Tom, Dick, and... er... Charles?

What is it about highwaymen that brings out the urge in us all to romanticise robbery with menaces? Even today we still succumb to the old clichés of gallantry to the ladies and generosity to the poor, just as the criminals themselves intended the public to do hundreds of years ago. If you wanted bystanders to help you make a clean getaway by sending the constables in the wrong direction, best leave them with the impression that you are a pleasant sort of chap who is on their side against authority.

In Oxfordshire we were blessed with the Dunsdon brothers of Fulbrook—the "original" Tom, Dick, and Harry, we are told. Any dutiful researcher checking the original Fulbrook parish register will see that the Dunsdon boys were actually baptised Richard in 1745, Charles in 1752 and Thomas in 1754. But (spoiler alert) the brother gaoled in 1784 is named in the prison record as "Henry", so perhaps this was Charles' nickname.[1] There was also a William, but he was considerably older, suggesting that the tearaway trio may have been the children of a second marriage.

The family lived at Westhall Hill, home of the splendid Manor Farm. If the eldest son William was being groomed to inherit Manor Farm, that may possibly have left three somewhat disgruntled step-brothers kicking their heels and looking for mischief. I speculate. But entry into the highway robbery trade, with its requirement for a fast horse and a pair of pistols, would suggest a degree of financial means which the Dunsdon brothers may well have enjoyed. Certainly the stories that have come down to us of the boys targetting farmers on their way home from market and relieving them of fat purses indicates a certain resentment towards that particular occupation. But doubtless any rich traveller would do.

A hold-up in the spring of 1776 bears all the hallmarks of a Dunsdon brothers project.[2]  Three masked riders were present when Mr Obrien's coach was stopped between "the lime kilns", presumably Lime Kiln Farm at Barnard Gate (now Barnard Gate Farm), and Eynsham Heath. Obrien was obliged to surrender more than forty pounds as well as an unusual watch valued at ninety guineas. About a quarter of a mile from Witney Obrien encountered a gentleman in a post chaise and warned him to be on his guard. The grateful traveller swapped places with his driver and ordered the blinds to be drawn up. When the chaise and the miscreants drew level, the Dunsdons assumed the chaise was empty and allowed it to pass on unmolested. On Wytham Hill a while later, however, a genteel couple in their own carriage were not so lucky. The trio overtook them (one scoundrel by now wearing a smock frock, presumably to add confusion) and then turned, blocking the road. This time the haul was a gold chiming watch, a two-guinea piece and enough cash to make the total value up to fifty pounds. Riding furiously for the Botley Gate, the villains must surely have drawn attention as they clattered through the cobbled streets for the St Clements Gate and away for London.

Tales of the acquisition of a cottage in Icomb with an escape tunnel into the Wychwood Forest are fun to repeat but difficult to verify, as is the ghoulish legend surrounding the supposed raid on Tangley Hall near Fifield.[3] The brothers were overheard making plans at an inn immediately before the break-in, and when they got to the Hall the butler had been tipped off. All was silence and darkness, and the doors were locked and bolted. When Richard Dunsdon thrust his arm through the peephole in the front door to unlatch the lock inside, it was promptly lassoed by a hidden constable and held fast.

 Another brother drew his sword, swiftly sliced off Richard's arm, and the trio fled. We are told that Richard must have bled to death, because he was never seen again. Well… you may believe as much or as little of this as you please, but there is the inconvenient fact that, far from never being seen again, Richard Dunsdon was buried in Fulbrook churchyard several years later.[4] So, if the story is true, he must have been going about with only one arm for all that time—a bit of a clue for the authorities, one might think. Furthermore, unless there was some kind of personal grudge, such a break-in does not accord with the customary Dunsdon style.

 Richard does appear to be absent from the final showdown. An account in the Windsor Magazine in 1899 contains all the familiar elements of the catastrophe – perhaps it is the original source of the legend.[5] Even the author himself warns that it may not be strictly factual. The Whitsuntide Fair of 1784 was held in Widford parish near Burford where there was a tavern called Capp’s Lodge Inn on the edge of Wychwood Forest. It was always a rowdy affair, and the Dunsdon brothers kept up their drinking and gambling till nearly daybreak in an outbuilding known as "the Cockpit". At four o'clock in the morning an attempt was at last made to eject them. After some angry words, William Harding, the tapster (or landlord), launched himself at Henry Dunsdon. Henry fired his gun without warning and the shot broke Harding’s arm. Dunsdon then drew a second pistol and shot Harding in the chest, whereupon the ostler William Perkins stuck out his foot and neatly swept Henry’s feet from under him. As Thomas Dunsdon ran to his brother's assistance, Perkins snatched up one of Henry’s discharged pistols and swung it at Thomas’s head. Now the landlord piled in, and the men grappled for a while on the floor. Eventually, Henry managed to draw a third gun from his tail-coat pocket, and he fired point-blank at Harding. Happily, a quantity of ha'pennies in the host's apron-pocket baffled the shot. Constable Secker of Widford was sent for, and both Thomas and Henry Dunsdon, were at last secured.[6]

 While they languished in prison awaiting trial at the Gloucestershire summer assizes, their position worsened;[7] Harding died in the July and the charge against the Dunsdons was ramped up to murder.[8] So on 30 July the brothers were hanged at the village of Over, the traditional place of execution outside Gloucester. Their bodies were gibbeted on an oak tree near Capp's Lodge. Henry Dunsdon was 32, his children were aged 4 and 2; Thomas was 30, and his children were also, 4 and 2.

Next time on “Forgotten Lives of Oxfordshire”, a runaway heiress – the old story? (Or maybe not…)

[1] The phrase was in use a century before Charles/Harry's birth: the earliest known citation is from the 17th-century English theologian John Owen who used the phrase in 1657

[2] Oxford Journal, 30 March 1776

[3] OX7 6HT

[4] Actually two burials: 11 May 1788 and 19 Feb 1794, Richard Dunsdon, Fulbrook, Oxfordshire, England; Anglican Parish Registers; Reference Number: PAR111/1/R1/1

[5] Windsor Magazine, February 1899, S. E. Waller, "A Famous Gang of Highwaymen"

[6] Gloucestershire, England, Prison Records, 1728-1914, 31 May 1784, Reference: Q/SG1/1753-1790

[7] Widford, the scene of the crime, was an exclave of Gloucestershire until 1844

[8] Oxfordshire, Church of England Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1538-1812, burial 13 Jul 1784, William Harding, Shipton Under Wychwood, Oxfordshire; Anglican Parish Registers; Reference Number: PAR236/1/R1/7