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We are just coming up to the  anniversary of a famous historical figure who also happened to be a butcher.

Richard “Dick” Turpin was an English highwayman with his exploits being made famous following his execution in York for horse theft. He is also known for a fictional 200-mile ride from London to York on his steed Black Bess, a story that was made famous by the Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth almost 100 years after Turpin’s death.

He was born at the Blue Bell Inn in Hempstead, Essex,  the fifth of six children to John Turpin and Mary Elizabeth Parmenter. The anniversary is of his baptism on 21st September 1705.

Parish Register - Dick Turpi is the 5th name

Turpin’s father was a butcher, and also an inn-keeper. Several stories suggest that Dick Turpin may have followed his father into these trades; one story hints that as a teenager he was apprenticed to a butcher in the village of Whitechapel, and another suggests that he ran his own butcher’s shop in Thaxted. Testimony from his trial in 1739 suggested that he had a rudimentary education and, although no records survive of the date of the union, n about 1725 he married Elizabeth Millington.

Following his apprenticeship they moved north to Buckhurst Hill, Essex where Turpin opened a butcher’s shop.

Turpin most likely became involved with the Essex gang of deer thieves in the early 1730s. Deer poaching had been widespread in the Royal Forest of Waltham, and in 1723 the Black Act (so called because it outlawed the blackening or disguising of faces while in the forests) was created to deal with such problems. Deer stealing was a domestic offence that was judged not in civil courts, but before Justices Of The Peace; it was not until 1737 that the more severe penalty of seven years transportation was introduced.
The Essex gang needed contacts to help them to dispose of the deer. Turpin, a young butcher who traded in the area, almost certainly became involved with their activities. By 1733 the changing fortunes of the gang may have prompted him to leave the butchery trade, and he became the landlord of a public house, most likely the Rose and Crown at Clay Hill. Although there is no evidence to suggest that Turpin was directly involved in the thefts, by summer 1734 he was a close associate of the gang.

Charlie the butcher

I am reliably informed that today – 29th October – is the Feast of St. Thomas Bellacci, patron of butchers.

He was born in a Florence house that was on the Ponte alle Grazie, of parents who came from Castello di Linari in Val d’Elsa.

Bellacci became a butcher himself, helping his father in his work. When young, he always got himself in trouble, until finally he was falsely accused of a serious crime when he was around the age of 30. He was helped out by a citizen named Angelo Pace; Pace introduced him to some friends of his who were monks, who in turn inspired him to a life of prayer.

In 1405, Bellacci joined the Franciscans in Fiesole, just north of Florence, even though he was a lay person. Even though he was never ordained, he established several monasteries.

He died 31 October 1447 in a Franciscan convent at Fonte Palomba near Rieti, at the age of 77.

He was made a saint by Pope Clement XIV in 1771.

His feast day is 31 October to mark his death, but in practice it’s celebrated by butchers on the last Sunday in October. From about 2000 on, a butcher named Dario Cecchini has organized village celebrations in Panzano, Tuscany.

Despite his being the Patron Saint of Butchers, he himself in later life ate only bread, root vegetables, and water.

He is also referred to as Thomas of Florence, Tommaso Bellacci, Tommaso de’ Bellacci, Tommaso da Scarlino, and Beato Tomma.

A full article (Copyright 2010 Practically Edible. All rights reserved and enforced.) can be read here

….. and here is a bit of Italian art from around a hundred years later -

The Butcher's Shop is a painting by the Italian Baroque painter Annibale Carracci. Dating from the 1580s (probably 1583-1585), it is in the Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford.

Charlie the Butcher