John Nevison John Nevison John Nevison (1639 – 4 May 1684), also known as William Nevison or Nevinson, was one of Britain's most notorious highwaymen, a gentleman rogue supposedly nicknamed "Swift Nick" by King Charles II after a renowned dash from Kent to York to establish an alibi for a robbery he had committed earlier that day. The story inspired William Harrison Ainsworth to include a modified version in his novel "Rookwood", in which he attributed the feat to Dick Turpin. There are suggestions that the feat was actually undertaken by Samuel Nicks. Nevison was born in 1639, probably in Wortley in
Dick Turpin a chandler and grocer named Peter Split, at Woodford. Although the identities of the perpetrators are unknown, Turpin may have been involved. Two nights later they struck again, at the Woodford home of a gentleman named Richard Woolridge, a Furnisher of Small Arms in the Office of Ordnance at the Tower of London. In December Jasper and Samuel Gregory, John Jones, and John Wheeler, attacked the home of John Gladwin (a higler) and John Shockley, in Chingford. On 19 December Turpin and five other men raided the home of Ambrose Skinner, a 73-year-old farmer from Barking, leaving with an estimated