Dick Turpin as Turpin in the 1974 Carry On film "Carry On Dick" and LWT cast Richard O'Sullivan as Turpin in their eponymous series "Dick Turpin". Footnotes Notes Bibliography Dick Turpin Richard Turpin (bapt. 21 September 1705 – 7 April 1739) was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's trade as a butcher early in his life but, by the early 1730s, he had joined a gang of deer thieves and, later, became a poacher, burglar, horse thief and killer. He is also known for a fictional overnight
Dick (slang) by the continued use of the word in inoffensive contexts, including as both a given name and a surname, in the popular British dessert spotted dick, in the classic novel "Moby-Dick", and in the "Dick and Jane" series of children's books. Uses such as these have provided a basis for comedy writers to exploit this juxtaposition through double entendre. The word connoted a person of questionable character long before it became a nickname for the penis. For example, in the 1665 satire "The English Rogue" by Richard Head, an unsavory character is referred to as a "dick": An 1869 slang