Jonathan Wild - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Jonathan Wild was perhaps the most infamous criminal of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

— and possibly Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

— during the 18th century, both because of his own actions and the uses novelists, playwrights, and political satirists made of them. He invented a scheme which allowed him to run one of the most successful gangs of thieves of the era, all the while appearing to be the nation's leading policeman. He manipulated the press and the nation's fears to become the most loved public figure of the 1720s; this love turned to hatred when his villainy was exposed. After his death, he became a symbol of corruption and hypocrisy.

Early life

Though his exact birth date is unknown, Wild was born in Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...

in either 1682 or 1683 as the first of five children in a poor family. He was baptised at St. Peter's Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton

St. Peter's Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton

St. Peter's Collegiate Church is located on the highest and the oldest developed site in central Wolverhampton, England. For many centuries it was a chapel royal, and from 1480 a royal peculiar, independent of the Diocese of Lichfield and even the Province of Canterbury. The collegiate church was...

. His father, John Wild, was a carpenter, and his mother sold herbs and fruits in the local market. At that time, Wolverhampton was the second-largest city in Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

, with a population of around 6,000, many involved in iron-working and related trades.

Wild attended the Free School in St John's Lane, and was apprenticed to a local buckle-maker. He married and had a son, but came to London in 1704 as a servant. After being dismissed by his master, he returned to Wolverhampton, before coming back to London in 1708. London was by far the largest city in England, with a population of around 600,000, of whom around 70,000 lived within the ancient city walls of the City of London

City of London

The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

.

Little is known of Wild's first two years in London, but he was arrested for debt in March 1710, and sent to Wood Street Counter

Wood Street Counter

The Wood Street Counter, or Wood Street Compter, was a small prison within the City of London in England. It was primarily a debtors prison, and also held people accused of such misdemeanors as public drunkness, although some wealthier prisoners were able to obtain alcohol through bribery...

, one of the debtor's prison

Debtor's prison

A debtors' prison is a prison for those who are unable to pay a debt.Prior to the mid 19th century debtors' prisons were a common way to deal with unpaid debt.-Debt bondage in ancient Greece and Rome:...

s in the City of London

City of London

. The prisons were notoriously corrupt, with gaolers demanding a bribe, or "garnish", for any minor comfort. Wild became popular, running errands for the gaolers and eventually earning enough to repay his original debts and the cost of being imprisoned, and even lend money to other prisoners. He received "the liberty of the gate", meaning that he was allowed out at night to aid in the arrest of thieves. There, he met one Mary Milliner (or Mary Mollineaux), a prostitute who began to teach Wild criminal ways and, according to Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...

, "brought him into her own gang, whether of thieves or whores, or of both, is not much material." He was also introduced to a wide range of London's criminal underclass. With his new skills and contacts, Wild was released in 1712 under an Act of Parliament

Act of Parliament

An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

passed earlier that year for the relief of insolvent debtors.

Upon release, Wild began to live with Mary Milliner as her husband in Lewkenor's Land (now Macklin Street) in Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

, despite both of them having prior marriages. Wild apparently served as Milliner's tough when she went night-walking. Soon Wild was thoroughly acquainted with the underworld, both with its methods and its inhabitants. At some point during this period, Milliner had begun to act as something of a madam to other prostitutes, and Wild as a fence

Fence (criminal)

A fence is an individual who knowingly buys stolen property for later resale, sometimes in a legitimate market. The fence thus acts as a middleman between thieves and the eventual buyers of stolen goods who may or may not be aware that the goods are stolen. As a verb, the word describes the...

, or receiver of stolen goods. Wild began, slowly at first, to dispose of stolen goods and to pay bribes to get thieves out of prison.

He later parted with Milliner, cutting off her ear to mark her as a prostitute.

Coming into his own

Crime had risen dramatically in London beginning in 1680, and property crime, in particular, rose sharply as London grew in importance as a commercial hub. In 1712 Charles Hitchen

Charles Hitchen

Charles Hitchen was a "thief-taker" in 18th century London who was also famously tried for homosexuality....

, Wild's forerunner and future rival as thief-taker

Thief-taker

In English legal history, a thief-taker was a private individual hired to capture criminals. The widespread establishment of professional police in England did not occur until the 19th century...

, said that he personally knew 2,000 people in London who made their living solely by theft. In 1711 Hitchen had obtained public office as the City's Under Marshal, effectively its top policeman, paying £700 for the appointment. He abused his office, however, by practising extortion on an extravagant scale, both from thieves and from their potential victims. Hitchen would accept bribes to let thieves out of jail, selectively arrest criminals, and coerce sexual services from molly house

Molly house

A Molly house is an archaic 18th century English term for a tavern or private room where homosexual and cross-dressing men could meet each other and possible sexual partners. Molly houses were one precursor to some types of gay bars....

s. His testimony about the rise of crime was given during an investigation of these activities by the London Board of Aldermen, who suspended him from the Under Marshal position in 1713.

In around 1713, Wild was approached by Hitchen to become one of his assistants in thief-taking, a profitable activity on account of the £40 reward paid by the government for catching a felon. Wild may have become known to Hitchen's associates, known as his "Mathematicians", during his lengthy stay in Wood Street Compter; certainly one, William Field, later worked for Wild.

The advent of daily newspapers had led to a rising interest in crime and criminals. As the papers reported notable crimes and ingenious attacks, the public worried more and more about property crime and grew more and more interested in the issues of criminals and policing. London depended entirely upon localized policing and had no city-wide police force. Unease with crime was at a feverish high. The public was eager to embrace both colourful criminals (e.g. Jack Sheppard

Jack Sheppard

Jack Sheppard was a notorious English robber, burglar and thief of early 18th-century London. Born into a poor family, he was apprenticed as a carpenter but took to theft and burglary in 1723, with little more than a year of his training to complete...

and the entirely upper-class gang called the "Mohocks

Mohocks

The Mohocks were a gang that terrorized London in the early 18th century, attacking men and women alike. Taking their name from the Mohawk Indians, they assaulted both men and women, disfiguring their male victims and sexually assaulting their female victims...

" in 1712) and valiant crime-fighters. The city's population had more than doubled, and there was no effective means of controlling crime. London saw a rise not only in thievery, but in organized crime during the period.

The ending of the War of the Spanish Succession

War of the Spanish Succession

The War of the Spanish Succession was fought among several European powers, including a divided Spain, over the possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under one Bourbon monarch. As France and Spain were among the most powerful states of Europe, such a unification would have...

meant a further increase in crime as demobilized soldiers were on the streets. By this time, 1714, Hitchen was restored to his office, but Wild went his own way, and he opened a small office in the Blue Boar tavern, run by Mrs Seagoe in Little Old Bailey. He continued to call himself Hitchen's "Deputy", entirely without any official standing, and took to carrying a sword as a mark of his supposed authority, also alluding to pretensions of gentility.

Wild's public career as "Thief-Taker General"

Wild's method of illegally amassing riches while appearing to be on the side of the law was ingenious. He ran a gang of thieves, kept the stolen goods, and waited for the crime and theft to be announced in the newspapers. At this point, he would claim that his "thief taking agents" (police) had "found" the stolen merchandise, and he would return it to its rightful owners for a reward (to cover the expenses of running his agents). In some cases, if the stolen items or circumstances allowed for blackmail, he did not wait for the theft to be announced. As well as "recovering" these stolen goods, he would offer the police aid in finding the thieves. The thieves that Wild would help to "discover", however, were rivals or members of his own gang who had refused to cooperate with his taking the majority of the money.

Wild's ability to hold his gang together, and indeed the majority of his scheme, relied upon the fear of theft and the nation's reaction to theft. The crime of selling stolen goods became increasingly dangerous in the period from 1700 to 1720. Low-level thieves ran a great risk in fencing their goods. Wild avoided this danger and exploited it simultaneously by having his gang steal, either through pickpocketing

Pickpocketing

Pickpocketing is a form of larceny that involves the stealing of money or other valuables from the person of a victim without their noticing the theft at the time. It requires considerable dexterity and a knack for misdirection...

or, more often, mugging, and then by "recovering" the goods. He never sold the goods back, explicitly, nor ever pretended that they were not stolen. He claimed at all times that he found the goods by policing and avowed hatred of thieves. That very penalty for selling stolen goods, however, allowed Wild to control his gang very effectively, for he could turn in any of his thieves to the authorities at any time. By giving the goods to him for a cut of the profits, Wild's thieves were selling stolen goods. If they did not give their take to him, Wild would simply apprehend them as thieves. However, what Wild chiefly did was use his thieves and ruffians to "apprehend" rival gangs.

Jonathan Wild was not the first thief-taker who was actually a thief himself. Charles Hitchen

Charles Hitchen

Charles Hitchen was a "thief-taker" in 18th century London who was also famously tried for homosexuality....

had used his position as Under-Marshal to practice extortion. He had pressured brothels and pickpockets to pay him off or give him the stolen goods since purchasing the position in 1712, and the extortion was already an established practice at that time. When Hitchen was suspended from his duties for corruption in that year, he engaged Jonathan Wild to keep his business of extortion going in his absence. Hitchen was re-instated in 1714 and found that Wild was now a rival, and one of Wild's first bits of gang warfare was to eliminate as many of the thieves in Hitchen's control as he could. In 1718, Hitchen attempted to expose Wild with his A True Discovery of the Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers in and about the City of London. There he named Wild as a manager and source of crime. Wild replied with An Answer to a Late Insolent Libel and there explained that Hitchen was a homosexual who visited "molly house

Molly house

s." Hitchen attempted to further combat Wild with a pamphlet entitled The Regulator, which was his characterization of Wild, but Hitchen's prior suspensions from duties and the shocking charge of homosexuality virtually eliminated him as a threat to Wild.

Wild held a virtual monopoly on crime in London. Legends arose surrounding his management of his "empire." One held that he kept records of all thieves in his employ, and when they had outlived their usefulness, Wild sold them to the gallows for the £40 reward. This supposed system inspired a fake or folk etymology of the phrase "double cross." It is alleged that, when a thief vexed Wild in some way, he put a cross by the thief's name; a second cross condemned the man to be sold to the Crown for hanging. (This fabulous story is contradicted by the fact that the noun "double cross" did not enter English usage until 1834.)

In public, Wild presented an heroic face. He was the man who returned stolen goods. He was the man who caught criminals. In 1718, Wild called himself "Thief Taker General of Great Britain and Ireland". By his testimony, over sixty thieves were sent to the gallows. His "finding" of lost merchandise was private, but his efforts at finding thieves were public. Wild's office in the Old Bailey

Old Bailey

The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...

was a busy spot. Victims of crime would come by, even before announcing their losses, and discover that Wild's agents had "found" the missing items, and Wild would offer to help find the criminals for an extra fee. However, while fictional treatments made use of the device, it is not known whether or not Wild ever actually turned in one of his own gang for a private fee.

In 1720, Wild's fame was such that the Privy Council

Privy council

A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisors to give confidential advice on...

consulted with him on methods of controlling crime. Wild's recommendation was, unsurprisingly, that the rewards for evidence against thieves be raised. Indeed, the reward for capturing a thief went from forty pounds

Pound sterling

The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...

to one hundred and forty pounds within the year. This amounted to a significant pay increase for Wild. There is some evidence that Wild was favoured, or at least ignored, by the Whig

British Whig Party

The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...

politicians and opposed by the Tory

Tory

Toryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...

politicians. In 1718, a Tory group had succeeded in having the laws against receiving stolen property tightened, primarily with Wild's activities in mind. Ironically, this strengthened Wild's hand, rather than weakening it, for it made it more difficult for thieves to fence their goods except through Wild.

Wild's battles with thieves made excellent press. Wild himself would approach the papers with accounts of his derring-do, and the papers passed these on to a concerned public. Thus, in July to August of 1724, the papers carried accounts of Wild's heroic efforts in collecting twenty-one members of the Carrick Gang (with an £800 reward - approximately £25,000 in the year 2000). When one of the members of the gang was released, Wild pursued him and had him arrested on "further information". To the public, this seemed like a relentless defense of order. In reality, it was a gang warfare disguised as national service.

When Wild solicited for a finder's fee, he usually held all the power in the transaction. For example, David Nokes quotes (based on Howson) the following advertisement from the Daily Post in 1724 in his edition of Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....

's Jonathan Wild:
The advert is extortion. The "notes of hand" (agreements of debt) mean signatures, so Wild already knows the name of the book's owner. Furthermore, Wild tells the owner through the ad that he knows what its owner was doing at the time, since the Fountain Tavern was a brothel. The real purpose of the ad is to threaten the notebook's owner with announcing his visit to a bordello, either to the debtors or the public, and it even names a price for silence (a guinea, or one pound and one shilling).

The Jack Sheppard struggle and downfall

By 1724, London political life was experiencing a crisis of public confidence. In 1720, the South Sea Bubble had burst, and the public was growing restive about corruption. Authority figures were beginning to be viewed with scepticism.

In late April 1724, the most famous housebreaker of the era, Jack Sheppard

Jack Sheppard

, was apprehended by one of Wild's men, James "Hell-and-Fury" Sykes, for a burglary Sheppard had committed in Clare Market on 5 February. Sheppard had worked with Wild in the past, though he had struck out on his own. Consequently, as with other arrests, Wild's interests in saving the public from Sheppard were personal.

Sheppard was imprisoned in St Giles's Roundhouse

St Giles's Roundhouse

The St Giles's Roundhouse was a small roundhouse or prison, mainly used to temporarily hold suspected criminals.It was located in the St Giles area of present-day central London, which - during the 17th and 18th centuries - was a 'rookery' notorious for its thieves and other criminals.The...

, but escaped within three hours. On 19 May, Wild again had Sheppard arrested for pickpocketing, and this time he was put in St. Ann's Roundhouse in Soho

Soho

Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...

, where he was visited by Elizabeth "Edgworth Bess" Lyon the next day; she too was locked up with him, and, being recognized as man and wife, they were sent to the New Prison

New Prison

The New Prison was a prison located in the Clerkenwell area of central London between c.1617 and 1877 ....

at Clerkenwell

Clerkenwell

Clerkenwell is an area of central London in the London Borough of Islington. From 1900 to 1965 it was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. The well after which it was named was rediscovered in 1924. The watchmaking and watch repairing trades were once of great importance...

. They both escaped on 25 May. In July, Field informed Wild about Sheppard, so Wild sought for Lyon on 22 July and plied her with drinks at Temple Bar

Temple Bar

Temple Bar may refer to:* The Temple Bar, a spot in London* Temple Bar, Dublin, a cultural quarter in Dublin city* Temple Bar, Ceredigion, a village in Wales* Temple Bar Magazine, British literary magazine published 1860 to 1906...

until she betrayed Sheppard.

The following day, Wild sent another one of his men, Quilt Arnold

Quilt Arnold

Quilt Arnold was one of the chief assistants of 18th century London's master criminal and thief-taker Jonathan Wild. Very little is known about his life and what details we do have come by way of Jonathan Wild himself...

, and had Sheppard arrested a third time and put into Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...

to await trial. On 13 August he was tried on three charges of burglary, but was acquitted of the first two due to lack of evidence. However, Wild, along with Field and William Kneebone, Sheppard's former master, presented evidence against him on the final charge of the burglary of Kneebone's house on 12 July; and Sheppard was convicted, sentenced to death, and put in the condemned hold of Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison

.

On the night that the death warrant arrived, 31 August, Sheppard, once again, escaped. By this point, Sheppard was a working class hero for apprentices (being a cockney

Cockney

The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End...

apprentice in love, non-violent, and handsome). On 9 September, Sheppard avoided capture by Wild's men, but he was caught for a fourth time by a posse from Newgate as he hid out on Finchley Common

Finchley Common

Finchley Common was an area of land in Middlesex, and until 1816 the boundary between the parishes of Finchley, Friern Barnet and Hornsey.- History :...

, and Sheppard was placed in the most secure room of Newgate. Further, Sheppard was put in shackles and chained to the floor.

Meanwhile, on 9 October, Wild and his men arrested Joseph "Blueskin" Blake, a highwayman and Sheppard's partner-in-crime. On 15 October Blueskin was tried for the same act of burglary committed on 12 July, with Wild, Field, and his men giving evidence. Their accounts were not consistent with the evidence given at Sheppard's trial, but Blueskin was convicted and sentenced to death anyway. After the trial, Blueskin pleaded with Wild in the courtroom to have his sentence commuted from hanging to transportation (since he had worked with Wild before), but Wild refused. Enraged, Blueskin attempted to murder Wild, slashing his throat in the process and causing an uproar, and Wild collapsed and was taken to a surgeon for treatment.

Taking advantage of the disturbance that spread to Newgate next door and continued into the night, Sheppard escaped yet again in early 16 October. Sheppard had broken the chains, padlocks, and six iron-barred doors. This escape astonished everyone, and Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe

, working as a journalist, wrote an account. In the early morning on 1 November, Sheppard was found for a fifth and final time by a constable and arrested. This time, Sheppard was placed in the centre of Newgate, where he could be observed at all times, and loaded with three hundred pounds of iron weights. He was so celebrated that the gaolers charged high society visitors to see him, and James Thornhill

James Thornhill

Sir James Thornhill was an English painter of historical subjects, in the Italian baroque tradition.-Life:...

painted his portrait.

On 11 November, Blueskin was hanged. Five days later Sheppard was similarly executed at Tyburn

Tyburn, London

Tyburn was a village in the county of Middlesex close to the current location of Marble Arch in present-day London. It took its name from the Tyburn or Teo Bourne 'boundary stream', a tributary of the River Thames which is now completely covered over between its source and its outfall into the...

. Wild missed out on the execution while he was confined to his bed for several weeks and his throat was recovering.

During the pursuit of Sheppard, Wild appeared as much to disadvantage in the press as Sheppard did to advantage. Wild was now despised. When, after his recovery, Wild used violence to perform a jail break for one of his gang members, he was being sought out and went into hiding for several weeks, and returned to business when he thought the affair had blown over. On 6 February 1725, he was summoned to Leicester house, where he failed to recover a gold watch for one of his attendants because of the jail break and the incident with Blueskin at the Old Bailey.

Arrest, trial and execution

On 15 February Wild and Quilt Arnold

Quilt Arnold

were arrested for helping one of his men in a jailbreak. Wild was placed in Newgate, where he continued to attempt to run his business. In the illustration from the True Effigy (top of page), Wild is pictured in Newgate, still with notebook in hand to account for goods coming in and going out of his office. Evidence was presented against Wild for the violent jailbreak and for having stolen jewels during the previous August's installation of Knights of the Garter

Order of the Garter

The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...

.

The public's mood had shifted; they supported the average man and resented authority figures. Wild's trial occurred at the same time as that of the Lord Chancellor

Lord Chancellor

The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...

, Lord Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield

Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield

Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield PC, FRS was an English Whig politician.-Youth and early career:He was born in Staffordshire, the son of Thomas Parker, an attorney at Leek. He was educated at Adams' Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge...

, for taking £100,000 in bribes. With the changing tide, it appeared at last to Wild's gang that their leader would not escape, and they began to come forward. Slowly, gang members began to turn evidence on him, until all of his activities, including his grand scheme of running and then hanging thieves, became known. Additionally, evidence was offered as to Wild's frequent bribery of public officers.

Wild's final trial occurred at the Old Bailey on 15 May. He was tried on two indictments of privately stealing 50 yards (45.7 m) of lace from Catherine Statham (a lace-seller who had visited him in prison on 10 March) at Holborn on 22 January. He was acquitted of the first charge, but with Statham's evidence presented against him on the second charge, he was convicted and sentenced to death. Terrified, Wild asked for a reprieve but was refused. He could not eat or go to church, and suffered from insanity and gout. On the morning of his execution, in fear of death, he attempted suicide by drinking a large dose of laudanum, but because he was weakened by fasting, he vomited violently and sank into a coma that he would not awaken from.

When Wild was taken to the gallows at Tyburn

Tyburn, London

on 24 May 1725, Daniel Defoe said that the crowd was far larger than any they had seen before and that, instead of any celebration or commiseration with the condemned,
Wild's hanging was a great event, and tickets were sold in advance for the best vantage points (see the reproduction of the gallows ticket). Even in a year with a great many macabre spectacles, Wild drew an especially large and boisterous crowd. Eighteen-year-old Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....

was in attendance. Wild was accompanied by William Sperry and the two Roberts Sanford and Harpham, three of the four prisoners who had been condemned to die with Wild a few days before. Because he was heavily drugged, he was the last to die after the three of them, without any difficulty that had happened at Sheppard's execution. The hangman, Richard Arnet, had been a guest at Wild's wedding.

In the dead of night, Wild's body was buried in secret at the churchyard of St Pancras Old Church

St Pancras Old Church

St Pancras Old Church is a Church of England parish church in central London. It is believed to be one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in England, and is dedicated to the Roman martyr Saint Pancras, although the building itself is largely Victorian...

next to Elizabeth Mann, his third wife and one of his many lovers (who had died in about 1718), as he had wished. His burial was only temporary. In the 18th century, autopsies and dissections were performed on the most notorious criminals, and consequently Wild's body was exhumed and sold to the Royal College of Surgeons

Royal College of Surgeons of England

The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity committed to promoting and advancing the highest standards of surgical care for patients, regulating surgery, including dentistry, in England and Wales...

for dissection. His skeleton remains on public display in the Royal College's Hunterian Museum

Royal College of Surgeons of England

in Lincoln's Inn Fields

Lincoln's Inn Fields

Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London, UK. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes...

Literary treatments

Jonathan Wild is famous today not so much for setting the example for organized crime as for the uses satirists made of his story.

When Wild was hanged, the papers were filled with accounts of his life, collections of his sayings, farewell speeches and the like. Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe

wrote one narrative for Applebee's Journal in May and then had published True and Genuine Account of the Life and Actions of the Late Jonathan Wild in June 1725. This work competed with another that claimed to have excerpts from Wild's diaries. The illustration above is from the frontispiece to the "True Effigy of Mr. Jonathan Wild," a companion piece to one of the pamphlets purporting to offer the thief-taker's biography.

Criminal biography was a genre. These works offered a touching account of need, a fall from innocence, sex, violence and then repentance or a tearful end. Public fascination with the dark side of human nature and with the causes of evil, has never waned and the market for mass produced accounts was large.

By 1701 there had been a Lives of the Gamesters (often appended to Charles Cotton

Charles Cotton

Charles Cotton was an English poet and writer, best known for translating the work of Michel de Montaigne from the French, for his contributions to The Compleat Angler, and for the highly influential The Compleat Gamester which has been attributed to him.-Early life:He was born at Beresford Hall...

's The Compleat Gamester), about notorious gamblers. In 1714 Captain Alexander Smith had written the best-selling Complete Lives of the Most Notorious Highwaymen. Defoe himself was no stranger to this market: his Moll Flanders
Moll Flanders
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders is a novel written by Daniel Defoe in 1722, after his work as a journalist and pamphleteer. By 1722, Defoe had become a recognised novelist, with the success of Robinson Crusoe in 1719...

was published in 1722. By 1725, Defoe had written a History and a Narrative of the life of Jack Sheppard

Jack Sheppard

(see above). Moll Flanders may be based on the life of one Moll King, who lived with Mary Mollineaux/Milliner, Wild's first mistress.

What differs about the case of Jonathan Wild is that it was not simply a crime story. Parallels between Wild and Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....

were instantly drawn, especially by the Tory

Tory

authors of the day. Mist's Weekly Journal (one of the more rough-speaking Tory journals) drew a parallel between the figures in May 1725, when the hanging was still in the news.

The parallel is most important for John Gay

John Gay

John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...

's The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...

in 1728. The main story of the Beggar's Opera focuses on the episodes between Wild and Sheppard. In the opera, the character of Peachum stands in for Wild (who stands in for Walpole), while the figure of Macheath stands in for Sheppard (who stands in for Wild and/or the chief officers of the South Sea Company). Robert Walpole himself saw and enjoyed Beggar's Opera without realizing that he was its intended target. Once he did realize it, he banned the sequel opera, Polly, without staging. This prompted Gay to write to a friend, "For writing in the cause of virtue and against the fashionable vices, I have become the most hated man in England almost."

In 1742, Robert Walpole lost his position of power in the British House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

. He was created a peer and moved to the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

, from where he still directed the Whig

British Whig Party

majority in Commons for years. In 1743, Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....

's The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great appeared in the third volume of Miscellanies.

Fielding is merciless in his attack on Walpole. In his work, Wild stands in for Walpole directly, and, in particular, he invokes the Walpolean language of the "Great Man". Walpole had come to be described by both the Whig and then, satirically, by the Tory political writers as the "Great Man", and Fielding has his Wild constantly striving, with stupid violence, to be "Great". "Greatness," according to Fielding, is only attained by mounting to the top stair (of the gallows). Fielding's satire also consistently attacks the Whig party by having Wild choose, among all the thieves cant

Cant (language)

A Cant is the jargon or argot of a group, often implying its use to exclude or mislead people outside the group.-Derivation in Celtic linguistics:...

terms (several lexicons of which were printed with the Lives of Wild in 1725), "prig" to refer to the profession of burglary. Fielding suggests that Wild becoming a Great Prig was the same as Walpole becoming a Great Whig: theft and the Whig party were never so directly linked.

The figures of Peachum and Macheath were picked up by Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

for his updating of Gay's opera as The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...

. The Sheppard character, Macheath, is the "hero" of the song Mack the Knife
Mack the Knife
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife", originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the...

.

In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...

's Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...

novel, The Valley of Fear

The Valley of Fear

The Valley of Fear is the fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The story was first published in the Strand Magazine between September 1914 and May 1915, and the first book edition was published in New York on 27 February 1915.- Part I: The Tragedy of Birlstone...

, the arch-villain Professor Moriarty

Professor Moriarty

Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and the archenemy of the detective Sherlock Holmes in the fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Moriarty is a criminal mastermind, described by Holmes as the "Napoleon of Crime". Doyle lifted the phrase from a real Scotland Yard inspector who was...

is referred to as a latter-day Jonathan Wild by Holmes:
In 1969, James Clavell's screenplay for the film "Where's Jack?" told the story of Jack Shepherd (played in the film by the pop singer Tommy Steele) with Wild (played by Stanley Baker) as a suave and sinister criminal mastermind.

More recently, Jonathan Wild appeared as a character in the David Liss

David Liss

David Liss is an American writer of novels, essays and short fiction; more recently working also in comic books. He was born in New Jersey and grew up in South Florida. Liss received his B. A. degree from Syracuse University, an M. A. from Georgia State University and his M. Phil from Columbia...

novel A Conspiracy of Paper
A Conspiracy of Paper
A Conspiracy of Paper is a historical-mystery novel by David Liss, set in London in the period leading up to the bursting of the South Sea Bubble in 1720.-Synopsis:...

, ISBN 0-8041-1912-0. Jonathan Wild is also the title character in the 2005–2006 Phantom
The Phantom
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many media, including television, film and video games, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating from the fictional African country Bengalla.The Phantom is...

stories "Jonathan Wild: King of Thieves" and "Jonathan Wild: Double Cross".

External links

Account of Wild's trial from The Complete Newgate Calendar via U. Texas
Project Gutenberg edition of Fielding's Life of Jonathan Wild the Great
Cambridge Literary History discussion of Fielding's treatment of Wild
Wild's skeleton (BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

, 11 February 2005)
Jonathan Wild's memorial page on Find A Grave
"Jack Sheppard, Jail-Breaker" from Early Eighteenth-Century Newspaper Reports: A Sourcebook. Retrieved on 30 September 2007.

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