Who Was 'The Highwayman'? What Was Alfred Noyes Discussing In His Famous Narrative Poem?

To kick-off our stand-alone Narrative Poetry Unit on The  Highwayman by Alfred Noyes, we began by researching who highwaymen were in history (17th &18th Centuries), where they operated, how they were perceived by the people of the time and also looked into some of the tricky, traditional vocabulary used by the poet in his famous poem. These researched definitions were then collaboratively added to a class 'Highwayman Dictionary' to put on our English Working Wall for future reference if needed... How incredibly interesting!