Highwayman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses see Highway-man/men (disambiguation)
Highwayman was a term used particularly in Britain during the 17th and 18th centuries to describe robbers who targeted people traveling by stagecoach and other modes of transport along public highways. They would use or threaten violence in order to seize money and other valuables from their victims. A highwayman rode a horse, and usually carried a pistol.
Well-known highwaymen's haunts included several places around London: Blackheath and nearby Shooter's Hill, Hounslow Heath, and Wimbledon and Barnes Commons.
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[edit] Decline
The early years of the 19th century saw the gradual disappearance of the traditional highwayman. The better law enforcement resulting from the introduction of organized city and county police forces (eg: London’s Bow Street Runners); the enclosure of common land, combined with improvements to the roads themselves, which reduced the areas in which highwaymen could operate undetected, and the banking reforms which cut the amounts of cash carried by road were all factors in this decline. The development of railways also contributed to the decline.
[edit] List of well known highwaymen
- Further information: List of highwaymen
[edit] In popular culture
- The fictitious MacHeath (aka 'Mack the Knife') originally in The Beggar's Opera by John Gay, but now more famous through The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill
[edit] Further reading
- Billett, Michael. Highwaymen and Outlaws. Arms and Armour Press, 1997.
- Brandon, David. Stand and Deliver! A History of Highway Robbery. Alan Sutton, 2001.
- Evans, Hilary & Mary. Hero on a Stolen Horse. Muller , 1977.
- Haining, Peter. The English Highwayman: A Legend Unmasked. Robert Hale, 1991.
- Maxwell, Gordon S. Highwayman's Heath. Thomason's, 1935.
- Newark, Peter. The Crimson Book of Highwaymen. Jupiter Books, 1979.
- Pringle, Patrick. Stand and Deliver: The Story of the Highwaymen. Museum Press, 1951.
- Sharpe, James. Dick Turpin: The Myth of the English Highwayman. Profile Books, 2004.
- Spraggs, Gillian. Outlaws and Highwaymen: The Cult of the Robber in England from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century. Pimlico, 2001.
[edit] References
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[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Stand and Deliver! - Highwaymen & Highway Robbery
- Outlaws and Highwaymen: The History of the Highwaymen and their Predecessors, the Medieval Outlaws
- Brennan on the Moor, lyrics of an Irish folksong of Irish highwayman William "Willie" Brennan
