John Nevison

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John Nevison (1639 – 4 May 1684) (also known as William Nevison) was one of Britain's most notorious highwaymen, a gentleman-rogue supposedly nicknamed Swift Nick by King Charles II after a renowned 200 mile dash from Kent to York to establish an alibi for a robbery he had committed earlier that same day. The ride is often wrongly attributed to Dick Turpin, though there are suggestions that the feat was actually undertaken by one Samuel Nicks. Turpin performs the ride in Harrison Ainsworth's novel Rookwood.

Nevison is known to have been born in Wortley near Barnsley in present-day South Yorkshire and initially worked as an exciseman around Barnsley before turning to crime, operating from the Talbot Inn at Newark. He had a reputation for not using violence against his victims, most of whom he and his gang attacked along a stretch of the Great North Road between Huntingdon and York.

The famous ride from Kent to York took place early one summer's morning in 1676, Nevison robbed a sailor at Gad's Hill, near Rochester, Kent who recognised him. Nevison escaped, using a ferry to cross the Thames at Tilbury, and then galloping via Chelmsford, Cambridge and Huntingdon to York (some 200 miles (300 km) from the scene of the crime), where he arrived at sunset. There he ensured he met the city's Lord Mayor, entering into a wager on a bowls match. 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.

Nevison was, however, found guilty of theft and transported to Tangier later that same year. He returned to England and life as a highwayman in 1681. He was eventually arrested at Sandal Magna near Wakefield and tried for the murder of Darcy Fletcher, a constable who had tried to arrest him. He was hanged at York Castle in May 1684 and buried in an unmarked grave in St Mary's church, Castlegate.

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