Turpin TM
Recently two little birds suggested that our man Dick was not born a Turpin. It was a nickname, they reasoned, bestowed on him because the amalgam of its meanings seemed to sum him up - a foul-mouthed, violent, frequently injured, fast-running, soldierly, fearful, gold-loving man.
The truth is stranger even than that, and will make sense to any of you marvelling at the huge number of Dick Turpin pubs, inns and other hostelries liberally sprinkled around the UK, often in counties not readily associated with him.
The name 'Turpin' was a franchise.
There were actually dozens of Dick Turpins, due to the law of supply and demand. As Reid's Weekly Journal commented on 14 May 1737:
"On Tuesday a single highwayman robbed four coaches and several passengers at different times on Hounslow Heath and they gave out it was Turpin, but that fellow having done so much mischief of late runs in everybody's head."
Everyone was talking - and often singing, too - about Turpin. There was no point in being held up by anyone else. Give a small sum to Turpin, and it was free drinks from your friends and a story you could dine out on for a month. He was the Real Thing.
Who would admit to being held up by anyone less? Who would with a straight face declare that they'd handed over their third-best snuffbox to some nameless, fameless highwaybod? No; it was Turpin and none other.
And so, due to the huge requirement for Turpin's services, a clever wag in the London Underworld came up with the Turpin scam: for a small sum, you bought the rights to trade under the name of Turpin along a given stretch of highway on the London periphery. As it became more and more popular, regional Turpins were also appointed.
No one man could have managed it: not only is it impossible to be in so many places at once, no horse could run under the weight of so much loot.
It was a sweet deal. The Turpins pooled the cash, divided it equally, and were all happy men. Many of them had secret passages dug in suburban villages between the tavern and the church - even, sometimes, directly to the bed-chamber of the lady of the manor - and hid spare guns and horses up and down the country.
Sadly, when one of the Northern Dicks got himself hanged for horse-stealing it spoiled the game for the rest of them, who all took to innkeeping to support their old age, which is why there are so many Turpin-related pubs still trading today.
The truth is stranger even than that, and will make sense to any of you marvelling at the huge number of Dick Turpin pubs, inns and other hostelries liberally sprinkled around the UK, often in counties not readily associated with him.
The name 'Turpin' was a franchise.
There were actually dozens of Dick Turpins, due to the law of supply and demand. As Reid's Weekly Journal commented on 14 May 1737:
"On Tuesday a single highwayman robbed four coaches and several passengers at different times on Hounslow Heath and they gave out it was Turpin, but that fellow having done so much mischief of late runs in everybody's head."
Everyone was talking - and often singing, too - about Turpin. There was no point in being held up by anyone else. Give a small sum to Turpin, and it was free drinks from your friends and a story you could dine out on for a month. He was the Real Thing.
Who would admit to being held up by anyone less? Who would with a straight face declare that they'd handed over their third-best snuffbox to some nameless, fameless highwaybod? No; it was Turpin and none other.
And so, due to the huge requirement for Turpin's services, a clever wag in the London Underworld came up with the Turpin scam: for a small sum, you bought the rights to trade under the name of Turpin along a given stretch of highway on the London periphery. As it became more and more popular, regional Turpins were also appointed.
No one man could have managed it: not only is it impossible to be in so many places at once, no horse could run under the weight of so much loot.
It was a sweet deal. The Turpins pooled the cash, divided it equally, and were all happy men. Many of them had secret passages dug in suburban villages between the tavern and the church - even, sometimes, directly to the bed-chamber of the lady of the manor - and hid spare guns and horses up and down the country.
Sadly, when one of the Northern Dicks got himself hanged for horse-stealing it spoiled the game for the rest of them, who all took to innkeeping to support their old age, which is why there are so many Turpin-related pubs still trading today.
posted by Archie Pullen | 9:44 am
1 Comments:
A bit like the Kray franchise where everybody in London claimed to have been swindled/terrorised by the Krays in the 1960s - if you are going to be robbed, you want it to be by Top Robber not by some thick lowlife who keeps getting caught.
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