Sheppard, JACK

Sheppard, JACK, born at Stepney in 1702, was the son, grandson, and great-grandson of a carpenter, and himself at twelve, after a year and a half's schooling in Bishopsgate workhouse, was apprenticed to a carpenter in Wych Street, Drury Lane. For six years he did well, but, falling then into bad company, in July 1720 he committed the first of many robberies. In the course of 1724 he was four times caught, but as often escaped, on the occasion of his third evasion from Newgate forcing six great doors. The fifth time luck deserted him, and on 18th November he was hanged at Tyburn in the presence, it was said, of 200,000 spectators. Harrison Ainsworth has made him the hero of a novel (1839). See Celebrated Trials (vol. iii. 1825).