John Dyer had already spent near seven years in Newgate as a witness for the Crown when at last he obtained his liberty. The magistrate who dismissed him warned him of the peril of seeking out his old companions; Dyer promised to live honestly. He returned to thievery almost immediately, however, until an assault upon a gentleman and the burgling of a shop brought him once more before the bar of the Old Bailey.
Born in Salisbury to parents who were poor but honest, Dyer received a decent education and was placed as an apprentice to a shoemaker. His first thefts occurred whilst he was still serving his indentures. At Collinburn, in Wiltshire, he purloined thirty shillings from the till of a merchant’s shop and made his escape. Later, his master sent him on a Sunday to a neighbouring village to obtain twelve pennyworth of halfpence at a grocer’s; finding no one within, Dyer cut away the window-iron, entered, and rummaged the house. He found only three half-crowns, but took also all the currants and plums within reach. Being suspected and searched without the money being found upon him, he was made to account for the fruit in his pocket; no witness being able to refute his claim that he had purchased it at Andover market, he escaped all prosecution.
Being subsequently entrusted by his master with five pounds to purchase leather, he conspired with a fellow apprentice, whom he persuaded to declare that he had been robbed of the sum. The master believed them. On another occasion, charged with collecting monies from sundry customers, Dyer detained about three pounds and departed for Salisbury, where a new acquaintance soon left him penniless. Upon the market-place, he observed a young woman who had just received money; he followed her out of town, knocked her down, rifled her pockets, dragged her into a wood, and bound her to a tree. The chronicle records this sexual violence without naming the victim, giving a date, or recording any judicial consequence.
Following this affair, Dyer worked for a time as a journeyman shoemaker in a Hampshire village. Lodging with the mother of a young woman, he got her with child, persuaded her to rob her mother, and eloped with her to Bristol. There they spent the money in great profusion. The woman and infant returned to her mother, who received them back; Dyer did not return. He paid a visit to his own mother in Salisbury, robbed her of fifty pounds, then repaired to Bristol and lost the greater part of it at the gaming tables. In Wiltshire, he cohabited with a widow, and with her obtained credit for thirty pounds by outwitting the townspeople—an expression Dyer himself employed in his memoirs. He later embarked upon a venture with a collier, but the partner failed before the first monthly payment came due; Dyer then decamped for Hereford.
There he worked honestly for a season. Journeying in company with a badger, he learned the man was on his way to Ross to purchase poultry. Dyer intercepted him upon the road, first demanding two shillings. Persuaded the badger had more about him for his purchases, he searched the panniers and drew out twelve pounds; he also seized his horse, which he rode for forty miles before reaching Marlborough. Arrested soon after for stealing a silver tankard, he was committed to gaol to await the assizes, but discovering a weak point in the prison walls, he effected his escape.
After staying with an aunt and then his sister, Dyer enticed a former schoolfellow and kinsman into robbing his mother of fifty shillings. They were brought before a Justice of the Peace and committed to Bridewell to hard labour. Dyer contrived an escape with his comrade; a few days later, they made their way out through the privy. An editorial note observes that the soil-pipe had likely afforded them egress from the building.
Dyer next turned to horse-stealing in the New Forest, and thence became a highwayman. He robbed a maidservant, newly out of place, of a gold ring and clothes, which he sold at Winchester. At Amesbury, passing himself off as the partner of a lace-merchant, he obtained the box of goods from the innkeeper and fled. Towards Devizes, he clapped his pistols to the breast of a Scotch pedlar, bound him with his own cloth, and robbed him of his money, hair intended for the wig-makers, handkerchiefs, and muslin. He then set the man at liberty.
Shortly thereafter, Dyer attacked an aged shepherd returning from market after selling his sheep; the shepherd defended his money with his staff, but lost seventy-two pounds. Such gains remained but a short time in Dyer’s hands. He subsequently entered into partnership with a broken butcher, who endeavoured to cheat him even as Dyer had instructed him to steal; after a quarrel and a promise of amendment, they renewed their confederacy. At Woodbury Hill Fair, they marked a cheesemonger, whom they attacked about a mile from the grounds. The man had but twelve pounds remaining of the eighty he had received; the two rogues, vexed at so slender a booty, lashed him with their horsewhips.
Dyer and his partner next intercepted a hop-merchant and his wife. Under threat of death, the woman revealed that the money lay concealed in her husband’s boots; Dyer cut them off and found fifty guineas. The pair took near ninety pounds from a grazier, and thereafter regularly attacked the Bath and London stage-coaches, until guards were hired for their defence. A traveller having fired at them with a blunderbuss and missed, they rifled his coach and horsewhipped him.
Upon the Reading road, Dyer took the clothes from a tallow-chandler’s back. Taking a circuitous route to London, he robbed four Oxford scholars—first two of them, and then the others after the victims had pointed out where the remainder of their money was concealed. He discovered coin sewn under buttons, a watch inside a pair of breeches, and money within the cape of a coat. These episodes are drawn from his memoirs, published during his lifetime; the original narrator notes that he has omitted the oaths with which Dyer was wont to garnish his tale.
Reaching London, Dyer worked for a shoemaker upon Ludgate Hill, and afterwards for a year in Leather Lane. A mistress ran him into debt and urged him to sell an annuity of ten pounds, for which he obtained some eighty pounds. He spent a portion upon fine clothes and satisfied two spurious debts presented by his landlady and her crony. When a sailor, claiming to be the woman’s husband, arrived to claim her, Dyer fled to another lodging. The sailor pursued him; Dyer had him arrested for her board and lodging, which he claimed, and obtained ten pounds to compromise the suit.
His funds being exhausted, Dyer turned his mistress out of doors, married a woman whom he described as honest, and set up a shoemaker’s stall in Leather Lane. Yet he soon enlisted a youth whom distress had rendered pliable. Together, they committed robberies near the Old Spa and Sadler’s Wells, afterwards rifling coach passengers and other wayfarers. In Lincoln’s Inn Fields, being pursued by the watch, they discharged their pistols over their pursuers’ heads and escaped. Dyer subsequently joined a gang operating upon Blackheath, already noticed in earlier volumes.
Dyer’s own narrative, published in his lifetime, omitted to mention that he had turned evidence against a great number of his companions. According to the author of the chronicle, he remained near seven years in Newgate after betraying his former associates. At the sessions of his discharge, the Recorder advised him to transport himself voluntarily, so as to shun the influence of those he had impeached. Dyer pleaded for his liberty and promised amendment. It was granted him, along with Abraham Dumbleton, who was to share his final course of robberies and die with him upon the tree.
Following their release from Newgate, Dyer and Dumbleton attacked a victualler near Bloomsbury Market between one and two in the morning. They knocked him down and stopped his mouth, robbing him of his silver watch, seventeen shillings, two plain gold rings, and his shoe-buckles. In Tottenham Court Road, they bound another passenger and took from him two-and-forty shillings. Dyer then stole a diamond ring from a gentleman who had invited him to a tavern; making an excuse that he must speak with a friend in a coach, he decamped with the jewel.
Their last recorded enterprise was marked by greater violence. John Dyer and Abraham Dumbleton fell upon Mr Bradley in Kirby Street, near Hatton Garden, stripped him of his hat and wig, trampled upon him, and beat him barbarously. Mr Bradley gave evidence against them at their trial. The robbers kept the watch at bay with their pistols and escaped that night; a night or two later, they broke open a linen-draper’s shop and carried off a great quantity of goods. Apprehended shortly thereafter for both crimes, they were tried at the Old Bailey and convicted upon evidence which the chronicle terms exceedingly full.
Under sentence of death, Dyer expressed sorrow for his crimes, yet his own narrative, published the day before his execution, treated a long career of violence with levity. At the tree, he exhorted all young men to take warning by his unhappy end, begged that his parents might not be reproached for his vices, and declared that he forgave all mankind. He was turned off on the 21st of November, 1729, aged thirty-one years. The same fate overtook Abraham Dumbleton. The earlier robberies filled Dyer’s memoirs; the conviction recorded in this account rested upon the assault upon Bradley and the burglary of the linen-draper’s shop.