William Harrison Ainsworth
William Harrison Ainsworth was an English historical novelist born at King Street in Manchester. He trained as a lawyer, but the legal profession held no attraction for him. While completing his legal studies in London he met the publisher John Ebers, at that time manager of the King's Theatre, Haymarket. Ebers introduced Ainsworth to literary and dramatic circles, and to his daughter, who became Ainsworth's wife.
Portrait of Ainsworth by Daniel Maclise
Richard Turpin was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's trade as a butcher early in his life but, by the early 1730s, he had joined a gang of deer thieves and, later, became a poacher, burglar, horse thief and killer. He is also known for a fictional 200-mile (320 km) overnight ride from London to York on his horse Black Bess, a story that was made famous by the Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth almost 100 years after Turpin's death.
Turpin imagined in William Harrison Ainsworth's novel Rookwood
21 September 1705 entry of Turpin's name in the parish baptism register for Hempstead, Essex (fifth line down).
A 19th-century illustration of the raid at Loughton, as seen in the Newgate Calendar
Epping Forest was a regular haunt of the Essex Gang.