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Jonathan Wild (1683 - May 24, 1725) is perhaps the most famous criminal of the 18th century in London, if not all of the United Kingdom in that century, both because of what he did and the uses made of his life and actions by novelists, playwrights, and political satirists in general.
Wild was born in Wolverhampton in 1683 to a poor family. After serving as an apprentice to a buckle maker, he worked as a servant and came to London in 1704. After being dismissed by his master, he returned to Wolverhampton, where he was arrested for debt. During this time in debtor's prison, he became popular and got "the liberty of the gate" (meaning being allowed out at night to aid in the arrest of thieves). There, he met one Mary Milliner, a prostitute who began to teach Wild criminal ways and, according to Daniel Defoe, "brought him into her own gang, whether of thieves or whores, or of both, is not much material." With these new methods of raising money, Wild bought his way out of prison.
Upon release, Wild began to live with Mary Milliner as husband and wife, despite both of them having prior marriages and, in Wild's case, a child. Wild apparently served as Milliner's tough on night-walking. Soon Wild was acquainted with the underworld thoroughly, both its methods and its inhabitants, and he parted with Milliner. At some point during this period, however, Milliner began to act as something of a madame to other prostitutes, and Wild began to act as a fence, or receiver of stolen goods.
Wild began, slowly at first, to dispose of stolen goods and to pay bribes to get thieves out of gaol.
Wild had an ingenious method. He ran a gang of thieves and kept them working for him with ruthlessness. After one of them had stolen an item, he would take in stolen goods and then wait for the crime and theft to be announced in the newspapers. Afterward, he would "find" the stolen merchandise and return it to the rightful owners for a reward. In some cases, he did not wait for the theft to be announced, if the stolen items or circumstances allowed for blackmail. Additionally, he would offer the police aid in "finding" the thieves (who would not be the ones who had stolen the goods). The thieves that Wild would help to "discover" were rivals or members of his own gang who had refused to cooperate with his taking of the majority of the money.
Crime had risen dramatically in London between 1680 and 1720, and in 1712 the Under City-Marshal, Charles Hitchens, said that he personally knew 2,000 people in London who made their living solely by theft. Additionally, the advent of daily newspapers had meant a rising interest in crime and criminals. As the papers reported notable crimes and ingenious attacks, the public worried more and more about property crime and grew more and more interested in the issues of criminals and police. Inasmuch as London depended entirely upon localized policing and had no institutional city-wide police force, unease with crime was at a feverish high. The public was eager to embrace both colorful criminals (e.g. Jack Sheppard and the entirely upper-class gang called the "Mohocks" in 1712) and valiant crime-fighters. Since the city's population had more than doubled, there were no effective means of controlling crime. London saw a rise not only in thievery, but in organized crime during the period.
Wild would be recognizable today as the prototype of a "media don." Just as John Gotti is reputed to have been courting the public while simultaneously ruthlessly administering a crime empire, so did Wild.
Jonathan Wild's unique scheme was to operate a gang that would commit the crimes and then collect fees from returning the goods to their owners. He and his thieves thereby avoided the risk of selling stolen goods, and Wild could also profit by using his gang to apprehend rival thieves and collect the rewards on them.
In public, Wild presented an heroic face. He was the man who returned stolen goods. He was the man who caught criminals. In 1718, Wild called himself "Thief Taker General of Great Britain and Ireland." By his testimony, over sixty thieves were sent to the gallows. His "finding" of lost merchandise was private, but his efforts at finding thieves were public. Wild's office in the Old Bailey was a busy spot. Victims of crime would come by, even before announcing their losses, and discover that Wild's agents had "found" the missing items, and Wild would offer to help find the criminals for an extra fee. Whether he ever did turn in one of his own gang members for a private fee or not is suspect.
In 1720, Wild's fame was such that the Privy Council consulted with him on methods of controlling crime. Wild's recommendation was, unsurprisingly, that the rewards for evidence against thieves be raised. Indeed, the reward for capturing a thief went from forty pounds to one hundred and forty pounds within the year. This amounted to a significant pay increase for Wild.
There is some evidence that Wild was favored, or at least ignored, by the Whig politicians and opposed by the Tory politicians. In 1718, a Tory group had gotten the laws against receiving stolen property tightened, primarily with Wild's activities in mind.
Wild's battles with thieves were excellent press. Wild himself would approach the papers with accounts of his derring-do, and the papers gave these to a concerned public. Thus, in July to August of 1724, the papers carried accounts of Wild's heroic efforts in collecting twenty-one members of the Carrick Gang (with an eight hundred pounds reward (approximately $40,000 USD in year 2000 currency)). When one of the members of the gang was released, Wild pursued him and had him arrested on further information. To the public, this seemed like a relentless defense of order. In reality, it was a gang warfare strike at a competitor.
When Wild solicited for a finder's fee, he usually held all the power in the transaction. For example, David Nokes quotes the following advertisement from the Daily Post in 1724 in his edition of Henry Fielding's Jonathan Wild:
The ad tells its reader that Wild already knows the name of its owner ("notes of hand") and is a threat, since the Fountain Tavern was a brothel. He is threatening to publish the name of the owner in the paper, if he does not get more than a guinea as a reward, himself.
By 1724, London political life was experiencing a shakeup of public confidence. In 1720, the South Sea Bubble had burst, and the public was growing restive with corruption. Authority figures were beginning to be viewed with skepticism.
In February of 1724, the most famous housebreaker of the era, Jack Sheppard, was apprehended by Wild. He was imprisoned in St Giles' Roundhouse and immediately escaped. In May, Wild again had Sheppard arrested, and this time he was put in the New Prison. Sheppard escaped in less than a week. In July, Wild again had Sheppard arrested. He was tried, convicted, and put in the condemned hold of Newgate Prison. On the night that the death warrant arrived, August 30, Sheppard escaped. By this point, Sheppard was a working class hero (being a cockney, non-violent, and handsome). On September 11, Wild's men caught him again, and Sheppard was placed in the most secure room of Newgate. Further, Sheppard was put in shackles and chained to the floor. On September 16, Sheppard escaped yet again. Sheppard had broken the chains, padlocks, and six iron-barred doors. This escape astonished everyone, and Daniel Defoe, working as a journalist, wrote an acount. In late October, Wild found Sheppard again and had him arrested again. This time, Sheppard was placed in the center of Newgate, where he would be observed at all times, and loaded with three hundred pounds of iron weights. He was so celebrated that the gaolers charged high society visitors to see him, and James Thornhill painted his portrait.
Sheppard was hung on November 16, 1724.
During the pursuit of Sheppard, Wild appeared as much to disadvantage in the press as Sheppard did to advantage. Wild was now despised. When, in February of 1725, Wild used violence to perform a jail break for one of his gang members, he was arrested. He was placed in Newgate, where he continued to attempt to run his business. Evidence was presented against Wild for the violent jailbreak and for having stolen jewels during the previous August's installation of Knights of the Garter.
As mentioned previously, the public was in a skeptical mood. The public had begun to cheer for the average man and against authority figures. Wild's trial occurred at the same time as that of the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Macclesfield for taking one hundred thousand pounds in bribes. While Wild was in custody, gang members began to turn evidence on him, until all of his activities, and his main activity of running and then hanging thieves became known. Additionally, evidence was offered as to Wild's frequent bribery of public officers.
When Wild went to the gallows at Tyburn on May 24, 1725, Daniel Defoe said that the crowd was far greater than any they had seen before and that, instead of any celebration or commisseration with the condemned,
Jonathan Wild is famous today not so much for setting the example for organized crime as the uses satirists made of his story.
When Wild was hung, the papers were filled with accounts of his life, collections of his sayings, farewell speeches, and the like. Daniel Defoe wrote one narrative for Applebee's Journal in May and then had published True and Genuine Account of the Life and Actions of the Late Jonathan Wild in June of 1725. This work competed with another that claimed to have excerpts from Wild's diaries.
Criminal biography was already an existing genre. These works were popular then, as now, because they could offer a touching account of need, a fall from innocence, sex, violence, and then repentance and/or a tearful end. Public fascination with the dark side of human nature, and with the causes of evil, has never waned, and the market for mass produced accounts was large.
By 1701 there had been a Lives of the Gamesters, about notorious gamblers, and to this had been added a history of highwaymen. In 1714 Captain Alexander Smith had written the Complete Lives of the Most Notorious Highwaymen. Defoe himself was no stranger to this market. His Moll Flanders in 1722 had been written for it, already. Further, he had, by 1725, written both a History and a Narrative of the life of Jack Sheppard (see above) in 1724.
What differs about the case of Jonathan Wild is that it was not simply a crime story. Parallels between Wild and Robert Walpole were instantly drawn, especially by the Tory authors of the day. Mist's Weekly Journal drew a parallel between the figures in May of 1725, when the hanging was still in the news.
The parallel is most important for John Gay's The Beggar's Opera in 1728. The main story of the Beggar's Opera centers on the episodes between Wild and Sheppard. In the opera, the character of Peachum stands in for Wild (who stands in for Walpole), while the figure of Macheath stands in for Sheppard (who stands in for Wild and/or the chief officers of the South Sea Company). Robert Walpole himself saw and enjoyed Beggar's Opera without realizing that he was its intended target. Once he did realize it, he banned the sequel opera, Polly, without staging. This prompted Gay to write to a friend, "For writing in the cause of virtue and against the fashionable vices, I have become the most hated man in England almost."
In 1742, Robert Walpole lost his position of power in the House of Commons. He was created a peer and moved to the House of Lords, from where he still directed the Whig majority in Commons for years. In 1743, Henry Fielding's The History of the Life of the Late Mr Jonathan Wild the Great appeared in the third volume of Miscellanies.
Fielding is merciless in his attack on Walpole. In his work, Wild stands in for Walpole directly, and, in particular, he invokes the Walpolean language of the "Great Man." Walpole had come to be described by both the Whig and then, satirically, by the Tory political writers as the "Great Man," and Fielding has his Wild constantly striving, with stupid violence, to be "Great." Fielding's satire also consistently attacks the Whig party by having Wild choose, among all the Bertolt Brecht for his updating of Gay's opera as The Threepenny Opera. The Sheppard character, Macheath, is the hero of the song Mack the Knife.
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