Dick Turpin
（重定向自Black Bess）
![A monochrome illustration of a man on horseback, jumping a wooden gate. He is wearing a wide-brimmed hat, coat, trousers, and long boots. His left hand holds the reins, in his right hand is a pistol. A man stands in the near distance, in front of a toll booth, with a shocked expression on his face. Obscured by the gate, a small dog watches proceedings.](/Images/godic/202412/24/Dick_turpin_jumping_hornsey_tollgate3706.jpg")
![21 September 1705 entry of Turpin's name in the parish Baptism register for Hempstead, Essex](/Images/godic/202412/24/Dick_turpin_parish_register3706.jpg")
![A 19th-century illustration of the raid at Loughton, as seen in the Newgate Calendar](/Images/godic/202412/24/Turpin_Putting_a_Woman_on_the_Fire3706.JPG")
![Epping Forest was a regular haunt of the Essex Gang.](/Images/godic/202412/24/Epping_Forest_Centenary_Walk_2_-_Sept_20083707.jpg")
Richard "Dick" Turpin (bapt. 1705 – 7 April 1739) was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's trade as a butcher early in life, but, by the early 1730s, he had joined a gang of deer thieves and, later, became a poacher, burglar, horse thief and killer. He is also known for a fictional 200-mile (320 km) overnight ride from London to York on his horse Black Bess, a story that was made famous by the Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth almost 100 years after Turpin's death.