The New Newgate Calendar

By Dr Kristyn Harman Senior Lecturer in History, University of Tasmania   Like many New Zealanders, I grew up hearing stories about the Australian... read more »

Mattia Preti, The Crucifixion of St. Andrew (1651) Halloween 2017 makes it ten damn years since Executed Today was born howling. Has it really been that... read more »

On this date in 1860, Johannes Nathan was hanged in Maastricht for murder. Nathan murdered his mother-in-law over a pig. Most executions in the Netherlands... read more »

A seasonal turnip, by Geni at Wikipedia It was Hallowe’en – 31 October – in 1899, and a group of men and boys were celebrating the night... read more »

The temptations faced by servant girls working in the homes of the wealthy must have been very hard to resist. For a young woman like Ellen Shean her mistress’... read more »

Today’s papers are understandably full of discussion about sexual assaults on women by men in positions of power. Following the ongoing revelations... read more »

Wallace P. Ford, Jr., a former Buffalo steelworker, was electrocuted by New York on this date in 1952. His crime, “a senseless, meaningless affair,... read more »

On this date in 1915, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, his ship fatally trapped in Antarctic pack ice, had the ship’s beloved cat shot. The 1915... read more »

Fare dodging was frequently punished at the summary courts. Conductors of trams or buses, hackney coachmen, and train guards brought in travellers  who... read more »

On this date in 1784, American Revolutions veteran Dirick (sometimes Dirich or Derach) Grout and Francis Coven (or Coyen) were hanged in Boston for burglary.... read more »

On Wednesday 27 October 1886 a man appeared in front of the alderman magistrate at the Mansion House Police Court to answer a summons. Mr B. A. Bird was... read more »

It was at a meeting of the council on the 1stSeptember 1877 that a decision was taken to apply for the site on which the gaol yards and cells at Oatlands... read more »

It would seem that even the radical press in the nineteenth century were not above a little bit of casual racism. We might have expected The Charter,... read more »

On this date in 1938 the Imperial Japanese Army conquered the Hankow or Hankou industrial district within the city of Wuhan, and according to the Associated... read more »

My very esteemed friend. [I write to you] in the midst of all the travails I have suffered during these two sieges, the first lasting 109 days and the... read more »

Poplar High Street in the late 1800s Thomas Thomas had only recently docked in London from a long voyage out of Adelaide, Australia. The steamship fireman... read more »

A thief named Peter Bennet was hanged at Tyburn on this date in 1704 — alone since “Two Men and Seven Women were try’d for several Felonies... read more »

All books listed are required and can often be found for a lower cost through websites like Amazon. Required: Audra Wolfe, Competing with the Soviets:... read more »

an anti-vaccination pamphlet from the USA (c.1894) Thomas Williamson was clearly frustrated at finding himself before the magistrate at the Hampstead Police... read more »

On this date in 1946, former Nazi chief cop Kurt Daluege hanged at Prague’s Pankrac Prison. Daluege’s postwar detention card. Daluege, who... read more »

1848 was a tumultuous year in Europe. There were revolutions in Italy, Germany,  Denmark and the Habsburg Empire (in Hungary). Louis-Phillips was... read more »

As with Peter the Great a few decades later, the budding absolutist experienced a scarring breakdown in law and order in his youth that at times threatened... read more »

The Museum of London at Docklands This month, a new display appeared at the Museum of London Docklands looking at the history of the Thames River Police.... read more »

The summary courts of the capital didn’t always deal with crime or antisocial behaviour; some of those that came before so did so for advice or to... read more »

Although the metropolitan Police Courts mostly dealt with petty crime and disorderly behaviour this was also the place where a lot of more serious crime... read more »

In October 1868, Sarah Edwards* appeared at the Oswestry sessions, together with an acquaintance named Richard Jones. They were charged with stealing a... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this date in 1943, Piotr Jarzyna was shot at Auschwitz for his activities in... read more »

From the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, January 26, 1898: The pretty little city of St. Helena nestling in the picturesque Napa valley just a few miles from... read more »

October 21 1855 was the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Nelson but the England that emerged from the long wars with France... read more »

Jack Culpepper’s “The Kremlin Executions of 1575 and the Enthronement of Simeon Bekbulatovich” (Slavic Review, September, 1965) notes... read more »

The London Police Court magistracy spent most of their time disciplining those brought in as drunk and disorderly by the officers of the Metropolitan police.... read more »

Well known as is the Dutch heritage of New York City — the former New Amsterdam — fewer realize that the Low Countries’ writ in the New... read more »

h Sometimes it is the banality of the Police courts that interests me. The magistrates that presided in London’s summary courts sent thousands of... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this day in 1942, one year and four months after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet... read more »

Gill Rossini (2017) Same Sex Love: A History and Research Guide, Barnsley: Pen and Sword HistoryIt is 50 since the Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised... read more »

Prostitution on the Haymarket, c.1861 We are fairly use to the modern tabloid complaint that ‘this country is being ruined’ by an influx of... read more »

On this date in 1976, seven young leftist Montonero militants were extrajudicially executed by the Argentine junta in Los Surgentes.* Just months into... read more »

Ludgate Hill by Camille Pissarro, 1890 John Alfred Smith worked for a cheesemonger in the City of London (who had premises on Ludgate Hill), but in October... read more »

(Thanks to Richard Clark of Capital Punishment U.K. for the guest post, a reprint of an article originally published on that site with some explanatory... read more »

Henry Thomas Spooner joined the Metropolitan Police in August 1874. He was assigned to V Division  but resigned from the force just two years later.... read more »

From The Baylors of Newmarket: The Decline and Fall of a Virginia Planter Family, by Thomas Katheder. The specific “Baylor” referenced in this... read more »

Arthur Jacobs was a porter who worked for Crosse & Blackwell’s in Soho. He was 28 years old and had a wife and family. The firm (described as... read more »

Spitalfields (in the early 20th century) by the photographer C. A. Mathew  Sophia Higgins, the wife of a chemist in Spicer Street, Spitalfields was... read more »

From Executions in Yemen, 1998-2001: October 14 [1998]: Faisal Saleh bin Zuba’a, a tribesman, executed two days after killing a local pediatrician.... read more »

On this date in 1960, American adventurer Anthony “Tony” Zarba was shot after his capture in an ill-fated raid on Fidel Castro’s Cuba.... read more »

In 1834 the New Poor Law came into existence. This draconian legalisation was the brainchild of Edwin Chadwick and Nassau Senior. Whilst the Poor Law Amendment... read more »

Texas this evening executed Robert Pruett, a 38-year-old man who last saw the outside of prison as a 15-year-old boy … and who perhaps had no hand... read more »

The following post is based on a paper presented at “Writing Prisons: Literature and Constraint in Early Modern England,” a mini-symposium... read more »

On Saturday 7 October 1854 Henry Young, a currier from Westminster, hired a hansom cab to take him to a number of appointments across London. He was picked... read more »

Luxembourg Nazi Damian Kratzenberg was shot as a World War II collaborator on this date in 1946. Kratzenberg (English Wikipedia entry | German | Luxembourgish),... read more »