page_title: Jack Sheppard
section_title: Final capture
hierarchical_section_title: Jack Sheppard / Criminal career / Final capture
caption_attribution_description: English: Jack Sheppard, 1728: an engraving by George White, based on the painting by James Thornhill made while the subject awaited execution in Newgate Prison. Sheppard points to the door, to another daring escape.
context_page_description: Jack Sheppard, or "Honest Jack", was a notorious English thief and prison escapee 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. He was arrested and imprisoned five times in 1724 but escaped four times from prison, making him a notorious public figure, and wildly popular with the poorer classes. Ultimately, he was caught, convicted, and hanged at Tyburn, ending his brief criminal career after less than two years. The inability of the notorious "Thief-Taker General" Jonathan Wild to control Sheppard, and injuries suffered by Wild at the hands of Sheppard's colleague Joseph "Blueskin" Blake led to Wild's downfall.
  Sheppard was as renowned for his attempts to escape from prison as he was for his crimes. An autobiographical "Narrative", thought to have been ghostwritten by Daniel Defoe, was sold at his execution, quickly followed by popular plays. The character of Macheath in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera was based in part on Sheppard, keeping him in the limelight for over 100 years.
context_section_description: Sheppard's final period of liberty lasted just two weeks. He disguised himself as a beggar and returned to the city. He broke into the Rawlins brothers' pawnbroker's shop in Drury Lane on the night of 29 October 1724, taking a black silk suit, a silver sword, rings, watches, a wig, and other items. He dressed himself as a dandy gentleman and used the proceeds to spend a day and the following evening on the tiles with two mistresses. He was arrested a final time in the early morning on 1 November, blind drunk, "in a handsome Suit of Black, with a Diamond Ring and a carnelian ring on his Finger, and a fine Light Tye Peruke".
  This time, Sheppard was placed in the Middle Stone Room, in the centre of Newgate next to the "Castle", where he could be observed at all times. He was also loaded with 300 pounds of iron weights. He was so celebrated that the gaolers charged high society visitors four shillings to see him, and the King's painter James Thornhill painted his portrait. Several prominent people sent a petition to King George I, begging for his sentence of death to be commuted to transportation. "The Concourse of People of tolerable Fashion to see him was exceeding Great, he was always Chearful and Pleasant to a Degree, as turning almost everything as was said onto a Jest and Banter." To a Reverend Wagstaffe who visited him, he said, according to Defoe, "One file's worth all the Bibles in the World".
  Sheppard came before Mr Justice Powis in the Court of King's Bench at Westminster Hall on 10 November. He was offered the chance to have his sentence reduced by informing on his associates, but he scorned the offer, and the death sentence was confirmed.  The next day, Blueskin was hanged, and Sheppard was moved to the condemned cell.
caption: Jack Sheppard, in Newgate Prison awaiting execution, in an engraving by George White from 1728, based on a painting by James Thornhill which has not survived. Note that Sheppard's hair is cropped and that he points toward the door.[30]
exif: {}