In 1724, Jack Sheppard was 22, stood 5-foot-4-inches, was strong and wiry, and was quick of hand, foot, and mind, according to Historic UK. He was born incredibly poor in 1702, raised by a single mother at a workhouse in a London slum where the city’s impoverished labored for room and board (per Britannica and Reynolds’s News and Miscellany). Even so, he learned to read and write and became an apprentice woodworker, a skill he would later use to great advantage for more nefarious ends.
Read Related Also: DeSantis Vetoes EV Bill House Approved 115-1 and Senate 38-0
Sheppard fell into crime after hooking up with a sex worker named Elizabeth Lyon, aka Edgworth Bess, and began spending his time in a seedy tavern called the Black Lion, a haunt of the city’s criminal class (per Historic UK and the BBC). His criminal career was going well until he crossed Jonathan Wild, who was hired by one of Sheppard’s victims to apprehend the wily thief.
