User:Hillbillyholiday/Articles/Lewis Jeremiah Avershaw

Lewis Jeremiah Avershaw highwaymen born 1773 and executed 3 August 1795.

THE subject of this brief memoir was one of the most fierce, depraved, and infamous of the human race. From early life he exhibited in his disposition a combination of the worst feelings of our nature, which, as the period of manhood approached, settled into a sort of prerogative of plunder and depredation, by which he seemed to consider himself as entitled to prey on the property, and sport with the lives, of his fellow creatures, with the most heartless impunity.

Life
The southern suburbs of London were haunted during the last quarter of the eighteenth century by a youthful highwayman of a very desperate kind. He was as successful as reckless, and captained a gang that made Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common places to be dreaded as much as were Hounslow Heath on the west, and Finchley Common in the north, and brought the name of "Jerry Abershaw" into exceptional prominence. The real name of this highwayman was Louis Jeremiah Avershaw, and he was born in 1773, of the usual "poor but honest" parents. Indeed, it would seem, in enquiring into the lives of the highwaymen, that they in general came of such stock, whose only crime was their poverty: although that, as we well know in this happy land of ours, is a very heinous offence, it being the duty of every English man and woman to pay rates and taxes to keep a constantly growing official class in well-paid and easy employment. Ltd|year=1908}}

We so rarely hear of a highwayman deriving from dishonest parents that, it would seem, even in the more adventurous centuries, ill-led lives were as a rule so short and sordid as to impress the children of those who led them with the idea that honesty was not only really, in the long run, the best policy, but that for evil courses there was no long run at all. Otherwise, the life of the highwayman, if not by any means, as a general rule, so gay as usually it was represented to be, was sufficiently full of that spice of excitement which to the youthful makes amends for much danger and discomfort, and sons might often have succeeded fathers in the liberal profession of highway robbery.

The boyhood of Jerry Abershaw has never been dragged from the obscurity that enwraps it. No slowly-budding flower he, but one that in one brief day flung open its petals. Or rather, in less flowery language, we learn nothing of the first steps that led him to the highway, and find him at the very first mention of his doings already a cool and assured character, robbing with impunity, and making one place in especial a spot to be dreaded. This was the hollow of Putney Bottom, through which the Portsmouth Hoad runs on its way to Kingston. The little Beverley Brook trickles by, to this day, in the hollow ; and Combe Wood, whose thickets formed so convenient a lair for Abershaw, and a rallying-place for his gang, is still very much what it was then.

Abershaw was not, of course, the first to see the strategic value of the heath, and of such woody tangles as these, bordering the road for quite three miles; for we read in Ogilby's great book on the roads, published in 1675, of Kingston Hill, hard by as "not rarely infested with robbers"; and a gibbet long stood near at hand, to remind those robbers, and others who succeeded them, of their own probable fate. But, if by no means the first, or even the last, who practised here, he is easily the most famous, even though it be merely a pervasive fame, not crystallised into many anecdotes.

Newgate Calendar: He attached himself to gangs of the most notorious thieves and impostors, over whom, by a kind of supererogatory talent for all sorts of villainy, he very soon acquired unlimited influence and command, and by whose aid he committed such numerous and daring acts of highway-robbery, house-breaking, and plunder, as made him the dread and terror of the metropolis and its vicinity.

Kennington Common, Hounslow Heath, Bagshot Heath, and indeed all the commons and roads for several miles round London, were the scenes of the predatory depredations of Avershaw and his associates; and such a degree of tenor had his repeated acts of robbery and brutality inspired, that the post-boys, coachmen, and all whose duty compelled them frequently to travel over the theatre of his exploits, trembled at his name and dreaded his visitation.

The "Bald Paced Stag," that then stood, a lonely tavern, by the roadside near the Beverley Brook, was a favourite meeting-place of Abershaw and his fellows. It was afterwards rebuilt, as a superior hostelry, in the days when the growth of travel and of coaching had rendered the old roadside accommodation insufficient. This later house may still be seen, standing nowadays as a private residence, with imposing pillared portico, by the way. Whether the landlord of the original "Bald Faced Stag," was in league with Abershaw and his gang, or not, is impossible to say. Very generally, the tavern-keepers of that age were suspected, and rightly suspected, of a guilty acquaintance with the highwaymen, but it would be too much to assume that they were all of that character; and indeed we find in the sad story of one John Poulter, otherwise Baxter, who was hanged in 1754 for highway robbery, that the frequenting by highwaymen against his wish of an inn he kept in Dublin first ruined his trade and compelled him in self-defence at last to seek a living on the road.

An innkeeper situated like him who kept the "Bald Faced Stag" in the days of Abershaw would have no choice but to harbour the gang whenever they felt inclined to confer their patronage upon him; but, to be quite just, it would certainly appear that he was a willing ally, for, in the most outstanding among the few stories told of Abershaw, it appears that once, when taken ill on the road, the highwayman was put to bed in the house and cared for while a doctor was procured. It was a Dr. William Roots who answered the call, from Putney. The ailing stranger, whose real name and occupation the doctor never for a moment suspected, was bled, after the medical practice of the time, and the doctor was about to leave for home, when his patient, with a great appearance of earnestness, said : " You had better, sir, have someone to go back with you, as it is a very dark and lonesome journey." This thoughtful offer the doctor declined, remarking that " he had not the least fear, even should he meet with Abershaw himself." The story was a favourite with Abershaw : it afforded him a reliable criterion of the respect in which the travelling public generally held him. The notoriety Abershaw early attained led to his early end. The authorities made especial efforts to arrest him, and, learning that he frequented a public-house in Southwark, called the "Three Brewers," set a watch upon the place.

Although the peculiar features of the criminal laws of our country for a long time operated to the impunity of this abandoned ruffian and desperado, the cup of his iniquities was gradually filling, and he at length fell under the weighty hand of outraged justice; but not till, unhappily, he had added a new act of murder to the long and black catalogue of his unatoned crimes: and it is lamentable to record that so base, so villainous, and so bloody a being, should have found creatures, bearing the form and name of men, so entirely forgetful of their duties to society and to God, as not only to become the admirers and apologists of what they misnamed the valour of Avershaw, but who absolutely affected to trace something prophetic in the fiendlike declarations he had too often made, that "he would murder the first who attempted to deliver him into the hands of justice," because, in the spirit of his diabolical declarations, he did actually shed the blood of a fellow-creature, who, in the performance of his duty as a police-officer, essayed the arrest of this most notorious of culprits.

One day the two officers detailed for this duty discovered him in the house, drinking with some of his friends, and entered to arrest him. But Ahershaw was on the alert, and, as they stood in the doorway, arose with a pistol in either hand, and, with a curse, warned them to stand clear, or he would shoot them. Disregarding this threat, they rushed in, and Abershaw, firing both pistols at once, mortally wounded one officer and severely wounded the landlord in the head. But he did not escape. He was tried at Croydon Assizes, on July 30th, 1795, before Mr. Baron Penryn, for murder ; the wounded officer, David Price, having died in the interval. A second indictment charged him with having attempted to murder the other, by discharging a pistol at him.

Trial
At length he was brought to trial before Mr Baron Perryn, at Croydon, in the county of Surrey, on the 30th of July, 1795. On his way to Croydon to take his trial, the cavalcade passed over Kennington Common, and on its arriving on the spot where the executions at that time took place, Avershaw put his head out of the coach window, and in the peculiar flash style which be ever exhibited, asked the officers attending whether they "did not think that he should be TWISTED on that pretty spot by the next Saturday?"

He was charged on two indictments: one for having, at the Three Brewers public-house, Southwark, feloniously shot at and murdered D. Price, an officer belonging to the police office held at Union Hall, in the Borough; the other for having, at the same time and place, fired a pistol at Bernard Turner, another officer attached to the office at Union Hall, with an intent to murder him.

Mr Garrow, the leading counsel for the prosecution, opened his case to the Court and jury by stating that the prisoner at the bar, being a person of ill fame, had been suspected of having perpetrated a number of felonies. A warrant had been issued for his arrest by the Southwark magistrates, and D. Price, and B. Turner, officers belonging to Union Hall, were intrusted with its execution. Having received information that he was smoking and drinking in a public house in Southwark called the Three Brewers, at that time notorious as the resort of thieves and vagabonds, they repaired thither, and found their information to be correct; but they also found that the object of their search was fully prepared to put in execution his diabolical threats. On their approach he placed himself at the entrance to the parlour with a loaded pistol in each hand, vowing the instant death of any one who should attempt to take him. The officers, more valiant than prudent, rushed forward, expecting to throw him off his guard by the suddenness and vigour of their attack; in this, however, they were unhappily deceived -- the ruffian discharged both the weapons at the same moment, by one of which Turner was severely wounded in the head, while the fatal contents of the other lodged in the body of the unfortunate Price, who languished a few hours in great agony and then died.

The jury, after a consultation of about three minutes, pronounced the verdict of guilty. Through a flaw in the indictment for the murder an objection was taken by counsel. This was urged nearly two hours, when Mr Baron Perryn intimated a wish to take the opinion of the twelve judges of England, but the counsel for the prosecution, waiving the point for the present, insisted on the prisoner's being tried on the second indictment, for feloniously shooting at Barnaby Windsor, which, the learned counsel said, would occupy no great portion of time, as it could be sufficiently supported by the testimony of a single witness. He was accordingly tried, and found guilty on a second capital indictment: The prisoner, who, contrary to general expectation, had in a great measure hitherto refrained from his usual audacity, began, with unparalleled insolence of expression and gesture, to ask his Lordship if he was to be murdered by the evidence of one witness. Several times he repeated the question, till the jury returned him guilty.

When the judge appeared in the black cap, the emblem assumed at the time of passing sentence on convicted felons, Avershaw, with the most unbridled insolence and bravado, clapped his hat upon his head, and pulled up his breeches with a vulgar swagger; and during the whole of the ceremony, which deeply affected all present except the senseless object himself, he stared full in the face of the judge with a malicious sneer and affected contempt, and continued this conduct till he was taken, bound hand and foot, from the dock, venting curses and insults on the judge and jury for having consigned him to "murder."

Even at that solemn moment, when, having been found guilty on the second count, the judge, in passing sentence, assumed the black cap, he was not affected, except by rage and the spirit of mockery, and followed the action of the judge by putting on his own hat. The gaolers were at last compelled by his violence to handcuff him, and to tie his arms and legs. In that condition he was removed to gaol, to await execution.

This brutal conduct continued to the last. In the interval between receiving sentence of death and the execution, having got some black cherries, he amused himself with painting on the white walls of the cell in which he was confined, sketches of various robberies which he had committed; one representing him running up to the horses' heads of a post-chaise, presenting a pistol at the driver, with the words, "D--n your eyes, stop," issuing out of his mouth; another where he was firing into the chaise; a third, where the parties had quitted the carriage; several, in which he was portrayed in the act of taking money from the passengers, and other scenes of a similar character.
 * There he must soon have realised the folly of resistance; for he became quiet and apparently resigned. In the short interval that remained between his sentence and that appearance on Kennington Common he had accurately foreseen, he occupied himself with drawing rough pictures on the whitewashed walls of his cell with the juice of black cherries that had formed part of the simple luxuries his purse and the custom of the prison permitted.


 * Abershaw was taken by road from London to Croydon, and passing Kennington Common, then the principal place of execution in Surrey, he laughingly asked those in charge of him, if they did not share his own opinion that he would himself be " twisted " there on the following Saturday. That was the conventionally callous way in which the highwaymen approached their

doom. To prove the charge of killing Price was naturally the simplest of tasks, and the jury, returning from a three-minutes' deliberation, duly found him guilty. Prisoner's counsel, however, raising an objection on some legal quibble as to a flaw in the indictment, the point was argued for two hours and not decided ; the judge desiring to consult his learned brethren on the point. There is a certain grim humour about these proceedings ; because, whatever the result of this was likely to be, there was yet the second indictment to be tried, and on that alone there could be no doubt of Abershaw being capitally convicted. It was then proceeded with, and Abershaw himself, seeing how he must inevitably be found guilty, and hanged, threw off all restraint. He insolently inquired of the judge, if he were to be murdered by perjured witnesses, and in violent language declared his contempt for the Court.

These idle scribblings represented his own exploits on the road. In one he appeared in the act of stopping a post-chaise and threatening the driver: the words, "Damn your eyes! Stop!" appended. The remainder of this curious gallery pictured the other incidents common in a highwayman's life. The time then allowed convicted criminals between their sentence and execution was very short.

Execution
He was executed on Kennington Common, on the 3rd of August, 1795, in the presence of an immense multitude of spectators, among whom he recognised many acquaintances and confederates, to whom he bowed, nodded, and laughed with the most unfeeling indifference. He had a flower in his mouth, and his waistcoat and shin were unbuttoned, leaving his bosom open in the true style of vulgar gaiety; and, talking to the mob, and venting curses on the officers, he died, as he had lived, a ruffian and a brute!

On August 3rd he was hanged on Kennington Common; game or, rather, callous to the last. Arrived there, he kicked off his boots among the great crowd assembled, and died unshod, to disprove an old saying of his mother's, that he was a bad lad, and would die in his shoes. He was but twenty-two years of age when he met this fate, not actually for highway robbery, but for murder. His body was afterwards hanged in chains in Putney Bottom, the scene of his chief exploits, and an old and nasty legend was long current in those parts of a sergeant in a regiment soon afterwards marching past firing at the distended body, by which (to make short of an offensive story) the neighbourhood was nearly poisoned. The sergeant was reduced to the ranks for this ill-judged choice of a target.

With Avershaw suffered John Little, who, having had employment at the laboratory of the palace at Kew, became acquainted with Mr Macevoy and Mrs King, persons of very advanced years, and who had been many years resident at Kew. Supposing they had some property at home, he watched an opportunity and murdered them both.

The infamy of Avershaw's life, and the atrocity of his deeds, rendered him a fit object for the posthumous punishment of hanging in chains on the arena of his crimes, and (painful as is the record, the truth must be told,) while the disgusting carcass of this malefactor, devoured by the birds and withered by the elements, gradually disappeared, the spot on which he had been gibbeted was converted into a temple of infamy, to which the thieves and vagabonds of London resorted in a sort of pilgrimage; and while the leading ruffians of the flash school, of which Avershaw was the child and champion, procured from his decaying and piece-meal carcass the bones of his fingers and toes to convert into stoppers for their tobacco-pipes, the tyro villains contented themselves with tearing the buttons from his clothes, as mementos of the estimation in which they held their arch prototype.