[Norwich?: 1780]

Stories of highwaymen are sometimes given a sensationalist, even romanticised twist in literature of this period; Dick Turpin springs immediately to mind. In this handbill there is no such suggestion; the nature of their crimes and their appearance are described in detailed if simple terms, with no recourse to elaboration. Both men had ‘Tyburn tops’, a fashion in which the hair was combed over the eyes, popularised in the early 1770s by a group of dandies known as The Macaronis. Such robberies had declined by the first years of the nineteenth century, due in part to the growth of toll-roads and the police force.

Broadsides.B.78.2