2-704-279 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Bystanders watch as John Gilpin is chased across the countryside, 1878, (c1918). Riders set off in pursuit of Gilpin, wrongly assuming that as he is being chased by the postboy, he must be a highwayman. John Gilpin was the subject of a comic ballad of 1782 by William Cowper entitled "The Diverting History of John Gilpin". The ballad, based on real-life character, describes how, on a journey to Edmonton (north in London), Gilpin, a draper, became separated from his wife and children after losing control of his horse, and ended up in the town of Ware, ten miles away from his intended destination. From "The Diverting History of John Gilpin", by William Cowper. [Frederick Warne and Co., London & New York, c1918]