290px|thumb|[[Cigarette card issued in 1926]]
Louis Jeremiah Abershawe (c. 1773 – 3 August 1795), better known as Jerry Abershawe, or Abershaw, was an English highwayman who terrorised travellers, mostly along the road between Kingston upon Thames and London, in the late eighteenth century.
Biography
Born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, Abershawe started his life of crime at the age of seventeen, leading a gang of robbers based at the Bald-Faced Stag Inn at Putney Vale, on the road between Kingston and London. When in hiding he frequented a house in Clerkenwell, near Saffron Hill, known as the "Old House in West Street", which was noted for its dark closets, trap-doors and sliding panels, and had often formed the asylum of wanted criminals, including Jonathan Wild and Jack Sheppard. He was eventually arrested in London at a public house, The Three Brewers, in Southwark.
The coolness with which Abershawe met his death prolonged his notoriety, and his name was commonly used as a synonym for a daring thief in the early years of the nineteenth century. He received his sentence with extraordinary sangfroid, putting on his own hat at the same moment as the judge assumed the black cap, and "observing him with contemptuous looks" while pronouncing judgment. The few days that intervened between his conviction and execution he spent in sketching with cherries on the walls of his cell scenes from his daring exploits on the road. While being driven to the gallows he "appeared entirely unconcerned, had a flower in his mouth... and he kept up an incessant conversation with the persons who rode beside the cart, frequently laughing and nodding to others of his acquaintances whom he perceived in the crowd, which was immense", according to an article in the Oracle and Public Advertiser. In a pamphlet on his career, entitled Hardened Villany Displayed, which was published soon after his death, he is described as "a good-looking young man, only 22 years of age".