Yorkshire Celebrities 1 1 



that he was nearly always warned in time when the 

 emissaries of the law were after him. It was he that 

 used to let off the ladies — at least the young and pretty 

 ones — for the ransom of a kiss and a gavotte when he 

 robbed a coach or chaise ; and it is recorded of him that 

 if his victims appeared to be poor and unable to afford 

 the loss of their money and valuables, he occasionally 

 handed them back the whole, or a portion of their 

 property, only reserving for himself the spoils of the rich. 

 He lived at a cottage between Thirsk and the Hambledon 

 Hills, not far from Feliskirk, where the ancient hospice 

 stood of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, From this 

 cottage, tradition tells how Nevinson once escaped by the 

 ingenious device of reversing the shoes of his horse, so 

 that his pursuers, in consequence, followed his tracks for 

 some distance in the wrong direction, in the snow which 

 had just fallen. The highwayman was thus afforded 

 sufficient time to make good the start he had obtained, 

 and escaped through the intricate valleys of that wild 

 moorland region. 



Of Dick Turpin's famous ride to York — if such ever 

 did take place — there is supposed to be a memento in the 

 Infantry Barracks at Fulford. A huge elm tree stands 

 there, not far from the old Great North Eoad from Don- 

 caster, which is popularly believed to have been planted 

 over the grave of " Black Bess." At anyrate there is this 

 coincidence with the touching legend, that the tree and the 

 alleged place of the death of the mare are both just within 

 hearing of the deep tones of the Minster on a calm day, 

 Dick Turpin was executed at York in 1739. My 

 maternal grandfather, the late Sir John Croft, was once 

 stopped by highwaymen in Kent, soon after his return 



