One of the pleasures of playing traditional folk music is falling into the history of the songs. Sometimes it's political or a socio-economic statement, often naturally about the plight of the poorest in the community. The song we have here though is about a man, a hero, a person whose handwriting was so off the wall it got him hanged. It's a classic tale of highway robbery, murder, romance and chicken shooting. The song is called Turpin Hero and I think I first heard it done by Eliza Carthy but there are many other great versions to listen too as well. Here's my rough and ready version on the banjo.
Turpin Hero - Lyrics
On Hounslow heath as I rode out,
I saw a lawyer riding there
Said he, 'kind sir, aren't you afraid
Of Turpin that mischievous blade?'
O rare Turpin hero, oh rare Turpin oh
Says Turpin, “He'd ne'er find me out
I hid my money in my boot.”
Well then says the lawyer, “There's none can find,
My gold, for it's stitched in my coat behind.”
O rare Turpin hero, oh rare Turpin oh
As they rode down by the Powder mill
Turpin demands him to be still;
“Now Sir, your coat I will cut off
For my mare she needs a new saddle cloth.”
O rare Turpin hero, oh rare Turpin oh
As Turpin rode in search of prey
He spied a taxman on the way;
And boldly then he bid him stand,
“Your gold,” he said, “I do demand.”
O rare Turpin hero, oh rare Turpin oh
Oh Turpin then without remorse,
He knocked him quite from off his horse;
And left him on the ground to sprawl
While he rode off with his gold and all.
O rare Turpin hero, oh rare Turpin oh
As Turpin rode on Salisbury plain
He met Lord Judge with all his train;
And hero-like he did approach
And robbed that Judge as he sat in his coach.
O rare Turpin hero, oh rare Turpin oh
Oh Turpin he at last was took
For the shooting of a dung-hill cock,
And carried straight into jail
Where his bad move he does bewail.
O rare Turpin hero, oh rare Turpin oh
Well Turpin is condemned to die,
To hang upon yon gallows high;
Whose legacy is a strong rope,
For the shooting of a dung-hill cock.
O rare Turpin hero, oh rare Turpin oh
The song details the exploits of one Richard Turpin, or 'Dick' as he was known by his victims. The song starts with Turpin riding across Hounslow Heath, an area near Heathrow airport (which wasn’t there at the time) which is indeed where the real Richard Turpin took six guineas from a Mr Godfrey in 1735. I have no idea whether Mr Godfrey was a lawyer or not but we can take a bit of poetic licence, presume that he was, and is the lawyer to which the song refers. The lawyer approaches Turpin who naturally is in disguise - not sure what disguise, possibly just 'not a highwayman' - and asks, 'aren't you afraid of Turpin that mischievous blade?' Turpin can't believe his luck, not only has he spied a lawyer like some kind of justice system twitcher but that very same man has walked right up to him and asked Turpin whether he's afraid of himself. Not one to make things simple Turpin decides to trick the man into revealing where he keeps his valuables by offering a certain amount of friendly small talk and revealing that he stashes his gold in his boot so that he himself won't find it when he himself tries to rob himself. The Lawyer, or idiot as he shall now be known, proceeds to tell Turpin that his money is kept in his coat. Now granted, he did not know it was Turpin he was talking to, it was just some stranger hanging out on hounslow heath that he had never met before to whom he decide to reveal the whereabouts of his precious coin. So, presumably to be safer, they decide to ride together but when they get as far as the powder mill (which we shall come back to) Turpin whips off his 'not a highwayman' disguise, replacing it presumably with his highwayman outfit which I can only presume is a neckerchief pulled up covering his face. The face with which he has been happily talking to the lawyer with for the past half an hour. Anyway, so he demands the lawyer to stand still before proceeding to cut off his coat to steal the money, reasoning that his mare needs a new saddle cloth. Which was presumably meant as a humorous quip, although I doubt that Mr Godfrey or either of the two horses found it so.
Next in Turpins eye-spy book of members of authority is a taxman, whom he 'boldly' bids to stand. We can take the word 'boldly' here to mean 'waving a pistol in his face'. So he demands the man's gold with a poor impression of Yoda, "Your gold, I do demand," surely "Demand your gold i do," would have been better. Either way, he takes the gold, knocks him off his horse and is on his merry way. Pretty standard highway robbery that, would have got an A+ in highway robbery school.
Things often come in threes and it's no different when it comes to robbery based folk songs. To complete the set, our man Turpin robs a judge. It's notable that the judge was with 'all his train' and sat in coach during the experience. (By train we are talking about a collection of persons, horses etc. travelling with the judge rather than a large metal choo-choo that has appeared out of it's time, unless the judge is actually Doc Brown and turpin is about to be hit over the head by Michael J Fox brandishing a hoverboard.) Turpin robbed someone and they weren't on their own, which is not as bold as you may think. Throughout Turpins career he worked with several other criminals, he was in a gang for a time, not the lone wolf he is sometimes portrayed as.
As you would expect, it doesn’t end well for Dick, the song tells us that he was eventually hanged for shooting a dung-hill cock, which is essentially the mutt of the chicken world, cross-breeds that were often found scavenging for food on and around manure. The song neglects to mention that it was actually the theft of horses that became the downfall of Dick Turpin, although the chicken shooting incident had previously occurred.
At this point in his life Turpin was going under the name of John Palmer and for me, one of the most interesting parts of the Turpin story is that under the name John Palmer he wrote a letter to his brother-in-law whilst still in prison. Not interesting in itself but his letter was sat in a post office where it was seen by James Smith, who was a school friend of Turpin and the person who had taught Turpin to write. James Smith recognised the writing and alerted the authorities to the identity of John Palmer. Which means that James Smith was either unbelievably good at recognising handwriting or Turpins penmanship was so off the wall that it was unmistakable. In the end it didn’t really matter, John Palmer was hanged for the stealing of horses and Dick Turpin died with him.
What about the romance I hear you say? Well, there is none, from what we know Richard turpin may have had one son with a woman named Elizabeth but contemporary accounts of the man himself suggest he was a pox-ridden mess, so it’s unlikely that he was much of a real lothario.
And murder? Well yea, there were a couple. Most notably that of Thomas Morris who was a servant that tried to apprehend Turpin when he was hiding in Epping forest. It was this murder that set a price upon his head of £200, helping turn Turpin into a celebrity and maybe the reason why we remember his name rather than any of his accomplices.
The song is titled Turpin Hero, which gives him a slight Robin Hood-esque patina, but let's just be plain here, there is no suggestion in song or in history that Dick Turpin was anything other than a violent criminal. He didn't steal from the rich and give to the poor, he stole from whoever he wanted and kept it all for himself. But we do like people who fight the authorities, live life their own way, don’t conform to the rules and manners that we do, so I guess that is why these kinds of people often get romanticised after their death.
I said we would come back to the powder mill and so we shall. What is interesting about the mention of a powder mill (a mill where they make gunpowder) in this song is that there is no evidence of a powder mill in the Hounslow area until 1766, 37 years after Turpin was dead. It opens up an interesting discussion on how these songs came about. The story of Turpin, his crimes and his death would have spread around the country as news does today, just not as fast. There was a history of his life written in the year of his death that was published and distributed. People were talking about him, so it is not outlandish to think that at around the same time somebody likely wrote a song about him, quite likely several people wrote songs about him. Over the years these songs was passed on and sung and heard and taught and sung. Each time with another bit being miss-heard, miss-remembered or just adjusted to suit the current custodians world view.
For example, there is another version of this song where the line is 'past the mill', rather than a powder mill. The likelihood is, that sometime after 1766, and enough time had passed that nobody really considered the idea that there was never not a powder mill there, that somebody heard the song, miss interpreted the lyric and just presumed that they had sung powder mill because there was a powder mill there. It’s imperfect, but I like these things, it’s the ‘a human was ‘ere’ moments in history that make it so easy interesting. We shall never know the original lyrics to this song or any others that have been passed down over the years, but that's kind of beautiful. It is what gives us license to take these songs and move them on ourselves, with a tweak here, a tweak there.
Here's a Play-along track for the Folk Orc Repertoire session version.
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