The New Newgate Calendar

Dante‘s model of Purgatory, with a level for each of the seven deadly sins. Yesterday’s post completed Year 7 of this here death blog; today’s... read more »

As a crime historian, I have often read about people who were sentenced to transportation at Gloucestershire’s courts of Quarter Sessions and Assizes.... read more »

HEAD QUARTERS, FALLS OF NIAGARA OCTOBER 28TH 1814. At a General Court Martial, held at Stamford, on the 25th instant, and continued by adjournment to the... read more »

An appropriate post for Hallowe’en… Witchcraft is most commonly associated with the seventeenth century - the era of James II and his obsession... read more »

On this date in 1651, three days after the Irish city Limerick surrendered to a withering five-month Parliamentarian siege, the victors hanged Bishop Terence... read more »

It's recently been announced that the government is going to consider plans to build specialist units inside prisons to treat prisoners with mental health... read more »

On this date in 1792, three men were hanged from the yardarms of the H.M.S. Brunswick in Portsmouth Harbor. Their crime was participating in that famous... read more »

It’s election season! I was so concerned with Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race that I was shocked when a friend told me that there is a jail... read more »

Colombia polymath Francisco Jose de Caldas was shot on this date in 1816 during the Spanish commander Pablo Morillo‘s decimation of rebellious intelligentsia... read more »

There was a Beldame called the wytch of Ey, Old mother Madge her neyghbours did hir name Which wrought wonders in countryes by heresaye Both feendes and... read more »

[M]ore than 14,000 will have perished in this unhappy city, the great majority through starvation; others were shot, and still others were beheaded by... read more »

At dawn today in Tehran’s Shahr-e Ray prison, Iran hanged Reyhaneh Jabbari despite a worldwide campaign to save her life. Jabbari, 19 years old when... read more »

On this date in 1801, the brothers Periya Marudhu and Chinna Marudhu were hanged from the highest bastion of the fort of Tirupattur by the British —... read more »

My initial research on peculiar history of Zanzibar's so-called Prison Island as part of the Carceral Archipelago project began last year delving into... read more »

This is a new post in the long-running series addressing the provocative issue of Crime, Insanity and Sex(see post  dated 24th September 2014 for... read more »

On this date in 1947, Hungarian politician Gyorgy Donath was executed for treason as the Hungarian state was came into the hands of the Communists. Gyorgy... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) Sometime in October 1584 in the city of Stockholm, Sweden, one Anders Bengtsson... read more »

On this date in 1621, Spain’s once-powerful Marquis of the Seven Churches fell as far as tragedy can drop a man. Still to this day a Spanish emblem... read more »

Abstract: The Digital Panopticon will assemble a larger collection of datasets than any other crime history project to date (including, amongst many others,... read more »

Murderer Owen McQueen(e)y was hanged on this date in 1858 at Gallows Flat down the road from Old Geelong Gaol. McQueeney, a wandering Irish robber with... read more »

Anybody who has talked to me about my dissertation project in the last year has probably heard me talk about Hans W. Mattick. He was a criminologist who... read more »

On this date in 1660, the English soldiers Francis Hacker and Daniel Axtel(l) were executed for their roles in keeping the captured King Charles I, and... read more »

We’re holding an afternoon workshop on record/data linkage in Sheffield on 4 November. The aim is to explore the challenges and rewards of applying... read more »

Detective Chief Inspector George Clarke, the subject of my 2011 book ‘The Chieftain’ Between 1865 and 1868, a resurgence of republicanism... read more »

For murdering his two brothers, Antoni Areny was executed on this date in 1943 in Andorra — that country’s first and only execution since the... read more »

On this date in 1817, Maggie Houghtaling (alias Peggy Densmore) was hanged in Hudson, N.Y. for infanticide. Houghtaling lived with the mother of 15-month-old... read more »

Joseph Townsend In 1791, the London Chronicle reported the existence of a “remarkable” house of correction in Barcelona, which had been visited... read more »

This is a version of papers I gave at the European Social Science History Conference (Vienna 2014) and the British Crime Historians Symposium (Liverpool... read more »

(Thanks to Robert Elder of Last Words of the Executed — the blog, and the book — for the guest post. Fans of this here site are highly likely... read more »

On this date in 1942, the Japanese military occupying the atoll of Tarawa beheaded 17 New Zealand Coastwatchers, along with five civilians. Tarawa, a... read more »

On this date in 1854, two Sami men were beheaded for Norway’s Kautokeino Rebellion. The indigenous Sami people — often known as Lapps, although... read more »

The events of the Pace case occurred within the context of inter-war British crime, media and police history, the study of which has been rapidly expanding... read more »

This date is the dolorous anniversary of the “October 13 massacre”, a bloodbath wrapping up the Lebanese Civil War when the Syrian army executed... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this date in 1883, Frederick Mann was hanged for murdering four members of... read more »

On this date in 1593, Nuremberg executioner Franz Schmidt beheaded one of that city’s finest con artists. Gabriel Wolff, a burgher’s son,... read more »

It is a truth universally acknowledged that women do not always get paid the same as men for doing the same job, and this is in the 21st century. In the... read more »

On this date in 1932, Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang was hanged at Ichigaya Prison for attempting to assassinate Japanese Emperor Hirohito. The would-be... read more »

On this date in 1796, 30 Jacobins were shot by a military commission in under the French Directory for attempting to subert the army. This final, failed... read more »

On this date in 1760,* silversmith and murderer John Bruleman (sometimes given as Bruelman or Bruellman) was hanged by his own wish. “Weary of life,”... read more »

On this date in 1998, Jonathan Nobles was executed in Texas for a double murder — choked off by the lethal drugs as he sang the words “…sweet... read more »

During a recent research trip to the State Library of Western Australia I had the opportunity to examine the journal compiled by William Smith, Surgeon... read more »

On this date in 1922, Benny Swim suffered a double hanging for a double murder. Benny Swim(m) grew up on a squalid backwoods farm in the New Brunswick... read more »

 I am delighted to announce further titles from Pickering & Chatto are to be reviewed here on Mad, Bad and Desperate*:  Free Will and the... read more »

It was on this date in 610 that the Byzantine Emperor Phocas was overthrown and put to summary execution — by the very hand, legend says, of his... read more »

I've previously blogged about patients whose desire to stay in Broadmoor, or gain a transfer to the (comparatively lenient and luxurious) asylum from prison... read more »

On this date in 1925 the Chinese warlord Sun Chuanfang had a captured enemy commander beheaded. In so doing, he signed his own death warrant too. Deep... read more »

‘Six Stages of Mending a Face’ (1792) read more »

On this date in 1937, the Soviet economist Alexander Chayanov was shot during Stalin’s purges. “Our present capitalist form of economy represents... read more »

We’re delighted to be able to announce our second project workshop. It’s another afternoon workshop, this time in Sheffield, and the subject... read more »

On this date in 1829, George Swearingen, late the sheriff of Washington County, Md., was hanged for murder. Swearingen murdered his wife after he became... read more »