Jonathan Wild, the gangster who ran the West Midlands with no morals whatsoever, crafted the underworld 200 years before the Shelbys ruled it, creating this country’s gangland. While the Peaky Blinders – currently enjoying a new bonanza – has opened the public’s eyes to mob rule in the early 1900s, the Shelbys look very soft compared to one villain whose reign of extortion, violence, blackmail and “hits” has earned him the title of British organised crime’s founder.
Wolverhampton’s Jonathan Wild, who shaped the underworld two centuries before the Shelbys, built the grubby empires where the Krays and Richardsons would later flourish. What the Shelbys did – even on the big screen – doesn’t hold a candle to what he did. That’s why Wild, whose menace even spread to uppercrust Georgian society, was known as Thief-Taker General, although his deeds were much darker than mere pilfering. He was king of the cobbles when they really were cobbles.
Early Life in the Black Country
Boningale, a sleepy hamlet seven miles from Wolverhampton, is an unlikely breeding ground for Mafia monsters, yet it was the rural setting where Wild was born in either 1682 or 1683. Records show he was one of five children and baptised at St Peter’s Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton. Wild’s parents were hard-working and law-abiding. Dad John was a carpenter, mum a market trader selling fruit and herbs.
As a young man, he moved to the Shropshire town of Clun, then Shrewsbury, quickly gaining a reputation as petty thief, thug and troublemaker. Wild, who married Joan Cooper in Clun in 1705, initially tried to walk the straight-and-narrow, finding work as an apprentice buckle-maker, but it didn’t satisfy his craving for real cash and power. He simply abandoned his wife and new child, headed to London and, initially, found work as a servant only to be sacked for stealing the silver.
Rise to Power in London
Wild returned to Wolverhampton, dreamed of gaining a fortune from felony, then, in 1708, returned to “The Smoke” hell-bent on making his mark as a mobster. Initially, things didn’t go to plan for the brooding Black Country bruiser. He was thrown into debtors’ prison in March, 1710, where Wild took note of the corruption endemic in the nick: it proved something of a finishing school for fraudsters. Inmates had to grease the palms of gaolers if they wanted “minor comforts” – a behind-bars bribery dubbed “garnishing” by warders who considered it an acceptable way of boosting their meagre wages.
In the prison’s dark, dank, disease riddled cells, Wild emerged as King Rat. He earned money by running errands for gaolers, selling black market goods to fellow prisoners and even set-up a loan shark business. Those interests brought in enough dirty money for Wild to pay his debts and buy freedom. He walked the capital’s teeming streets with a keen understanding on how to create an illicit industry.
He hooked-up with prostitute Mary Milliner, also known as Mary Molineux, who continued and cranked-up Wild’s criminal education. “She brought him into her own gang,” author Daniel Defoe wrote, “whether of thieves or whores, or of both, is not much material.” It was a partnership of mutual benefit: Mary provided her new man with contacts and tip-offs, he served as her minder and pimp. It worked well until Wild cut off his girlfriend’s ear during an argument: such disfigurement was the traditional mark of a convicted prostitute.
The Thief-Taker General
By then, Wild didn’t need his “teacher” because his reputation as a fence was growing. Criminals also knew he knew who to bribe in the prison service and used Wild to get colleagues lifted. His rise to the very top was helped by London’s top policeman, Under Marshal Charles Hitchen, a cop so bent he not only turned a blind-eye to crime, he indulged in it. With politicians baying about the lack of law and order, Hitchens needed a man like Wild who knew every crook out there. In 1713, he took the bold step of appointing Wild, in a “poacher turned gamekeeper” move, the city’s official “thief taker”. He became a feared bounty hunter paid the handsome sum of £40 for every burglar, thief, bandit and heavy handed to the authorities.
Wild was in a wicked “win win” wonderland, with more money coming in than he ever dared to dream. Villains paid him to turn a blind eye to their activities, the government rewarded him for every capture. To keep both sides happy, he rounded-up a steady stream of innocent victims, invented charges against them, then counted the notes as the falsely accused swung. For a time the ruse worked very well, for a time Wild was hailed as a hero with newspapers devoting pages to his daring exploits. By 1714, he had his own office at the Blue Boar Tavern, in Little Old Bailey, from where he ran a network of cut-throat gangs.
The Downfall
They were virtually untouchable. The gangs would break into properties, steal items and, if the burglaries received too much press publicity, Wild would declare he and his band of “thief-takers” had found the missing valuables, then return them for a reward. He’d also accuse others of the theft and receive £40 for each poor soul handed over. Those arrested were usually members of rival gangs: Wild was rubbing out the competition. In August, 1724, he pocketed £800 – an absolute fortune – for rounding-up the feared Carrick Gang who were involved in a vicious turf war with his men.
Wild and his hoods were finally toppled a year later when he was publicly implicated in the violent prison breakout of one of his lieutenants. In shackles and under intense interrogation, accomplices spilled the beans about their boss’s treachery. Wild was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey and thousands attended Tyburn gallows on May 24, 1725, to watch the rope placed round his neck: they felt betrayed by him and cheered. The body was initially buried at St Pancras Old Church, then sold to the Royal College of Surgeons for dissection - Wild’s skeleton is still displayed at the college museum.
Jonathan Wild was the first gangster, the first criminal genius, a man who managed to con the country into thinking he was a hero. Two centuries before they surfaced, he showed the Shelbys how it’s done.
