John Nevison’s life and career has provided the stuff of legends for over 300 years although he’s probably not as well known as other legendary highwaymen.
Some facts about his life seem to have come down to us in great detail but much is vague which is not surprising considering his lifestyle. Indeed, his name for a start … he used, John, William and James at different times for his first name as well as Johnson for a surname. The most comprehensive information we have about him comes from the Newgate Calendar (see ‘Related Links’ to read this)
He may have been born just outside Pontefract although the more likely venue was Wortley, near Sheffield in 1639.
He ran away from home when only 13 or 14. Little is known about him at this time but he seems to have moved to London. After getting into trouble he fled to Holland and ended up joining the Duke of York’s army, taking part in the Battle of Dunkirk in 1658. (Also known as the battle of the Dunes this was an engagement in the Anglo-Spanish War).
On his return to England, he looked after his father for several years. But without a steady job, Nevison did what many other ex-soldiers were reduced to at this time … he became a highwayman. He based himself around Newark and preyed on travellers using the Great North Road between Huntingdon in the south and York in the north.
He was arrested several times. In 1674 he was able to escape from Wakefield jail before charges could be brought. But in 1676 he was charged with robbery and horse-stealing. This time he was sentenced to hard labour and transportation to Tangiers (which was a English colony at the time). It’s not clear if he served this punishment or managed to escape again before being transported, however, he was soon back on the highways.
Yet again he was arrested in 1681, and again managed to escape, this time from Leicester prison. Apparently he pretended to have the plague and with the help of a friend who may have been a doctor he was pronounced dead and his body taken out of the prison in a coffin. Taking up his highwayman life again many people believed they’d seen a ghost having heard of his ‘death’ from plague.
This bold escape is just one of the ‘glamorous’ exploits surrounding Nevison. He was considered a gentlemanly highwayman. Always polite, he followed Robin Hood’s legend of only robbing the rich and he never murdered or injured anyone he robbed.
His most famous exploit though is one that many people do not attribute to him because for many years it was wrongly attributed to another highwayman, the more well known Dick Turpin. This was his ride from Kent to York to create an alibi for a robbery.
One summer's morning in 1676, he robbed a sailor at Gad's Hill, near Rochester, Kent. Nevsion was recognised but escaped, using a ferry to cross the Thames at Tilbury, and then galloping via Chelmsford, Cambridge and Huntingdon to York - some 200 miles in all - where he arrived at sunset. There he contrived to meet the city's Lord Mayor and entered into a wager on a bowls match with him. When he was subsequently arrested and tried for the Gad's Hill robbery, he produced the Lord Mayor to support his alibi. The court believed his claim and he was found not guilty of that particular robbery.
This incredible feat, which should be credited to the horse rather than the man, earned Nevison the nickname ‘Swift Nick’ bestowed on him by the king, Charles II, himself. Many legends grew up around this famous ride and Nevison’s name has been used by inns and locations ever since. A deep cutting through the rock between Pontefract and Ferrybridge is still called 'Nevison's Leap' and an inn there was named after him.
Nevison’s luck, however, was soon to run out. Constables and bounty hunters began to close in on him. He killed one constable, Darcy Fletcher, who tried to arrest him. This was his first murder and is, perhaps, a sign of his desperation.
In 1685 while sleeping after a drinking bout at the Magpie Inn in Sandal Magna, near Wakefield he was betrayed by the landlady and arrested. He was taken to York in irons and tried for the murder of the constable and hanged at the castle on 4 May.
The chair in which he was sleeping when arrested is still kept at the local church. This, along with the leg irons used on him, was on display in September 2009 when the Wakefield Civic Society unveiled a blue plaque commemorating John Nevison at the Three Houses pub on Barnsley Road, Sandal.
