Isaac Atkinson was born into a well to do family from Faringdon in Berkshire. His father ensured that he had a good education, sending him to top schools and at sixteen to college in Oxford. But once away from home he succumbed to the temptations of the city, lost all interest in education and causing so much trouble to his tutors that either by request, or of his own accord, his father removed him from the college.
If his father thought Isaac would settle down once he was away from the temptations of the city, he was very much mistaken. There wasn’t a female; servant, maid, daughter or wife that was safe from his attentions and his father soon grew sick of the constant stream of angry cuckolded husbands, fathers whose daughters were with child and even some women complaining of his son’s unwanted advances that came to his door. In the end his father, sick of trying to get Isaac to changed his ways and being ignored, did the only thing he could and ordered him to leave the house and never return.
Isaac like others before him made his way to London but when his money ran out, he left the city and returned to the country, where amongst other crimes he burgled his fathers house, stole fifty pound in silver, one hundred and twenty gold coins and took the best horse in the stable. With the horse and the wherewithal to purchase some pistols Isaac took up a career as a highwayman and an energetic one at that.
As general rule Atkinson followed the circuits and became the plague of lawyers, so much so that in the county of Norfolk alone he held up one hundred and sixty attorneys in a period of eight months and gained from them the sum of three hundred pounds. He was fearless in the pursuit his of objective and did not hesitate to take on three, four or five men by himself and always succeeded in making good his escape, or he did until he attempted to rob a market woman.
As Isaac passed the woman on Turnham Green he noted in passing that she was carrying a large bag of what he took to be gold. Turning around he caught up with her and demanded that she turn over the bag. Instead the woman, whether in fright or in defiance, threw the bag over a nearby hedge into a field and galloped off on her mare in the direction of Brentford. Isaac jumped down from his horse and made his way into the field to look for the bag of gold (it turned out in the end to be a bag full of half pennies). Unfortunately, he mustn’t have tied up his horse, because it set off after the woman’s mare.
On reaching Brentford the woman related her story and a posse of ten men set off immediately to capture the villain and it didn’t take them long to find him. They caught up with him in a field, where, because he was still wearing full length jack-boots he was unable to run fast enough to escape. As the men surrounded him, Isaac pulled several pistols from his pockets, killed four of them and mortally wounded another with a hanger. (A compact sword that was easily manoeuvred). There were however, enough men left to overpower him and they took him before a magistrate who had him committed to Newgate prison. From there he was taken to the Old Bailey and condemned to death.
On the day of execution in 1640 the twenty-six year old highwayman tried stabbing himself with a pen-knife but the wound didn’t kill him and he was taken to Tyburn and hanged.
If the crowd that attended his hanging were expecting a long and scholarly speech from one so well educated, they were disappointed. As he stood at the gallows all that had to say was, ’Gentlemen, there is nothing like a merry life, and a short one’.
bag of gold (it turned out in the end to be a bag full of half pennies). Unfortunately, he mustn’t have tied up his horse, because it set off after the woman’s mare.