Dick Turpin in York in 2009. Turpin is best known for his exploits as a highwayman, but before his execution the only contemporary report of him as such was in June 1737, when a broadsheet entitled "News news: great and wonderful news from London in an uproar or a hue and cry after the Great Turpin, with his escape into Ireland" was published. Although some of his contemporaries became the subject of chapbooks, names such as James Hind, Claude Duval and William Nevison, are not nearly as well-known today as the legend of Dick Turpin, whose fictionalised exploits first began to appear
Dick Turpin sentencing him to death. Before his execution, Turpin frequently received visitors (the gaoler was reputed to have earned £100 from selling drinks to Turpin and his guests), although he refused the efforts of a local clergyman who offered him "serious remonstrances and admonitions". John Turpin may have sent his son a letter, dated 29 March, urging him to "beg of God to pardon your many transgressions, which the thief upon the cross received pardon for at the last hour". Turpin bought a new frock coat and shoes, and on the day before his execution hired five mourners for three pounds