The Culworth Gang

At noon on Friday 3rd August 1787 on the Racecourse, Northampton. 5000 people mill around, looking for the best vantage point to see four men hanged in a public execution. They were members of the Culworth Gang, a band of highwaymen that had carried out 47 recorded robberies and many other offences on the good folk of the East Midlands, with little regard for consequence. The gang numbered up to seven on a raid, but only four had been convicted and for them, there was no escape. The makeshift gallows was their fate. Not long after midday the hangman's noose tightened and sent the four to meet their Maker. The gang had roamed the countryside of South Northamptonshire and neighbouring counties for twenty years looking for people to rob. Eventually caught due to carelessness, this is the first full history of the worst gang of highwaymen in the county's history.