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 robbery in Kent in 1676, William Nevison apparently rode to York to establish an alibi, and Defoe's account of that journey became part of folk legend. A similar ride was attributed to Turpin as early as 1808, and was being performed on stage by 1819, but the feat as imagined by Ainsworth (about 200 miles in less than a day) is impossible. Nevertheless, Ainsworth's legend of Black Bess was repeated in works such as "Black Bess or the Knight of the Road", a 254-part penny dreadful published in 1867–68. In these tales, Turpin was the hero, accompanied by his