1721: Hanged for a Penknife and Five Shillings: John Dykes, the Gambler Turned Highwayman
John Dykes gambled away everything he had, then slid from pickpocketing into armed robbery on the road between Mile End and Bow. When he held up Charles Wright at gunpoint, his haul amounted to a penknife, a seal, and five shillings and eightpence, hardly a fortune worth a man’s neck.
He was convicted at Newgate and hanged on this day in 1721, just 23 years old, the end of a fall from gambling debts to the gallows that had taken only a few short years.
