Public notice. The Execution of Dick Turpin. 1739.All prints are produced on handmade paper which resembles the look, feel and weight of paper available during the historical period in which the art has been inspired from. Richard "Dick" Turpin (bap. 1705 – 7 April 1739) was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticized following his execution in York in 1739. In the early 1730s, he joined a gang becoming a poacher, burglar, horse thief and highwayman. On 22 March 1739, Turpin was found guilty on two charges of horse theft and sentenced to death; he was executed on 7 April 1739. Turpin became the subject of legend after his execution, romanticized as dashing and heroic in English ballads and popular theatre of the 18th and 19th centuries. Almost 100 years after Turpin’s death, the Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth (4 February 1805 – 3 January 1882), romanticized Turpin in his 1834 novel ‘Rookwood’, giving him his famous but fictional 200 mile night ride from London to York on his horse Black Bess.