Episode 007: Matthew Clark: The Cowardly Footpad Who Turned Killer

Matthew Clark is the kind of figure who makes true crime so unsettling: not a mastermind, not a hardened villain, but a lazy, cowardly young man whose small vices compound into something monstrous. Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals introduces him as a creature formed entirely from the worst impulses of low life; idle, drunk, driven by lust, and too timid to commit even the crimes he plans.

Born in St. Albans to parents of modest means, Clark squanders every opportunity placed before him. Dismissed from a gentleman's household for sheer incorrigibility, he drifts into roadside robbery on the heaths outside London; not from ambition, but because honest labour feels harder than the risk of the noose.

The Georgian world Clark inhabits is one where cowardice and desperation make a volatile combination, and the roads between country and city are lined with gallows that watch every traveller pass.

Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.

The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode.

Footpad: a robber who works on foot, as opposed to a highwayman who attacks from horseback. The footpad was considered the lowest and most contemptible breed of thief; lacking even the theatrical swagger of the mounted robber, he was simply a desperate figure lurking in hedgerows and waiting for someone weaker to come along.

Meaner sort: nothing to do with cruelty here. In eighteenth century usage, 'mean' referred to lowly social standing or humble circumstances. The 'meaner sort' were the poor and labouring classes; the ones Georgian writers worried most about when it came to moral corruption.

Passengers: today we think of someone sitting in a vehicle, but in this era a passenger was simply anyone passing along a road on foot, horseback, or in a coach. Every passenger on a lonely heath was a potential victim; every stretch of road between towns was a hunting ground.

Junketting: feasting, merrymaking, carousing. The word 'junket' still survives in modern English, usually meaning a lavish trip at someone else's expense, but in Clark's day it was rawer and more physical: drinking bouts, dancing, and the reckless spending of stolen money on fleeting pleasures.

The matrimonial maggot bit his brain: a wonderfully vivid eighteenth century expression. A 'maggot' in this context was a whim or a sudden foolish fancy; the image is of a parasitic idea burrowing into a person's thoughts and driving them to irrational action. When the matrimonial maggot bit Clark, it meant the notion of marriage seized hold of him like a fever.

Timorous: fearful, easily frightened. Still in use today but far less common, it perfectly captures Clark's defining trait: a man who plans violence but whose own cowardice keeps undoing him, at least until desperation finally overwhelms his fear.

Jocose: playful, humorous, given to joking. The word carries a warmth and ease that makes its use in this story deeply chilling; Clark sits laughing and flirting with a woman he is already planning to kill.

Made a shift: managed with difficulty, barely succeeded. In this account, the phrase describes a dying woman's final desperate effort; she 'made a shift to mutter his name,' meaning she barely managed to speak it through a wound that should have silenced her entirely.

About This Series

Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse.

The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud.

True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight.

The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive.

Transcript

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This is a Dark Stories presentation of the lives of the most remarkable criminals who have been condemned and executed for murder, highway robbery, housebreaking, street mugging, forgery, or other offences. Collected from original papers and authentic memoirs and published in 1735, edited by Arthur Haywood. Episode seven Matthew Clark The Cowardly Footpad who turned killer. Perhaps there is nothing to which we may more justly attribute those numerous executions which so disgrace our country than the false notions which the meaner sort, especially, imbibe in their youth as to love and women. This unhappy person, Matthew Clark, was a most remarkable instance of the truth of this observation. He was born at St. Albans, of parents in but mean circumstances who thought they had provided very well for their son when they had procured his admission into the family of a neighbouring gentleman, equally distinguished by the greatness of his merit and fortune. In this place had Matthew been inclined in any degree to good, he might have acquired from the favour of his master all the advantages even of a liberal education, but proving an incorrigible, lazy and undutiful servant, the gentleman in whose service he was, after bearing with him a long time, turned him out of his family. He then went to plough and cart, and such other country work, but was so restless and uneasy at those hardships which he fancied were put upon him that he chose rather to rob than to labour, and leaving the farmer in whose service he was, used to skulk about bushy heath and watch all opportunities to rob passengers. Matthew was a perfect composition of all the vices that enter into low life. He was idle, inclined to drunkenness, cruel and a coward, nor would he have had spirit enough to attack anybody on the road had it not been to supply him with money for merry meetings and dancing bouts, to which he was carried by his prevailing passion for loose women. And these expeditions keeping him continually bare, robbing and junketing, desire of pleasure and fear of the gallows were the whole round of both his actions and his thoughts. At last the matrimonial maggot bit his brain, and after a short courtship he prevailed on a young girl in the neighbourhood to go up with him to London in order to their marriage. When they were there, finding his stock reduced so low that he had not even money to purchase the wedding ring, he pretended that a legacy of fifteen pounds was just left him in the country, and with a thousand promises of a quick return, set out from London to fetch it. When he left the town, full of uneasy thoughts, he travelled towards Neesden and Wilsden Green, where formerly he had lived. He intended to lurk there till he had an opportunity of robbing as many persons as to make up fifteen pounds from their effects. In pursuance of this resolution, he designed to attack every passenger he saw, but whenever it came to the push, the natural cowardice of his temper prevailed and his heart failed him. While he loitered about there, the master of an alehouse hard by took notice of him and asked him how he came to idle about in hay time, when there was so much work, offering at the same time to hire him for a servant. Upon this discourse Clark immediately recollected that all the persons belonging to this man's house must be out haymaking, except the maid, who served his liquors and waited upon guests. As soon, therefore, as he had parted from the master and saw he was gone into the fields, he turned back and went into his house, where renewing his former acquaintance with the maid, who, as he had guessed, was there alone, and to whom he formerly had been a sweetheart, he sat near an hour drinking and talking in that jacos manner which is usual between people of their condition in the country. But in the midst of all his expressions of affection, he mediated how to rob the house, his timorous disposition supposing a thousand dangers from the knowledge the maid had of him. He resolved, in order absolutely to secure himself, to murder her out of the way, upon which, having secretly drawn his knife out of his sheath and hiding it under his coat, he kissed her, designing at the same time to dispatch her, but his heart failed him the first time. However, getting up and kissing her a second time, he darted it into her windpipe, but its edge being very dull, the poor creature made a shift to mutter his name, and endeavoured to scramble after him, upon which he returned, and with the utmost inhumanity cut her neck to the bone quite round, after which he robbed the house of some silver, but being confounded and astonished did not carry off much, he went directly into the London road and came as far as Tyburn, the sight of which filled him with so much terror that he was not able to pick up courage enough to go by it. Returning back into the road again, he met a wagon which, in hopes of preventing all suspicion, he undertook to drive up to town, the man who drove it having hurt his leg. But he had not gone far before the persons who were in pursuit of the murderer of Sarah Goldington, the maid before mentioned, came up with him and inquired whether he had seen anybody pass by his wagon who looked suspicious. This inquiry put him into so much confusion that they discovered the sleeve of his shirt to be all bloody. At first he affirmed with great confidence that a soldier meeting him upon the road had insulted him, and that in fighting with him he had made the soldier's mouth bleed, which had so stained his shirt. But in a little time perceiving this excuse would not prevail, he fell into a violent agony and confessed the fact. At the next sessions at the Old Bailey he was convicted, and after receiving sentence of death, endeavoured all he could to comfort and compose himself during the time he lay under condemnation. His father, who was a very honest, industrious man, came to see him, and after he was gone, Matthew spoke with great concern of an expression which his father had made use of, viz., that if he had been to die for any other offence, he would have made all the interest and friends he could to have served for his life, but that the murder he had committed was so cruel that he thought that nothing could atone for it but his blood. At the place of execution, Clark was extremely careful to inform the people that he was so far from having any malice against the woman whom he murdered that he really had a love for her. He declared also, to prevent any aspersions on some young men who had been his companions, that no person was ever present with, or privy to any of the robberies he had committed, and having thus far discharged his conscience, he suffered on the twenty eighth of july seventeen twenty one, in the twenty fourth year of his age.