Turpin's Grave

Dick Turpin was a highwayman from York during the eighteenth century. His exploits and personality have been somewhat romanticised and he continues to pull the crowds to some of York’s tourist attractions. The tricorn hat, large pistols and horse stealing have sometimes enabled him to be seen as a Georgian Robin Hood. He was actually a violent thug who traded theft and death. I called at his supposed grave in York’s St George’s cemetery, which he eventually occupied after his hanging in 1739 after being briefly borrowed by body snatchers.

For all his reputation for swashbuckling and bravado, the man died a fool. On the eve of his death, his own father wrote to him, urging him to

"beg of God to pardon your many transgressions, which the thief upon the cross received pardon for at the last hour".

Yet he refused the ministration of a parson and seemed more interested in buying himself new shoes and a coat for his final hour of glory.

Some glory. His body, covered in quick lime, lies in an unattractive patch of land near modern housing, while his soul awaits God’s judgement in hades. Too often, we glamourise evil and consider that which is good and wholesome to be boring and tiresome. Yet there are others of Turpin’s generation who stand now in the presence of God and His angels for having responded to the gospel which he so casually spurned. He robbed others of their coin, but stole salvation from himself. Turpin was the greatest victim of Turpin.