Execution of the Thief-Taker General
Britain’s self-styled ‘Thief-Taker General’ was not all he seemed. On 24 May 1725 Jonathan Wild was finally brought to justice.
‘As soon as anything is missing, suspected to be stolen’, the British Journal reported wearily in February 1725, ‘the first course we steer is directly to the office of Mr Jonathan Wild.’ That office was in the Old Bailey. Wild himself was the self-styled ‘Thief-catcher General of Great Britain’. And it was true: he delivered dozens of criminals to justice.
The reason for that was simple: Wild had likely also organised the theft. Every Sunday, every species in the gaudy nomenclature of London thievery – clout files, snabblers, glaziers, vulcan coves, and more – gathered at his house. He betrayed those who crossed him.
But Wild was, among a crowded field, his own worst enemy. ‘In his gay hours, when his heart was open’, one account said, ‘he took pleasure in recounting his past rogueries, and with a great deal of humour, bragged of his biting the world.’ Eventually the world bit back. In 1718 Parliament made it a capital crime to accept a reward for recovering stolen goods without attempting to catch the thief. It became known as the Jonathan Wild Act.
He was hanged on 24 May 1725. The night before he had attempted suicide with laudanum. He was still reportedly ‘almost insensible’ on the gallows. It was just as well: onlookers pelted him with stones until he bled.
