Jack Sheppard
Jack Sheppard (4 March 1702 – 16 November 1724) was a notorious English thief and gaol-breaker of early 18th-century London. Born into a poor family, he was apprenticed as a carpenter but took to theft and burglary in 1723, with little more than a year of his training to complete. He was arrested and imprisoned five times in 1724 but escaped four times from prison, making him a notorious public figure, and wildly popular with the poorer classes. Ultimately, he was caught, convicted, and hanged at Tyburn, ending his brief criminal career after less than two years. The inability of the notorious "Thief-Taker General" Jonathan Wild to control Sheppard, and injuries suffered by Wild at the hands of Sheppard's colleague, Joseph "Blueskin" Blake, led to Wild's downfall.
Sheppard was as renowned for his attempts to escape from prison as he was for his crimes. An autobiographical "Narrative", thought to have been ghostwritten by Daniel Defoe, was sold at his execution, quickly followed by popular plays. The character of Macheath in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728) was based on Sheppard, keeping him in the limelight for over 100 years. He returned to the public consciousness around 1840, when William Harrison Ainsworth wrote a novel entitled Jack Sheppard, with illustrations by George Cruikshank. The popularity of his tale, and the fear that others would be drawn to emulate his behaviour, led the authorities to refuse to license any plays in London with "Jack Sheppard" in the title for forty years.
Jack Sheppard (cave diver)
Jack Sheppard (31 March 1909 – 14 July 2001), born John Arthur Sheppard in Lewisham, Kent (south east London), was a pioneer of cave diving in the United Kingdom and a founder, together with Graham Balcombe, of the Cave Diving Group.
Sheppard and Balcombe both worked for the Post Office as telecommunications engineers. They became rock climbing partners and while based in Bristol became interested in the caves of the Mendip Hills, particularly Swildon's Hole which they believed connected to Wookey Hole Caves. They proved this by putting dye into the water at Swildon's and seeing it emerge at Wookey.
Various attempts were made to enter these underwater cave systems using shore-based pumped-air diving suits, without much success. An initial dive in 1934 was unsuccessful and the first successful dive was the following year at Wookey Hole. They returned with improved equipment and succeeded in further exploration. Sheppard constructed his own dry suit, incorporating an oxygen rebreathing system, and used this to make the first successful cave dive in Swildon's Hole on 4 October 1936.
Jack Sheppard (cricketer)
Jack David Sheppard (born 29 December 1992) is an English cricketer. Sheppard is a right-handed batsman who bowls right-arm medium-fast. He was born at Salisbury, Wiltshire.
Career
Educated at Queen Elizabeth's School in Wimborne Minster, Sheppard made his way up though age-group cricket, debuting for the Hampshire Second XI in 2010. While touring Sri Lanka with the England Under-19 cricket team in early 2011, Sheppard made a single Youth One Day International appearance against Sri Lanka Under-19s. Having impressed in the Hampshire Second XI in 2012, Sheppard signed a development contract at the end of that season. Sheppard made his senior debut for Hampshire during the 2013 season in a List A match against a touring Bangladesh A team at the Rose Bowl. In a match which Hampshire won by 9 runs, Sheppard was dismissed for a duck by Rubel Hossain in Hampshire's innings of 223, while with the ball he took the wickets of Marshall Ayub and Hossain, finishing with figures of 2/49 from nine overs. Sheppard made no further appearances for Hampshire and was released by the county at the end of the 2013 season.
Jack Sheppard (novel)
Jack Sheppard is a novel by William Harrison Ainsworth serially published in Bentley's Miscellany from 1839 to 1840, with illustrations by George Cruikshank. It is a historical romance and a Newgate novel based on the real life of the 18th-century criminal Jack Sheppard.
Background
Jack Sheppard was serially published in Bentley's Miscellany from January 1839 until February 1840. The novel was intertwined with the history of Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist which ran at the same time in Bentley's Miscellany. Dickens, previously a friend of Ainsworth's, became distant from Ainsworth as a controversy brewed over the scandalous nature around both Jack Sheppard, Oliver Twist, and other novels describing criminal life. When the relationship between the two dissolved, Dickens retired from the magazine as its editor and made way for Ainsworth to replace him as editor at the end of 1839.
A three volume edition of the work was published by Bentley in October 1839. The novel was adapted to the stage and 8 different theatrical versions were produced in autumn 1839.
Podcasts:
