The southern suburbs of London were haunted during the last quarter of the eighteenth century by a youthful highwayman of a very desperate kind. He was as successful as reckless, and captained a gang that made Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common places to be dreaded as much as were Hounslow Heath on the west, and Finchley Common in the north, and brought the name of "Jerry Abershaw" into exceptional prominence.

The real name of this highwayman was Louis Jeremiah Avershaw, and he was born in 1773, of the usual "poor but honest" parents. Indeed, it would seem, in enquiring into the lives of the highwaymen, that they in general came of such stock, whose only crime was their poverty: although that, as we well know in this happy land of ours, is a very heinous offence, it being the duty of every English man and woman to pay rates and taxes to keep a constantly growing official class in well-paid and easy employment.

We so rarely hear of a highwayman deriving from dishonest parents that, it would seem, even in the more adventurous centuries, ill-led lives were as a rule so short and sordid as to impress the children of those who led them with the idea that honesty was not only really, in the long run, the best policy, but that for evil courses there was no long run at all. Otherwise, the life of the highwayman, if not by any means, as a general rule, so gay as usually it was represented to be, was sufficiently full of that spice of excitement which to the youthful makes amends for much danger and discomfort, and sons might often have succeeded fathers in the liberal profession of highway robbery.

The boyhood of Jerry Abershaw has never been dragged from the obscurity that enwraps it. No slowly-budding flower he, but one that in one brief day flung open its petals. Or rather, in less flowery language, we learn nothing of the first steps that led him to the highway, and find him at the very first mention of his doings already a cool and assured character, robbing with impunity, and making one place in especial a spot to be dreaded. This was the hollow of Putney Bottom, through which the Portsmouth Road runs on its way to Kingston. The little Beverley Brook trickles by, to this day, in the hollow; and Combe Wood, whose thickets formed so convenient a lair for Abershaw, and a rallying-place for his gang, is still very much what it was then.

Abershaw was not, of course, the first to see the strategic value of the heath, and of such woody tangles as these, bordering the road for quite three miles; for we read in Ogilby's great book on the roads, published in 1675, of Kingston Hill, hard by as "not rarely infested with robbers"; and a gibbet long stood near at hand, to remind those robbers, and others who succeeded them, of their own probable fate. But, if by no means the first, or even the last, who practised here, he is easily the most famous, even though it be merely a pervasive fame, not crystallised into many anecdotes.

The "Bald Faced Stag," that then stood, a lonely tavern, by the roadside near the Beverley Brook, was a favourite meeting-place of Abershaw and his fellows. It was afterwards rebuilt, as a superior hostelry, in the days when the growth of travel and of coaching had rendered the old roadside accommodation insufficient. This later house may still be seen, standing nowadays as a private residence, with imposing pillared portico, by the way.

Whether the landlord of the original "Bald Faced Stag," was in league with Abershaw and his gang, or not, is impossible to say. Very generally, the tavern-keepers of that age were suspected, and rightly suspected, of a guilty acquaintance with the highwaymen, but it would be too much to assume that they were all of that character; and indeed we find in the sad story of one John Poulter, otherwise Baxter, who was hanged in 1754 for highway robbery, that the frequenting by highwaymen against his wish of an inn he kept in Dublin first ruined his trade and compelled him in self-defence at last to seek a living on the road.

An innkeeper situated like him who kept the "Bald Faced Stag" in the days of Abershaw would have no choice but to harbour the gang whenever they felt inclined to confer their patronage upon him; but, to be quite just, it would certainly appear that he was a willing ally, for, in the most outstanding among the few stories told of Abershaw, it appears that once, when taken ill on the road, the highwayman was put to bed in the house and cared for while a doctor was procured. It was a Dr. William Roots who answered the call, from Putney. The ailing stranger, whose real name and occupation the doctor never for a moment suspected, was bled, after the medical practice of the time, and the doctor was about to leave for home, when his patient, with a great appearance of earnestness, said: "You had better, sir, have someone to go back with you, as it is a very dark and lonesome journey." This thoughtful offer the doctor declined, remarking that "he had not the least fear, even should he meet with Abershaw himself." The story was a favourite with Abershaw: it afforded him a reliable criterion of the respect in which the travelling public generally held him.

The notoriety Abershaw early attained led to his early end. The authorities made especial efforts to arrest him, and, learning that he frequented a public-house in Southwark, called the "Three Brewers," set a watch upon the place. One day the two officers detailed for this duty discovered him in the house, drinking with some of his friends, and entered to arrest him. But Abershaw was on the alert, and, as they stood in the doorway, arose with a pistol in either hand, and, with a curse, warned them to stand clear, or he would shoot them. Disregarding this threat, they rushed in, and Abershaw, firing both pistols at once, mortally wounded one officer and severely wounded the landlord in the head.

But he did not escape. He was tried at Croydon Assizes, on July 30th, 1795, before Mr. Baron Penryn, for murder; the wounded officer, David Price, having died in the interval. A second indictment charged him with having attempted to murder the other, by discharging a pistol at him.

Abershaw was taken by road from London to Croydon, and passing Kennington Common, then the principal place of execution in Surrey, he laughingly asked those in charge of him, if they did not share his own opinion that he would himself be "twisted" there on the following Saturday. That was the conventionally callous way in which the highwaymen approached their doom.

To prove the charge of killing Price was naturally the simplest of tasks, and the jury, returning from a three-minutes' deliberation, duly found him guilty. Prisoner's counsel, however, raising an objection on some legal quibble as to a flaw in the indictment, the point was argued for two hours—and not decided; the judge desiring to consult his learned brethren on the point. There is a certain grim humour about these proceedings; because, whatever the result of this was likely to be, there was yet the second indictment to be tried, and on that alone there could be no doubt of Abershaw being capitally convicted. It was then proceeded with, and Abershaw himself, seeing how he must inevitably be found guilty, and hanged, threw off all restraint. He insolently inquired of the judge, if he were to be murdered by perjured witnesses, and in violent language declared his contempt for the Court. Even at that solemn moment, when, having been found guilty on the second count, the judge, in passing sentence, assumed the black cap, he was not affected, except by rage and the spirit of mockery, and followed the action of the judge by putting on his own hat. The gaolers were at last compelled by his violence to handcuff him, and to tie his arms and legs. In that condition he was removed to gaol, to await execution.

There he must soon have realised the folly of resistance; for he became quiet and apparently resigned. In the short interval that remained between his sentence and that appearance on Kennington Common he had accurately foreseen, he occupied himself with drawing rough pictures on the whitewashed walls of his cell with the juice of black cherries that had formed part of the simple luxuries his purse and the custom of the prison permitted. These idle scribblings represented his own exploits on the road. In one he appeared in the act of stopping a post-chaise and threatening the driver: the words, "D—n your eyes! Stop!" appended. The remainder of this curious gallery pictured the other incidents common in a highwayman's life.

The time then allowed convicted criminals between their sentence and execution was very short. On August 3rd he was hanged on Kennington Common; game—or, rather, callous—to the last. Arrived there, he kicked off his boots among the great crowd assembled, and died unshod, to disprove an old saying of his mother's, that he was a bad lad, and would die in his shoes. He was but twenty-two years of age when he met this fate, not actually for highway robbery, but for murder. His body was afterwards hanged in chains in Putney Bottom, the scene of his chief exploits, and an old and nasty legend was long current in those parts of a sergeant in a regiment soon afterwards marching past firing at the distended body, by which (to make short of an offensive story) the neighbourhood was nearly poisoned. The sergeant was reduced to the ranks for this ill-judged choice of a target.