Highwayman highway robbers as heroes. Originally they were admired by many as bold men who confronted their victims face-to-face and were ready to fight for what they wanted. The most famous English robber hero is the legendary medieval outlaw Robin Hood. Later robber heroes included the Cavalier highwayman James Hind, the French-born gentleman highwayman Claude Du Vall, John Nevison, Dick Turpin, Sixteen String Jack, William Plunkett and his partner the "Gentleman Highwayman" James MacLaine, the Slovak Juraj Jánošík, and Indians including Kayamkulam Kochunni, Veerappan and Phoolan Devi. In 17th- through early-19th-century Ireland, acts of robbery were often part of a tradition
Dick Turpin 18th and 19th centuries and in film and television of the 20th century. Richard Turpin was born at the Blue Bell Inn (later the Rose and Crown) in Hempstead, Essex, the fifth of six children to John Turpin and Mary Elizabeth Parmenter. He was baptised on 21 September 1705, in the same parish where his parents had been married more than ten years earlier. Turpin's father was a butcher and innkeeper. Several stories suggest that Dick Turpin may have followed his father into these trades; one hints that, as a teenager, he was apprenticed to a butcher in the village