. These were the aforementioned Wild, Mary Webb and Jack Sheppherd.

Jonathon Wild was born around 1682 in Wolverhampton, England. At the age of 21 he was apprenticed to a London lawyer, but within two years had run away to become a bounty hunter for debtors, known as a ‘setter’. At every turn though, Wild seems to have wandered both sides of the law. In 1709 he himself will be thrown into Wood Street Compter for a debt owed to William Smith, who was himself a professional burglar. Wild will stay there until released in 1712 by a statute passed entitled ‘An Act for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors by obliging their Creditors to accept the utmost Satisfaction they are capable to make and restoring them to their liberty.’ (Statutes of the Realm 1712: 10 Anne c.20: An Act for Relief of Insolvent Debtors.) In short, the courts came to accept that incarceration of the debtor until he ‘paid in full’ was untenable given they were incarcerated and unable to work. Therefore, the debt had to be satisfied with whatever could be given, up to including sale of all properties owned by the debtor. Once that had occurred, the debtor was given his freedom. What debt to a ‘professional burglar’ could have caused this mishap in Wild’s life is, alas unknown. Leaving prison Wild landed in St. Giles in the Field, a district in southwest London long known to be a gathering place for every sort of vagaries. There, Wild would partner with Mary Milliner (Mary Mollineaux), a known thief. Together along with Moll King (Elizabeth Adkins, the inspiration for Daniel DeFoe’s Moll Flanders) they ran both a tavern and a brothel. There they practiced and expounded on the crime known colloquially as ‘Buttocks and Twang’, accomplished by having Milliner entice someone into an alleyway with promises of an illicit sort. After picking his pocket while he was otherwise distracted, Wild would then attack him, giving Milliner time to escape. What made them so specialized at this art was that unlike others who might do this and immediately sell off whatever they could grab, Wild and Milliner would use what they found to blackmail their victim, or to present themselves a day or so later with the ‘recovered goods’ to seek reward. Wild will later parlay this later into a vast ‘Lost Property Office’ which was in reality nothing more than a building to resell stolen goods, known as a ‘stalling ken’ in the criminal language. But instead of reselling the stolen goods, they would advertise them in such a way that the victim would come and claim them, making it seem a legitimate and needed business. Unless of course he was able to blackmail the victim or, in the case of ‘business’ items or papers sell them to the victims’ competitors. Probably his greatest ‘achievement’, which also led to his eventual downfall, was to name himself ‘Thief Taker General of England’, a title and position that did not exist. Wild would give himself this ‘title’ and it was with this move that his criminal empire began to grow.

The name ‘thief taker’ was not new when Wild took on the title. The practice of capturing and prosecuting criminals for a guaranteed fee from the government began as a result of the ‘Society of a Reformation of Manners’, a group of wealthy London persons in 1690. They will publish a series of pamphlets and other writings, the best known and most widely spread being A Proposal for a National Reformation of Manners as well as petitions to the court in order to garner the beginnings of an early ‘police’ force. It was in response to both the political fear of another Catholic uprising as well as the increase in general criminal activity, that on September 13, 1692, Queen Mary II will issue a royal proclamation offering 40 pounds per head for the apprehension and conviction of highwaymen and burglars. While the ‘office’ of ‘thief taker’ as it was colloquially known was never officially sanctioned, under this law any person could act as an impromptu ‘bounty hunter’ and collect these monies.(Anonymous, A Proposal for a National Reformation of Manners, John Dunton, London 1694) This in itself sets Wild up to have both sides of the coin. For in truth, as he was well known for his other businesses, he would use the ‘thief taker’ excuse to go after and apprehend competitors. In addition, he kept a list of people, friends and foe alike. If they did something against his wishes or cost him in some way, he would place a cross by their name. If they did something to warrant his attention in a bad way again, he would place a second or ‘double cross’ by their name, and turn them in for the bounty. This phrase ‘double cross’ will be used in the criminal language to mean to ‘turn on a partner’ and is one of many words that survive today in modern language today. He was known to have done this not only for enemies, but for his own crew who had ‘lost their usefulness’ or just for the extra money they might bring for him. In short, Wild was a tavern owner, brothel keeper, thief, thief taker, blackmailer, fence, coiner, forger, smuggler, protection racketeer and had bought off most of the government officials in London.

He was finally arrested and placed in Newgate Prison in February, 1725 for helping organize a prison break for one of his men. Then, on May 15, he was charged and tried on two counts. One count of stealing 50 yards of lace from Catharine Statham, a local lace merchant and the second for the fraud of helping ‘recover’ the stolen items but not prosecuting the thief. He was found innocent of the first, guilty of the second and on 24 May, 1725 executed at Tyburn tree Gallows.
Given that writers of the time will be sensationalizing these criminals and their actions, we would expect Wild, in the romanticized way that Gay will try to portray him in both the song ‘Newgate’s Garland’ and his ‘Beggars Opera’, to approach death with a flamboyant and care-free air. Instead, Wild tried to commit suicide by drinking laudanum the morning of the hanging, but was unsuccessful. He was the last to be hanged that day, in an almost death like stupor. (Defoe, Daniel. A True & Genuine Account of the Life and Actions of the late Jonathan Wild, Not made up of Fictions and Fable, but taken from his Own Mouth and collected from PAPERS of his Own Writing. London, 1725.) In what some might consider a ‘romantically fitting end’ to such a colorful criminal, no sooner than he was buried that evening next to his third wife in St. Pancras Churchyard, his body was exhumed and sold to the Royal College of Surgeons for dissection, a common and legal practice for convicted criminal bodies at the time. His skeleton is displayed there to this day. Gay would not stop there, but continued on using the known criminals of the time to create his characters.

Whether Gay knew Mary Young (at times known as Mary Webb or Jane Young) or not is not known. But he certainly knew the exploits of ‘Jenny Diver’, the nickname and one of the aliases she will use at her final court appearance in January of 1741. (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 19 March 2020), January 1741, trial of Mary Young , alias Jenny Diver Elizabeth Davis , alias Catherine the Wife of Henry Huggins (t17410116-15). Mary was born in Ireland in the early part of the 18th century to an unmarried handmaiden. She was quickly abandoned and raised by a ‘gentlewoman’ until she was 15, learning to read, write and needlepoint. She ran away from this gentler lifestyle to London, where she was introduced to pickpocketing-or “diving”-by her landlady, Anne Murray. Murray, herself a leader of a criminal gang recognized the dexterous talents that Webb had, and began to introduce her into that shadowy world of the pickpockets and lockpicks, known as “divers”and“kates”. Undoubtably, due to her needlework, she quickly outpaced the other “Divers” in the group and later broke off and formed her own criminal gang, going by the name ‘Jenny Diver’, the criminal ‘cant’ slang for a female pickpocket. Just as well known for her creativeness, she devised a method of pretending to be pregnant…’occasionally supplemented by the addition of false belly, hands and arms, the work of an ingenious artist’ and made the most of her pickpocketing time in church, theater and other social events’. (Lives of Twelve Bad Women, Illustrations and Reviews of Feminine Turpitude set forth by Impartial Hands. Umwin, Fisher T. London. 1897.) So good was she that as her exploits outpaced those of the other gangs working the area, she could use that reputation to recruit the best of them for her own crew. By all accounts a conscientious ‘chief’, to her companions, Webb insisted that all of her underlings set aside a percentage of all they took. This money, kept separately by Webb herself, was used to help anyone of her crew being captured and placed in prison to ease their time there, as prisoners were expected to pay for anything other than the meanest of all food and lodging. Mary herself was captured and imprisoned thrice. The first time on the June 5th, 1728, as Mary Webb for theft of “…,a Holland Shift, value of 5 shillings, the Goods of Elizabeth Gibbs; four Shifts, the Property of Barbary Pinfold, and five Aprons, with other Things.” She was found guilty with the results being a sentence of transportation to the Colonies for 7 years. (Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 19 March 2020), June 1728, trial of Mary Webb (t17280605-9). She will spend the next 4 months within Newgate Prison, awaiting transportation. While there, she will organize and run a “stallng ken” similar to what Wild had done, except she did it with the walls of Newgate itself! So good at moving stolen property even within the prison, that at the time they finally took her to the docks to be transported she will have with her four cartloads of goods. Instead of being forced to be chained in the cramped and ill fitted convict deck, she instead paid for and enjoyed the voyage staying in the best cabin on the ship. In addition, when arriving in Virginia to start her seven years forced indentureship that the Crown had committed her to, she simply paid the captain his ‘expected wage’ from the auction of indentureship (probably about £12) and walked away to do as she pleased.
Not finding the colonies suitable for her ‘talents’, she returned to England within a matter of a year. She will find herself captured, imprisoned and transported a second time, under the name of Jane Webb in April of 1738, with the same results as the first. Her third-and final-time had a different result. Then she was charged with ‘ViolentTheft’ and ‘Highway Robbery’ for “…assaulting Judith Gardner, on the King’s Highway, putting her in Fear, and taking from her £12. in Money, the Money of the said Judith, in the Parish of St. Mary Woolchurch, Jan. 17.’ (Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 21 March 2020), January 1741, trial of Mary Young , alias Jenny Diver, Elizabeth Davis , alias Catherine the Wife of Henry Huggins (t17410116-15). Though she will ‘plead her belly’ by claiming to be pregnant, she was not and summarily executed Wednesday, March 18, 1741. She had already prepared for this, having arranged for her friends to claim her body to keep it from the ‘dissectionists’, a fate she did not want to share with Wild. That same day she was buried in St. Pancras Churchyard. (Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 21 March 2020), Ordinary of Newgate’s Account, March 1741 (OA17410318). England’s population was both frightened and fascinated with the colorful criminal element. Gay knew this and had quickly latched on to the idea of using these people, whether their names or their adventures to round out his creative ideas. But it wasn’t only him, as the newspapers and broadsheet sellers were quick with an almost ghoulish glee to report both the exploits and consequences of the criminals. There was one in particular that Gay felt had that perfect blend of panache, daring do and reputation to be used as the basis for Captain MacHeath, the protagonist of Gay’s play. That was none other than Jack Sheppard, renowned thief, highwayman and escape artist.
Born March 4, 1704 as John Sheppard to a poor family in, London’s Spitalfields slums, from age 6 to 20 he bounced around from parish workhouse to parish workhouse, showing promise as a very good carpenter. This was one area that Gay took creative license. For MacHeath, renowned character that rode brave, strong and true was tall, well built and handsome in appearance Sheppard by all accounts was short, rather small, a noticeable stutter but exceptionally strong. He was however popular at the taverns where he was introduced to Johnathon Wild. Being impressed with his prowess at thievery, Wild would quickly enlist Sheppard into his gang. This part of Sheppard’s life will last slightly more than a year, but what a year. He will be arrested four times, escaping each time. The fourth time being handcuffed, locked in leg irons and chained with 300 pounds of iron. In less than one night’s time he was able to loose himself from all of this, break through the ceiling, climb six floors to the roof unlocking each door he came upon. After ascending to the roof he realized he would need his bedsheets from his cell to lower himself. So he simply returned back to his cell, retrieved the bed linens then back again to the roof. Managing to reach the shorter roof of an adjacent house, he broke into it and walked out the front door without disturbing the inhabitants therein. (Defoe, Daniel. The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard Containing a Particular Account of His Many Robberies and Escapes. London, 1724). Finally, less than two weeks later he returned to London as a beggar, similar to Gay’s MacHeath. Breaking into a pawnbrokers house early one morning he stole and donned a black suit, wig, rings and watch. He then spent the rest of the day gambling and drinking in the companionship of two of his mistresses. Later that same evening he was captured, blind drunk and still dressed as a dandy.

While there is some question about authorship, Defoe will publish the work ‘A Narrative of all the Robberies, Escapes &c. of JOHN SHEPPARD’ claiming it was Sheppard himself who orated it for the masses to inform them of what was claimed to be his ‘true exploits’. Supposedly this was done in the middle stone room in Newgate on Nov. 10, 1724 just six days before his hanging. The final sentence reads ’I beseech the infinite Divine Being of Beings to pardon my numberless and enormous crimes, and to have mercy on my poor departing soul’. (Defoe, Daniel. A Narrative of all the Robberies, Escapes &c. of JOHN SHEPPARD, Applebee, 1724.) It was with great fanfare and a large procession that Sheppard was taken to the gallows. It has been estimated that almost one third of London was on hand to watch the spectacle of his transportation to Tyburn, where he was hanged. Sheppard had planned well, tho. He had arranged for his friends to immediately cut him from the rope after the fall and rush him to a doctor who it was believed could revive him. Unfortunately, this was not to be. For so famous was he that as soon as his body dropped the scaffold was rushed by the spectators partially in fear he would be taken by the dissectionists, but mostly to get souvenirs from his person. Finally, the badly mauled remains were finally removed and buried in the churchyard of St. Martin-in-the -Fields. (Hibbert, Christopher. The Road to Tyburn: The story of Jack Sheppard and the Eighteenth-Century London Underworld. New York: The World Publishing Company, 1957)
But though his body was placed in the ground, Sheppard’s legacy lived on. Within a fortnight the play ‘Harlequin Sheppard’ opens at a theater in Drury Lane where one charater-‘Frisky Moll’ will sing of his final moments of freedom. Newgate Calendar will publish a three-act farce called ‘The Quaker’s Opera’ within a year, and Hogarth 27 years later will do a series of engravings entitled ‘Tom Idle’ believed to be based on Sheppard’s life. These are but a few of the stories, plays and books that will be written about Sheppard himself over the centuries.

It is often hard to separate fact from fiction. And Gay himself will enlarge these people and their exploits as any good author believes they have the authority and responsibility to do. But through it all one thing stands as true; for it can be said honestly and without reproach that Gay will have penned what is the most widely published musical work in 18th century England and still surviving today, ‘The Beggars Opera’.

Bibliography

-‘Scoundrel’s Alley’ is the collaboration of Faire Wynds Entertainments and Parson John Living History. The ‘Scholarly Scoundrel’ is Eric Paul Scites (1962-2023)