Robbers who plagued Britain’s main roads during the 17th and 18th centuries. There had been thieves and footpads from Anglo-Saxon times, but improved roads, more frequent travelling, and the growth of coaching inns made rich pickings for mounted thieves who sometimes worked in gangs in collusion with innkeepers. They were in reality much less romantic than is generally shown in fiction; the fear of being identified made them only too willing to murder their victims. Some, such as Swift Nick Levison, hanged at York in 1684, Dick Turpin (1705–39), and Jack Sheppard (1702–24), became folk heroes, but in fact highwaymen were always dangerous, and their appearance in central London in broad daylight in the mid-18th century provoked vigorous efforts to stamp them out. By the early 19th century the menace of highwaymen had been largely overcome.