Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 1 / From the twelfth to the eighteenth century

by Arthur Griffiths

was secured, but they are hardly the identical fetters. Sheppard was also handcuffed. He is said to have rid himself of these by holding the connecting chain firmly between his teeth, squeezing his fingers as small as possible, and drawing the manacles off. "He next twisted the gyves,[220:1] the heavy gyves, round and round, and partly by main strength, partly by a dexterous, well-applied jerk, snapped asunder the central link by which they were attached to the padlock." He was now free to move about, but the basils still confined his ankles, and he dragged at every step the long connecting chain. He drew up the basils on his calf, and removing his stockings, used them to tie up the chains to his legs. He first attempted to climb up the chimney, but his upward progress was impeded by an iron bar that crossed the aperture. He descended, therefore, and from the outside, with a piece of his broken chain set to work to pick out the stones and bricks so as to release the bar. This he accomplished and thus obtained an implement about an inch square and nearly a yard long, which was of the utmost service to him in his further operations. The room in which he had been confined was a part of the so-called "castle;" above it was the "Red-room," and into this he effected an entrance by climbing the chimney and making

a fresh hole on the level of the floor above. In the "Red-room" he found a rusty nail, with which he tried to pick the lock, but failing in this, he wrenched off the plate that covered the bolt and forced the bolt back with his fingers. This Red-room door opened on to a dark passage leading to the chapel. There was a door in it which he opened by making a hole in the wall and pushing the bolt back, and so reached the chapel. Thence he got into an entry between the chapel and the lower leads. "The door of this entry was very strong,[221:1] and fastened with a great lock. What was worse, the night had now overtaken him, and he was forced to work in the dark. However, in half an hour, by the help of the great nail, the chapel spike, and the iron bar, he forced off the box of the lock and opened the door which led him to another yet more difficult, for it was not only locked, but barred and bolted. When he had tried in vain to make this lock and box give way, he wrenched the fillet from the main post of the door and the box and staples came off with it. . . . There was yet another door betwixt him and the lower leads; but it being bolted within side he opened it easily, and mounting to the top of it he got over the wall and so to the upper leads." All that remained for him to do was to descend. There was a house adjoining, that of Mr. Bird, a turner, on to which he might drop, but

he deemed the leap too dangerous, and coolly resolved to retrace his steps to the prison chamber, from whence he had so laboriously issued, and secure his blanket. Having accomplished this risky service, he returned to the leads, made fast his blanket, slid down it, entered the turner's house by a garret window, and eventually, after some delay and no little danger of detection, got away down into the street.

Mr. Austin, the Newgate turnkey, who was specially in charge of Sheppard, and who, on unbolting the castle strong room next morning, found that his prisoner was gone, was amazed beyond measure. The whole of the prison warders ran up, and at sight of the cart-loads of rubbish and débris "stood like men deprived of their senses." After their first surprise they got their keys to open the neighbouring strong rooms, hoping that he might not have got entirely away. It was not difficult to follow his track. Six great doors, one of which it was said had not been opened for seven years, had been forced, and their massive locks, screws, and bolts lay broken in pieces, and scattered about the gaol. Last of all they came to the blanket hanging pendent from the leads, and it was plain that Sheppard was already far beyond pursuit.

It may be interesting to mention here that he was recaptured, mainly through his own negligence and drunkenness, within a fortnight of his escape. In the interval, after ridding himself of his irons,

he had committed several fresh robberies, the most successful being a burglary at a pawnbroker's, where he furnished himself with the fine suit, sword, and snuff-box he possessed at the time of his arrest. "When he was brought back to the gaol," says a contemporary account, "he was very drunk, carry'd himself insolently, defy'd the keepers to hold him with all their irons, art, and skill." He was by this time quite a notorious personage. "Nothing contributes so much to the entertainment of the town at present," says another journal of the time, "as the adventures of the house-breaker and gaol-breaker, John Sheppard. 'Tis thought the keepers of Newgate have got above £200 already by the crowds who daily flock to see him." "On Wednesday several noblemen visited him." He sat for his portrait to Sir James Thornhill, the eminent painter,[223:1] and the likeness was

reproduced in a mezzotint which had a large circulation. Seven different histories or narratives of his adventures were published and illustrated with numerous engravings. His importance was further increased by the special instructions issued to the Attorney-General to bring him to immediate trial. A letter from the Duke of Newcastle, then Secretary of State, is preserved in the Hardwicke MSS., wherein that great official condescends to convey the king's commands to Sir Philip Yorke that Sheppard, having made two very extraordinary escapes, and being a very dangerous person, should be forthwith brought to trial, "to the end that execution may without delay be awarded against him." This letter is dated the 6th November; he was arraigned on the 10th, found guilty, and sentenced the same day. His execution took place on the 16th November, just one month after his escape. He exhibited great coolness and effrontery during his trial. He told the court that if they would let his handcuffs be put on he by his art would take them off before their faces. The largest crowds ever seen in London paid testimony to his notoriety as he passed through the streets; and Westminster Hall had not been so densely thronged in the memory of man as at the time of his trial. No pains were spared to ensure his safe custody in Newgate. He was chained to the floor in the condemned hold, and constantly watched night and day by two guards.

But up to the last Sheppard entertained schemes for eluding justice. He had obtained a penknife by some means or other, and he had intended to cut his cords while actually in the cart going to Tyburn, throw himself in amongst the crowd at a place called Little Turnstile, and run for his life through the narrow passage, along which the mounted officers could not follow him. But this plan was nullified by the discovery of the knife on his person just before he left Newgate. It is said that he had also hopes of resuscitation, and that friends had agreed to cut him down promptly, and to apply the usual restoratives. This scheme, if it had ever existed, was probably rendered abortive by the proceedings of the mob after the execution.

Sheppard had many imitators, but few equals. Possibly the ease with which he broke prison led to an increase in precautions, and I can find no other cases of evasion in Jack Sheppard's manner. There are several instances of attempted escapes by the reverse process, not over the walls, but through them or along the sewers. Burnworth, while in Newgate in 1726, projected a plan of escape. He got an iron crow, and assisted by certain prisoners, pulled stones out of the walls, while others sung psalms to put the turnkeys off their guard. Next day the officers came to remove five convicts awaiting execution, but found the room so full of stones and rubbish that some hours elapsed before the prisoners could be got out, and Burnworth was still

in durance. Joshua Dean, capitally convicted in 1731 for counterfeiting stamps, formed a design with seven other prisoners awaiting transportation to the plantations to break gaol. They found means to get down into the common sewer, no doubt by taking up the floor. Thence four of them reached a vault under a house in Fleet Lane, and so into the shop, through which three got off, but the fourth was secured and carried back to Newgate. The fate of two at least of the remaining three was not known till long afterwards. In 1736, a certain Daniel Malden, who had already escaped once, again got out of Newgate, by sawing his chains near the staple with which they were fastened to the wall of the condemned hold and getting through the brickwork and dropping into the common sewer. "Several persons were employed to search after him, but to no purpose, though the chains about him weighed nearly a hundred pounds." Malden was not discovered, but the searchers came upon "the bodies of two persons who had been smothered in trying to escape." These were no doubt two of those mentioned above. This method of evasion continued to be practised till long afterwards. In 1785 two convicts cut a hole in the floor of their cell, and got into the common sewer to make their escape. "But wading till they were almost suffocated, they at length reached the gully-hole, and calling for help, were taken out alive, but too weak to walk, and carried to their former quarters."