Dick Turpin (1705 -1739) was a highway man and horse thief who paid the ultimate price for his way of life
“As he went along the streets in the tumbril he bowed to the ladies in the crowds who had come to see him and doffed his hat. Then having arrived at the York Tyburn on the Tadcaster Road, he mounted the ladder to the scaffold and talked to the hangman for half-an-hour before suddenly throwing himself off and into eternity” (Extract from A. Stacpoole, The Noble City of York).
A commemorative stone can be found in St George’s churchyard where he was reputedly interred in quick lime after his body was stolen, recovered and then re-buried.
