The New Newgate Calendar

Halloween 2018 makes it 11 years to the day since Executed Today was born on a Cologne breaking-wheel. read more »

Halloween of 1926 was a festival of triumph for the Italian fascists … and they crowned it in a festival of blood. The occasion marked (not exactly... read more »

I thought it might be useful to detail the books and publications I’ve read this month, for anyone who fancies a bit of crime reading! Thanks to... read more »

For some reason the morning paper on Halloween 1857 chose to concentrate on thefts by servants and other employees. Several of the stories from the Police... read more »

The ensuing poem, titled “Melancholy Instance of Human Depravity” and published in an 1805 collection, laments a serving-girl’s murder... read more »

It is always a bad sign when a defendant appears in the dock and is said to answer to more than one name. It suggests a ‘known’ criminal who... read more »

Julia Rigby was born at sea in 1829, and grew up in Lambeth, South London. Julia would next step foot on a boat twenty years after her birth when, once... read more »

On this date in 1964, newly-independent Singapore hanged 18 former inmates of the Pulau Senang penal settlement for a deadly 1963 riot. Pulau Senang. (cc)... read more »

I have just read an excellent article in the latest issue of Cultural and Social History. Catherine Dille takes a new look at a custom and succeeds in... read more »

Poor Ellen MacCarthy. All she wanted to do was sell a few flowers to the visitors around St Paul’s but she fell foul of the City’s restrictions... read more »

On this date in 1949, the Romanian anti-communist partisan Nicolae Dabija (English Wikipedia entry | Romanian) was shot at Sibiu, along with six other... read more »

Truancy is not a new problem. In the pages of the Thames Police court in the late 1880s huge numbers of parents appear to answer charges of not sending... read more »

Curtain Road, Shoreditch in the late 1800s Sometimes it is the small twists of chance that mean that crimes are discovered. On a grand scale it was the... read more »

Every night we cut off thirty heads, and those of several chiefs; that will teach them, I think, a good lesson.” -Napoleon to the Directory on October... read more »

(Thanks to Robert Elder of Last Words of the Executed — the blog, and the book — for the guest post. This post originally appeared on the Last... read more »

The Café Royal, by William Orpen, 1912) It was not the sort of behaviour one expected to see at the Café Royal on Regent’s Street,... read more »

MOGADISHU, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) — Somalia’s Al Shabaab Islamist movement on Sunday executed two young men for alleged spying for the Somali government... read more »

I was drawn to this headline in the Standard for late October 1897, which referred to a case before the magistrate at Worship Street in the East End of... read more »

Left-wing athlete Werner Seelenbinder was executed by the Third Reich on this date in 1944. An Olympic Greco-Roman wrestler, Seelenbinder’s plan... read more »

The Regent’s Canal in the early 1840s On Saturday night my wife and I were crossing Blackfriars Bridge in the early evening. We were on our way to... read more »

(Thanks to Thomas Babington Macaulay for the guest post on “the blackest [case] which disgraced the sessions” prosecuting the Rye House Plot... read more »

As an example of how the London Police courts were used for all manner of business and as a one-stop advice bureau I present this case from October 1861.... read more »

Peder Ringeneie was beheaded on this date in 1847 in Baerum, Norway. He murdered his wife with an ax, so that he could run away with a lover. Most of what’s... read more »

Lady Elizabeth Butler, Scotland Forever, (1881) A porter at Shoreditch station was walking along the platform when he saw a man on the tracks. It... read more »

We credit the London Times of November 27, 1826 for this tidbit on the Ottoman Empire’s mop-up of the Janissaries, the truculent infantry elites... read more »

Today if you decide to go to see a West End show, concert or play you will always buy tickets, usually in advance, and sometimes on the door. The tickets... read more »

The remarkable-if-true criminal autobiography of Joseph Mountain, executed on this date in 1790 in New Haven, Connecticut, is transcribed here from the... read more »

There were very many prosecutions for begging heard at the Victorian Police courts. Begging was an offence that fell under laws that had been amended over... read more »

On this date in 1976, American killer Michiah Shobek was hanged in the Bahamas. Born James Michael Shoffner, Shobek was a Milwaukee handyman who murdered*... read more »

Observant readers will have noticed that three of this week’s cases have come from the same paper in 1868. The Illustrated Police News was not... read more »

On this date in 2016, Saudi Arabia had Prince Turki bin Saud al-Kabir beheaded: the first royal executed in the kingdom since 1975. Prince Turki was convicted... read more »

When a customer reported losing several of his possessions on a train the Great Northern Railway company called in their own in-house detective team. In... read more »

If the attached A Few Lines upon the Awful Execution of John Ormesby & Matthew Cushing intrigues, get to know America’s “first celebrity... read more »

Drunkness (often combined with disorderly conduct or incapability) was the most common things for anyone to be prosecuted for at a Metropolitan Police... read more »

From the New-York Mercury, Nov. 27, 1752: Newbern, in North-Carolina, August 28. About a Fortnight ago, was committed to Goal in this Town, four Men,... read more »

The owner of Deacon’s Coffee House and Tavern on Walbrook in the City was disturbed by the sound of shattering glass. It was nine in the evening... read more »

This morning Mr. Carew was hanged and quartered at Charing Cross; but his quarters, by a great favour, are not to be hanged up. –Diary of Samuel... read more »

I’ve just been revisiting the rise and fall of Napoleon in case I need to step in and provide some teaching cover for a colleague who is temporarily... read more »

October 14 is the original feast date* and alleged martyrdom date of early Christian saints Gervasius and Protasius. Reputedly the twin sons of two other... read more »

It was about 10 o’clock at night and Jane Black was feeling unwell. Her husband worked in a nightclub and was often late home so she decided to take... read more »

Three men hanged at Tyburn on this date in 1762. Although in these pages we most typically notice the details of the crime, our surviving account from... read more »

Frederick George Helmore was a troubled young man. The son of a successful coal merchant Frederick had been before the magistrates on more than one occasion,... read more »

John Byrns (aka Francis Burns), John Bennet, Daniel Cronan, John Ferguson (aka John Taylor) and John Logan* hanged in Philadelphia on this date in 1789.... read more »

  An IPN headline from 23 July 1910 The past is a different place: sometimes, this does not seem to be the case when analysing crime coverage in the... read more »

Who’d be a policeman? Especially in mid Victorian London, and in the East End at that. There a policeman’s lot was most certainly not a happy... read more »

On this date in 1871, Eugen Kvaternik and a number of companions were shot as rebels. A patriot who had long aspired to detach Croatia from the Austro-Hungarian... read more »

If you want to know how gender biased societal attitudes towards domestic violence were in the Victorian era I think this case illustrates them perfectly.... read more »

Posted by Krista J. Kesselring, 10 October 2018. The case of James Somerset in 1772 is one of the most celebrated episodes in the history of English law.... read more »

French Revolutionary Claude Javogues was shot on this date in 1796. The son of an ancien regime royal castellan, the barrister Javogues would have the... read more »

Today the British government has decided to mark World Mental Health Day by appointing a government minister to prevent suicide. The Health Secretary has... read more »