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 175...