Dick: a portrait

Dick's portrait was never painted in his lifetime, although his image has been imaginatively reconstructed many, many times since his death in 1739.

Though images like the one below were produced while he was still alive there is sadly no evidence that they were anything but imaginative exercises to satisfy a Turpin-hungry public.

The absense of a contemporary portrait is even more disappointing given the vogue of the times for drawing gaolbirds.

The official diary of General Williamson, Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower of London (1722-47) describes one such incident. The criminal Plunket in question was a pro-Pretender plotter, not the highwayman of the same name:

'I got Mr. James Mace a Lad not thirteen years of age to draw Mr. Plunket the Prisoner's picture, and behind him in Shade John Tuder his Warder, who was a very faithfull and carefull fellow.'

James Maclaine, the ladies' favourite rogue and partner to the other Plunkett, was depicted in his cell the night before his hanging, surrounded by female visitors. The image was sold on the London streets for thruppence.

And so in 'Dick - or, the Hempen Jig' I remedy the regretful absense by having Turpin's picture drawn in his last days, in York Castle:

"“I suppose people are bound to take an interest,” Hanway muses to Langton. “Even strangers. Look at that! – oh, he has caught him superbly!”
“It is a good likeness, Mr. Hanway?” the elder Miss Porter asks.
“Yes indeed… That really is excellent, you know; excellent!”
He bends down to address this last remark to a sturdy lad, sitting with his back to them in the middle of the room, a vast drawing board propped on his splayed knees. Apparently oblivious to Hanway’s compliment, the young man lurches forward with such intense purpose that he seems about to spring up out of the chair. Instead his arm moves rapidly over the paper pinned to his board for a few minutes, before he sits back again to appraise it. Only then does he turn to Hanway and say:
“I’m sorry, sir! Thank you.”
“You have a talent, there. Keepsake, is it?”
“Not for myself. I’m William Mace, sir: apprentice draughtsman. Mr. Griffiths the governor wishes to commemorate Richard Turpin’s stay in the castle, so he sent for me to draw the prisoner’s picture. It’s my hope he’ll permit me to return tomorrow…”
His eye falling back on his work, the lad tilts his board to a better angle with his left arm; he hunches forward again with the chalk, brows raised, eyes darting between the paper and its subject.
The drawing shows Dick in a chair of dark glossy wood, its carved arms terminating in lion heads. Beside him stands Jacks, awkward and solemn; one hand tucked inside his waistcoat, the other dangling at his hip, gripping his bunch of keys to indicate his office.
Though he faces forward, Turpin’s gaze has been caught askance, resentment and scorn glittering in his narrowed eyes and a vein bulging from his temple as he frowns. His shaved scalp is dark with stubble. With no wig or hat to soften his features the light falls harshly on his cheeks: dimpling into the pitted shadows of small-pox scars, darkening the lines that run from his nose to the down-turned corners of his compressed mouth. Though it is a chilly day he is coatless. The neck of his shirt is open, revealing his naked throat and the curls of hair at its base; the top buttons of his waistcoat are undone. His left arm rests on his thigh, his drooping fingers leading the eye to the heavy chains circling his waist and running down his stockinged legs, enclosing his ankles in iron cuffs. His right clutches the chair arm, his hand curling over the lion’s head, his rent sleeve falling open to reveal a thick powerful forearm.
“Don’t you think he has – the air of a gentleman,” the younger Miss Porter whispers breathlessly to her sister.
“Oh, yes!”