On this date in 1751, Irish boxer James Field was hanged at Tyburn

On this date in 1751, Irish boxer James Field was hanged at Tyburn.

James Field (c.1714 – 11 February 1751) was a sailor and boxer in England in the 18th century who was hanged for robbery

He had ditched his criminal record in Dublin for the burgeoning London metropolis and hung out a shingle at a pub on Drury Lane. (Perhaps he knew the Muffin Man.)

Field soon developed a blackhearted reputation in London, and because he was a big bad boxer on the brute squad, constables were known to “fail to recognize” him the better to get home safe to dinner

Even in a city without a professional police force, though, that’s a thin reed to rest one’s liberty upon. Eventually the mighty British Empire marshaled the marshals necessary to run Field to ground for a violent heist. This time, his hulking build clinched his sure identification, and he earned the hemp for his felonies

Field lives on in William Hogarth‘s anti-animal cruelty engravings Four Stages of Cruelty, published later in 1751. He’s the model for the hanged corpse being carved apart in the dissection theater in the last plate

He was born in Dublin, and spent most of his early life involved in petty crime. His criminal record meant that in Ireland he spent most of his time on the run, so he moved to London. There he continued his life of crime, becoming well known in the underworld. Wanted for various robberies, he avoided capture by going to sea, working as a sailor on merchantmen and as a privateer. When he returned in London, he became renowned as a boxer. He lived and worked at a pub called The Fox in Drury Lane. He returned to Ireland briefly when things became too hot for him in London, but returned soon afterwards. Although there were several warrants for his arrest, the constables were afraid of him, and rather than acting on the warrants when they saw him, they would pretend not to recognize him and pass by

He was eventually surprised at The Fox, overwhelmed, and arrested for theft with violence and highway robbery. He was tried before Henry Fielding on 16 January 1751. He and three other men were accused of beating and robbing a man and his wife on 24 May 1750 and, despite a number of witnesses supplying Field with various alibis, he was recognized by his size and bulk. James Eklin, who had been a member of the group who had committed the crime, gave evidence against Field. Field was found guilty and Fielding sentenced him to death

He was hanged at Tyburn on 11 February 1751, aged 37

His skeleton features in the dissection theatre in William Hogarth's Reward of Cruelty, one of the series The Four Stages of Cruelty. Field's name makes an earlier appearance in the series of prints, in Second Stage of Cruelty a poster announcing a boxing match features his name

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