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See Also

See Also in
Notorious Lives

Eugene Aram

William Brodie

William Dodd

Jack Sheppard

Dick Turpin.

Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives

Jonathan Wild

by Luke Powers

British gang leader

Major offense: Returning stolen goods under false pretenses

Active: January, 1725

Locale: London, England

Sentence: Death by hanging

Early Life

Born in Wolverhampton, Jonathan Wild served a brief apprenticeship as a buckle maker before venturing to London in 1704. After losing his money at the gaming tables, he was imprisoned for debt. During four years of confinement, he gained extensive knowledge of London’s criminal underworld under the tutelage of prostitute Mary Milliner, his future wife.

Criminal Career

Wild developed a sophisticated criminal network in London in which he directed thefts of goods, then extorted “rewards” for their return from their original owners. As self-styled “thief taker,” he effectively controlled London’s criminal underclass by arresting and providing evidence against those operating outside his network.

Wild began his criminal career at a time of rapid population expansion in London, where the antiquated criminal justice system was inadequate to deal with the rise in urban crime. Ironically, measures intended to curb crime led to Wild’s rise. In the 1710’s authorities passed ordinances making it illegal to harbor or sell stolen goods (formerly not a crime). Wild turned the situation to his advantage by offering to serve as middleman between thieves and their victims. For thieves, he offered a better return for their stolen goods and protection from prosecution. To victims, he offered restoration of goods for less than the cost of their replacement, with no questions asked. Wild’s organizational genius soon had him planning and directing thefts, maintaining warehouses of stolen goods, and managing agents involved in the return of the goods or their sale on the black market.

By 1715 Wild had abandoned his humble residence with Milliner in Cock Alley for an office in the Old Bailey, London’s famed criminal court. By 1718 he had taken control of the criminal network of corrupt City Marshal Charles Hitchens, whose fall from grace Wild orchestrated. Having reached the height of his power and public approbation, Wild styled himself “Thief-Taker General of Great Britain and Ireland.” Wild maintained his facade as a crime fighter by arresting well-known criminals such as members of the Carrick gang and Jack Sheppard (a former compatriot).

Legal Action and Outcome

In 1725 Wild suffered a reversal of fortune: His participation in the jailbreak of one of his own confederates landed him in Newgate Prison. Though he attempted to carry on his business from behind bars, his reputation as thief taker was destroyed, and the full extent of his criminal operations soon came to light. Tried on almost a dozen counts, including broad crimes such as extortion and racketeering, Wild was convicted on a single charge of fraudulently returning some expensive lace whose theft he had planned. His death sentence was carried out at London’s Tyburn gallows to the evident pleasure of the large crowd.

Impact

While Jonathan Wild was not the first to create an organized crime network in eighteenth century London, he established the most all-encompassing criminal enterprise of his time. His use of the public persona of crime fighter to cover his increasingly brazen crimes led to his lasting infamy. His approach to crime as a lucrative business also heralded the rise of the organized crime syndicates of the twentieth century.

In death, Wild the criminal became Wild the fictional villain. While Daniel Defoe wrote a relatively straightforward account of Wild’s life in 1725, John Gay transposed Jack Sheppard and Wild into Mack the Knife and Peachem in The Beggar’s Opera (1729). Henry Fielding used Wild’s Machiavellian genius to satirize the corrupt ministry of Robert Walpole in his novel Jonathan Wild (1743).

Further Reading

1 

Beattie, J. M. Policing and Punishment in London, 1660-1750: Urban Crime and the Limits of Terror. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Provides an overview of the development of a criminal justice system and the role of “thief taker.”

2 

Fielding, Henry. Jonathan Wild the Great. Edited by Peter Ackroyd. London: Hesperus Press, 2004. This edition of Fielding’s classic uses Wild’s life to satirize Robert Walpole. Ackroyd provides a valuable introduction, which separates the historical Wild from the fictional.

3 

Linebaugh, Peter. The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century. 2d ed. London: Verso, 2003. A broad discussion of the evolution of the criminal underworld as an aspect of the development of modern capitalistic society. The work discusses a number of famous criminals including Wild.

Citation Types

MLA 9th
Powers, Luke. "Jonathan Wild." Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives, edited by Carl L. Bankston III, Salem Press, 2007. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLN_1617.
APA 7th
Powers, L. (2007). Jonathan Wild. In C. L. Bankston III (Ed.), Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Powers, Luke. "Jonathan Wild." Edited by Carl L. Bankston III. Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2007. Accessed September 17, 2026. online.salempress.com.