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Dick Turpin was the typical anti-hero. He was Richard “Dick” Turpin, born in Essex in 1705 and hanged for his crimes in York in 1739. In his time he was a highwayman, a poacher, a burglar and a murderer, and yet in the imagination of the people he was a hero. His story, including that of a probably fictional ride from London to York on his horse Black Bess, was romanticed and became the fuel for ballads and novels.
As a song, it was published on broadsides (see http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/25000/21696.gif) and was widely collected in England and elsewhere. This is the only Gloucestershire version.
Notes by Gwilym Davies 12 April 2016