Jonathan Wild, also spelled Wilde (1682 or 1683 – 24 May 1725), was an English thief-taker and a major figure in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

's criminal underworld, notable for operating on both sides of the law, posing as a public-spirited vigilante entitled the "Thief-Taker General". He simultaneously ran a significant criminal empire, and used his crimefighting role to remove rivals and launder the proceeds of his own crimes. Wild exploited a strong public demand for action during a major 18th-century crime wave in the absence of any effective police force in London. As a powerful gang-leader himself, he became a master manipulator of legal systems, collecting the rewards offered for valuables which he had stolen himself, bribing prison guards to release his colleagues, and

blackmail Blackmail is a criminal act of coercion using a threat. As a criminal offense, blackmail is defined in various ways in common law jurisdictions. In the United States, blackmail is generally defined as a crime of information, involving a thr ...

ing any who crossed him. Wild was consulted on crime by the government due to his apparently remarkable prowess in locating stolen items and those who had stolen them. Wild was responsible for the arrest and execution of Jack Sheppard, a petty thief and burglar who had won the public's affection as a lovable rogue. However, Wild's duplicity became known and his men began to give evidence against him. After a suicide attempt, he was hanged at

Tyburn Tyburn was a Manorialism, manor (estate) in London, Middlesex, England, one of two which were served by the parish of Marylebone. Tyburn took its name from the Tyburn Brook, a tributary of the River Westbourne. The name Tyburn, from Teo Bourne ...

before a massive crowd. Since his death, Wild has been featured in novels, poems and plays, some of them noting parallels between Wild and the contemporaneous

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Walpole, known as "''The Great Corrupter''".

Early life

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

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands of England. Located around 12 miles (20 km) north of Birmingham, it forms the northwestern part of the West Midlands conurbation, with the towns of ...

in either 1682 or 1683 – although he was also alleged to have been born in the nearby

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

village of BoningaleRaven, M. ''A Guide to Shropshire'', 2005, p. 31 – as the first of five children in a poor family.Moore, p. 18. He was baptised at St. Peter's Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton. 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 town in

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

, 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.Moore, p. 19. He married and had a son, but came to

in 1704 as a servant. After being dismissed by his master he returned to Wolverhampton, before coming back to London in 1708.Moore, p. 20. 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 The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

.Moore, p. 3. 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 Compter The Wood Street Compter (or Wood Street Counter) was a small prison within the City of London in England. It was primarily a debtors' prison, and also held people accused of such misdemeanours as public drunkenness, although some wealthier pris ...

, one of the

debtor's prison A debtors' prison is a prison for Natural person, people who are unable to pay debt. Until the mid-19th century, debtors' prisons (usually similar in form to locked workhouses) were a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe.Cory, L ...

s in the City of London. The prisons were notoriously corrupt, with gaolers demanding a

bribe Bribery is the corrupt solicitation, payment, or acceptance of a private favor (a bribe) in exchange for official action. The purpose of a bribe is to influence the actions of the recipient, a person in charge of an official duty, to act contrar ...

, 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.Moore, p. 25. There, he met one Mary Milliner (or Mary Mollineaux), a

prostitute Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-pe ...

who began to teach Wild criminal ways and, according to

Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; 1660 – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, merchant and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translati ...

, "brought him into her own gang, whether of thieves or whores, or of both, is not much material". Wild 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 passed earlier that year for the relief of insolvent debtors.Moore, p. 43. Upon release, Wild began to live with Milliner as her husband in Lewkenor's Land (now Macklin Street) in

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 sit ...

, 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, with both its methods and its inhabitants. At some point during this period, Milliner had begun to act as something of a

madam Madam (), or madame ( or ), is a polite and formal form of address for Woman, women in the English language, often contracted to ma'am (pronounced in American English and this way but also in British English). The term derives from the French la ...

to other prostitutes, and Wild as a

fence A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or net (textile), netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its ...

, or receiver of stolen goods. He began, slowly at first, to dispose of stolen goods and to pay bribes to get thieves out of prison. Wild later parted with Milliner, cutting off her ear to mark her as a prostitute.Moore, p. 65.

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, Wild's forerunner and future rival as thief-taker, 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 (£ in ) for the appointment. He abused his office, however, by practising

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit (e.g., money or goods) through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, although making unfounded ...

on an extravagant scale, both from thieves and from their potential victims.Moore, p. 63. He would accept bribes to let thieves out of jail, selectively arrest criminals, and coerce sexual services from molly houses. Hitchen's

testimony Testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. Etymology The words "testimony" and "testify" both derive from the Latin word ''testis'', referring to the notion of a disinterested third-party witness. Law In the law, testimon ...

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 (£ in ) 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 increasingly interested in the issues of criminals and policing. London depended entirely upon localised policing and had no citywide police force. Unease with crime was at a feverish high. The public was eager to embrace both colourful criminals (e.g. Jack Sheppard and the entirely upper-class gang called the " Mohocks" 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 organised crime during the period. The ending of the

War of the Spanish Succession The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict fought between 1701 and 1714. The immediate cause was the death of the childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700, which led to a struggle for control of the Spanish E ...

in 1714 meant a further increase in crime as demobilised soldiers were on the streets. By this time, Hitchen was restored to his office but Wild went his own way, opening a small office in the Blue Boar tavern run by Mrs Seagoe in Little Old Bailey. Wild 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"

It is believed that 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" ( bounty hunters) 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

, he did not wait for the theft to be announced. In addition to "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 between 1700 and 1720, such that 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 or, more often,

mugging Mugging (sometimes called personal robbery or street robbery) is a form of robbery and street crime that occurs in public places, often urban areas at night. It involves a confrontation with a threat of violence. Muggers steal money or person ...

, 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. Wild was not the first thief-taker who was actually a thief himself. Hitchen had used his position as Under Marshal to practise extortion, pressuring

brothel A brothel, strumpet house, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activity with prostitutes. For legal or cultural reasons, establis ...

s and pickpockets to pay him off. When Hitchen was suspended from his duties for

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...

in 1712, he engaged Wild to keep his business of extortion going in his absence. Hitchen was reinstated in 1714 and found that Wild was now a rival, and one of Wild's first acts 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

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

, ''A True Discovery of the Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers in and about the City of London'', in which he named Wild as a manager and source of crime. Wild replied with a manuscript of his own, ''An Answer to a Late Insolent Libel'', and there explained that Hitchen was a homosexual who visited "molly houses" (homosexual brothels). 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 (at that time) charge of homosexuality virtually eliminated him as a threat to Wild. Wild held a virtual

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

on crime in London, and 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 he would sell them to the

gallows A gallows (or less precisely scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sa ...

for the £40 reward. This supposed system inspired a fake or folk

etymology Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

of the phrase " double cross": it was 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 The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

for hanging. (This story is contradicted by the fact that the noun "double cross" did not enter English usage until 1834.) Wild publicly presented an heroic face. In 1718 he 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 The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly referred to as the Old Bailey after the street on which it stands, is a criminal court building in central London, one of several that house the Crown Court of England and Wales. The s ...

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 consulted with him on methods of controlling crime. His recommendation was, unsurprisingly, that the rewards for evidence against thieves be raised. Indeed, the reward for capturing a thief went from £40 to £140 within the year, amounting to a significant pay increase for Wild. There is some evidence that Wild was favoured, or at least ignored, by the Whig politicians and opposed by the

Tory A Tory () is an individual who supports a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalist conservatism which upholds the established social order as it has evolved through the history of Great Britain. The To ...

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, these laws had the opposite intended effect of strengthening Wild's hand, 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 the summer 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 £ in ). 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 defence of order. In reality, it was gang warfare disguised as a 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 (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English writer and magistrate known for the use of humour and satire in his works. His 1749 comic novel ''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'' was a seminal work in the genre. Along wi ...

's '' The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great'': The advertisement is extortion. The "notes of hand" (agreements of debt) means signatures, so Wild already knows the name of the notebook'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 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 Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...

, or one pound and one

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...

The Jack Sheppard struggle and downfall

By 1724, London political life was experiencing a crisis of public confidence. The

South Sea Bubble South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

had burst four years earlier, and the public was growing restive about corruption. Authority figures were beginning to be viewed with scepticism. In April 1724, the most famous housebreaker of the era, 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.Moore, p. 100. 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, but escaped within three hours.Moore, p. 104. On 19 May, Wild again had Sheppard arrested for pickpocketing, and this time he was put in St. Ann's Roundhouse in

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

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

Clerkenwell Clerkenwell ( ) is an area of central London, England. Clerkenwell was an Civil Parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish from the medieval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The St James's C ...

. They both escaped on 25 May.Moore, p. 105 In July, Field informed Wild about Sheppard, so Wild sought for Lyon on 22 July and plied her with drinks at Temple Bar until she betrayed Sheppard.Moore, p. 111. The following day, Wild sent another one of his men, Quilt Arnold, and had Sheppard arrested a third time and put into Newgate Prison to await trial.Moore, p. 112. On 13 August Sheppard was tried on three charges of burglary, but was

acquitted In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal means that the criminal prosecution has failed to prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charge presented. It certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an o ...

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; Sheppard was convicted, sentenced to death, and put in the condemned hold of Newgate Prison. On the night that the death warrant arrived, 31 August, Sheppard once again escaped. By this point, he was a working class hero for apprentices (being a

cockney Cockney is a dialect of the English language, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by Londoners with working-class and lower middle class roots. The term ''Cockney'' is also used as a demonym for a person from 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.Moore, p. 209. Sheppard was returned to Newgate and placed in the most secure room of the prison. 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 A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to foo ...

and Sheppard's partner-in-crime.Moore, p. 158. 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 death sentence commuted to

transportation Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

(since he had worked with Wild before), but Wild refused. Enraged, Blueskin attempted to murder Wild, slashing his throat with a pocketknife and causing an uproar. Wild collapsed and was taken to a surgeon for treatment.Moore, p. 159. Taking advantage of the disturbance that spread to Newgate next door and continued into the night, Sheppard escaped yet again on 16 October.Moore, p. 161. He had broken the chains, padlocks, and six iron-barred doors. This escape astonished everyone, and

, 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, he 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 painted his portrait. On 11 November, Blueskin was hanged. Five days later, Sheppard was similarly hanged at

. Wild did not attend either of the executions, as he was confined to his bed for several weeks while the injury to his throat was healing.Moore, p. 233. Wild's inability to control Sheppard, and his injuries at the hands of Blueskin, combined with a change of public sentiment regarding authority figures, led to his downfall. As he recuperated from his injury, his control over his criminal gang also slipped, and he became despised. After his recovery, Wild used violence to perform a jailbreak for one of his gang members. Being searched for, he went into hiding for several weeks and returned to business when he thought the affair had blown over. On 6 February 1725, Wild was summoned to Leicester House, where he failed to recover a gold watch for one of his attendants because of the jailbreak and the incident with Blueskin at the Old Bailey.Moore, p. 238.

Arrest, trial and execution

On 15 February, Wild and Arnold were arrested for the jailbreak.Moore, p. 239. 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 The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry founded by Edward III of England in 1348. The most senior order of knighthood in the British honours system, it is outranked in precedence only by the decorations of the Victoria ...

. 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 The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-ra ...

, Lord Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, 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.Moore, p. 246. He was tried on two

indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use that of an ind ...

s of privately stealing 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.Moore, p. 251. On the morning of his execution, in fear of death, Wild attempted suicide by drinking a large dose of laudanum, but because he was weakened by fasting, he vomited violently and sank into a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to Nociception, respond normally to Pain, painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal Circadian rhythm, sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate ...

from which he would not awaken.Moore, p. 252. When he was taken to the gallows at

on 24 May 1725, 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

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, Wild was the last to die after the three of them, without any difficulty that had happened at Sheppard's execution.Moore, p. 256. 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 is a Church of England parish church on Pancras Road, Somers Town, London, Somers Town, in the London Borough of Camden. Somers Town is an area of the ancient parish and later Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras, London, St ...

next to Elizabeth Mann, his third wife and one of his many lovers (who had died in about 1718), as he had wished.Moore, p. 260.Moore, p. 155. 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 The Royal College of Surgeons is an ancient college (a form of corporation) established in England to regulate the activity of surgeons. Derivative organisations survive in many present and former members of the Commonwealth. These organisations ...

for

dissection Dissection (from Latin ' "to cut to pieces"; also called anatomization) is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause of ...

. His skeletal remains are on public display in the Royal College's Hunterian Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Literary treatments

Jonathan Wild is famous today not so much for setting the example for organised crime as for the uses satirists made of his story. When he was hanged, the papers were filled with accounts of his life, collections of his sayings, farewell speeches and the like. 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 A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curri ...

. 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'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'' was published in 1722. By 1725, Defoe had written a ''History'' and a ''Narrative'' of the life of 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 Wild is that it was not simply a crime story. Parallels between Wild and

Robert Walpole Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (; 26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745), known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British Whigs (British political party), Whig statesman who is generally regarded as the ''de facto'' first Prim ...

were instantly drawn, especially by the

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 (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peach ...

's '' The Beggar's Opera'' 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 realising that he was its intended target. Once he did realise 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, Walpole lost his position of power in the

British House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 memb ...

. He was created a peer and moved to the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

, from where he still directed the Whig majority in the Commons for years. In 1743, Henry Fielding'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 Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

also consistently attacks the Whig party by having Wild choose, among all the thieves cant 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 Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

for his updating of Gay's opera as ''

The Threepenny Opera ''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a 1928 German "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, '' The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François V ...

''. The Sheppard character, Macheath, is the "hero" of the song " Mack the Knife". In Sir

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with obser ...

novel, '' The Valley of Fear'', the arch-villain Professor Moriarty is referred to as a latter-day Jonathan Wild by Holmes: In 2000, Jonathan Wild appeared as a character in the David Liss novel '' A Conspiracy of Paper'', . Jonathan Wild is also the title character in the 2005–2006 '' Phantom'' stories "Jonathan Wild: King of Thieves" and "Jonathan Wild: Double Cross". In 2014, author Aaron Skirboll released ''The Thief-Taker Hangings: How Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Wild, and Jack Sheppard Captivated London and Created the Celebrity Criminal.'' In 2015, Jonathan Wild appeared as a character in Paul Tobin's Eisner-nominated (2015) graphic novel '' I Was the Cat'', drawn by Benjamin Dewey. Jake Arnott featured him as one of the main characters in his 2017 novel ''The Fatal Tree''. Jonathan Wild has an important role in the background to the fantasy novel '' The Hanging Tree'', the sixth part of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series. Much of the book's plot revolves around a secret magical treatise by

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

, which was stolen by Jonathan Wild and disappeared for centuries, only to reappear in the underworld of 21st-century London. '' Confessions of the Fox'', a novel by Jordy Rosenberg (2018), mostly about Jack Sheppard, has Wild as an important character. Markus Gasser's 2022 novel , based on the life of Daniel Defoe, includes Wild, spelled Wylde, as the secret ruler of the London underworld.

In popular culture

*In 1969, James Clavell's

screenplay A screenplay, or script, is a written work produced for a film, television show (also known as a '' teleplay''), or video game by screenwriters (cf. ''stage play''). Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of w ...

for the film '' Where's Jack?'' told the story of Jack Shepherd (

Tommy Steele Sir Thomas Hicks (born 17 December 1936), known professionally as Tommy Steele, is an English entertainer, regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star. After being discovered at the 2i's Coffee Bar in Soho, London, Steele recor ...

) with Wild ( Stanley Baker) being depicted as a suave and sinister criminal mastermind. * Songwriter

Jimmy Webb Jimmy Layne Webb (born August 15, 1946) is an American songwriter, composer, and singer. He achieved success at an early age, winning the Grammy Award for Song of the Year at the age of 21. During his career, he established himself as one of Am ...

describes Wild's life and subsequent hanging in the 1977 song "

Highwayman A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to foo ...

". A 1985 recording by the

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

supergroup The Highwaymen entered the

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data along with digital sales and streaming. ...

''Billboard''

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphics, graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can repres ...

on 18 May 1985, rising to number 1, and spending 20 weeks total on the chart. Webb had a dream that he was a highwayman, which initially inspired the writing of the song. * In the 1999 film '' Plunkett & Macleane'', Wild was the inspiration for the film's

antagonist An antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the main enemy or rival of the protagonist and is often depicted as a villain.psychopathic Thief Taker General Chance, played by

Ken Stott Kenneth Campbell Stott (born 19 October 1954) is a Scottish stage, television and film actor who won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1995 in the play ''Broken Glass (play), Broken Glass'' at Royal National Thea ...

Notes

Bibliography

There are a few treatments of Wild that attempt to dramatise his life, but there remains only one full length non-fiction biography on Wild: *Howson, Gerald. ''Thief-Taker General: Jonathan Wild and the Emergence of Crime and Corruption as a Way of Life in Eighteenth-Century England.'' New Brunswick, NJ and Oxford, UK: 1970. . Other 20th century sources *Brief discussions of Jonathan Wild may be found in editions of the ''Beggar's Opera'', the ''Works of John Gay'', the ''Works of Henry Fielding'', editions of Fielding's '' Jonathan Wild'', the ''Works of Daniel Defoe'', and biographies of Defoe, such as the one by Paula Backschieder. All of these are prefatory and explanatory material. Most of these derive either from the ''Dictionary of National Biography'' or from Gerald Howson. *Lyons, Frederick J. ''Jonathan Wild, Prince of Robbers''. 1936. *Moore, Lucy. ''The Thieves' Opera''. 1997. *Woodhall, Edwin T. ''Jonathan Wild, Old Time Ace Receiver''. 1937. *Hendrickson, Robert ''Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins''. 1997. *Mullan, John, and Christopher Reid. ''Eighteenth-Century Popular Culture: A Selection.'' Oxford University Press, 2000. . * * 18th century sources *''An Authentic Narrative of the Parentage, Birth, Education and Practices of Jonathan Wild, Citizen and Thief Taker of London'', broadsheet. 1725. *''Jonathan Wild's Last Farewell to the World''. Anonymous ballad. *"H.D., Clerk of Justice." ''The Life of Jonathan Wild, from his Birth to his Death.'' 1725 (possibly by Daniel Defoe). *Defoe, Daniel ? ''A True & Genuine Account of the Life and Actions of the late Jonathan Wild, Not made up of Fictions and Fable, but taken from his Own Mouth and collected from PAPERS of his Own Writing''. June, 1725. *Defoe, Daniel. ''A True & Genuine Account of the Life and Death of the Late Jonathan Wild.'' 1725 (reprinted in various editions of Defoe's works and some editions of Henry Fielding's '' Jonathan Wild''). *Smith, Captain Alexander. ''The Memoirs of the Life & Times of the famous Jonathan Wild, together with the History & Lives of Modern Rogues.'' 1726.

External links

*
Account of Wild's trial from ''The Complete Newgate Calendar'' via U. TexasProject Gutenberg edition of Fielding's ''Life of Jonathan Wild the Great''
* ttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/health_surgical_history/html/2.stm Wild's skeleton(

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, 11 February 2005)
"Jack Sheppard, Jail-Breaker"
from ''Early Eighteenth-Century Newspaper Reports: A Sourcebook''. Retrieved on 19 January 2014.
''The Thief-Taker Hangings: How Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Wild, and Jack Sheppard Captivated London and Created the Celebrity Criminal'' by Aaron Skirboll
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wild, Jonathan 1680s births 1725 deaths 1714 crimes in Europe 18th-century English criminals Crime in London English gangsters People from Wolverhampton People executed by the Kingdom of Great Britain Executed people from Staffordshire People executed for theft People executed by England and Wales by hanging Burials at St Pancras Old Church People executed at Tyburn People imprisoned for debt Criminals from Staffordshire