Highway to hell - Robert Drummond the Sunderland Highwayman
Extract from Tough Times and Grisly Crimes
Throughout the 18th Century, the country was plagued by highwaymen and the North East was no exception. The growing use of stage and mail coaches attracted robbers who could make rich pickings by holding up travellers at gun-point. The most famous of these robbers was Dick Turpin, who terrorised the wealthy folk of the South East until he was caught and hanged in 1739. But few people know that, long before he sprang to fame, the North East had its own notorious character called Robert Drummond, later to go down in the history books as “the Sunderland Highwayman”.
