Jack Sheppard

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Jack Sheppard in Newgate

Jack Sheppard , actually John Shepherd (born March 4, 1702 in London , † November 16, 1724 ibid), was a notorious English robber , burglar and thief of the early 18th century in London.

Life

Sheppard was as famous for his crimes as he was for his many successful attempts to escape the arm of justice. His repeated escape actions contributed to the overthrow of the "thief general of Great Britain and Ireland", Jonathan Wild - a colorful criminal with a double civil life  .

Jack Sheppard, whose first name was actually John and who also called himself either gentleman Jack or Jack the Lad , was born in 1702 as the son of a London carpenter on White's Row in Spitalfields, London . After his father died in his childhood and he had to spend his youth in a workhouse , he also learned the carpentry trade . However, he soon got into bad company and began to supplement his daily wages with booty from a series of break-ins and thefts.

Though imprisoned several times, Sheppard escaped St. Giles Prison by sawing his way through a wooden ceiling, and escaped the dreaded Newgate Prison no less than three times in 1724 .

The first time he filed his chains, drilled a hole through the wall, and climbed down on sheets to the ground. During the second escape on August 30, 1724 - he was already sentenced to death - he cut a thorn out of a visitor window. Although he was locked in a security cell called "the Castle" the third time, on October 14, 1724, he succeeded in opening his chains with a nail and through doors and with an iron bar, which was otherwise used to close a fireplace Breaking walls. Again he used a duvet to reach the roof of a nearby building. From there he was able to escape.

Sheppard could only enjoy his freedom for two weeks. It was not his tireless hunter Jonathan Wild that finally brought him down, but his penchant for alcohol and showing off. He was recognized and betrayed while drinking on Drury Lane . Although he was planning one last escape now, a prison guard found the pocket knife with which he presumably wanted to cut his ropes on the way to the gallows . It never came to that.

Amused by the strong drinks that the audience served him, Sheppard went on a merry procession through London on November 16, 1724 to the gallows at Tyburn , where Oxford Street is today. 200,000 people are said to have watched his hanging . Before that, the drunken delinquent gave a humorous farewell speech. The 22-year-old escape king found his final resting place in the churchyard of St. Martin-in-the-Fields .

Literature editing

Sheppard's idiosyncratic "heroic deeds" were often adapted in novels, for the stage and for film:

  • as the character "Macheath" in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728) and in the Threepenny Opera (1928) by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill
  • in a melodrama by William Thomas Moncrieff (* 1794; † 1857) Jack Sheppard, The Housebreaker or London in 1724 (1825)
  • in the novel Jack Sheppard (1839) by William Harrison Ainsworth (* 1805; † 1882), who in the same year for a successful play by John Baldwin Buckstone (* 1802; † 1879) and in 1840 by Thomas Longdon Greenwood (* 1806; † 1879) was adapted
  • in the English silent film Jack Sheppard (1923), directed by Henry Cockraft Taylor; Leading role: Will West
  • in the biography The road to Tyburn (1957) by Christopher Hibbert (* 1924 in Leicestershire )
  • in the English drama, Where's Jack? (1969), directed by James Clavell ; Leading role: Tommy Steele
  • in the double biography The Thieves' Opera (1997) by Lucy Moore (* 1970) about Jonathan Wild and Jack Sheppard
  • in Neal Stephenson's three novels of the Baroque Cycle (see " Baroque Cycle ") (2003, 2004), in which the character "Jack Shaftoe" was inspired by events from the life of Jack Sheppard.
  • in the historical novel Against All Time by Tom Finnek , in which both Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild play leading roles and the genesis of Beggar's Opera is fictional

literature

  • William Harrison Ainsworth: Jack Sheppard. IndyPublish.com, Boston, MA 2005, ISBN 1-4219-5735-3 , hardcover 488 pp.
  • Horace William Bleackley: Jack Sheppard… With an epilogue on Jack Sheppard in literature and drama, a bibliography, a note on Jonathan Wild, and a memoir of Horace Bleackley by SM Ellis . W. Hodge & Co, Edinburgh / London 1933. XIV, 260 pp.
  • John Baldwin Buckstone: Jack Sheppard, a drama in four acts. Chapman & Hall, London 1840. 72 pp.
  • Fortescue, Lincoln: The Life and Adventures of Jack Sheppard. New edition, with… additions. Illustrated, etc. James Cochrane, London 1845. VIII, 530 pp.
  • Christopher Hibbert: The road to Tyburn: the story of Jack Sheppard and the eighteenth century underworld . Penguin, London 2001, ISBN 0-14-139023-9 . paperback, 163 p. (Classic history).
  • Lucy Moore: The thieves' opera: the remarkable lives and deaths of Jonathan Wild, thief-taker, and Jack Sheppard, house-breaker. Penguin, London 1998, ISBN 0-14-026164-8 . paperback, XII, 304 pp.
  • Sheppard, John . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 24 : Sainte-Claire Deville - Shuttle . London 1911, p. 827 (English, full text [ Wikisource ] - lemmatized under the first name "John").

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sheppard, Jack
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shepherd, John (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English robber
DATE OF BIRTH March 4, 1702
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1724
Place of death London