The New Newgate Calendar
Post Archives
Archives for October 2019
On this date in 1929, the Punjabi Muslim youth Ilm Deen was hanged for murdering a blasphemous publisher. The Rangila Rasul is a pamphlet-length send-up...
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Twelve angry men … the whole 12 jurors scene Mandatory: Dirty Dozen execution scene Twelve Apostles … frankly a shitload of twelve things...
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Here are some of the crime history-related links I’ve found interesting this month. What has that old villain been doing to you? Historian Helen...
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A veteran of the Crimean War Whilst today is Hallo’een and this evening we will be inundated with small children flying high on sugar and commercialized...
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This account of a dozen-strong summary execution at the Upper Galilee village of Eilabun by the Israeli Defense Forces during the Arab-Israeli War hails...
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In October 1889 the secretary of the Hope Teetotal Friendly Society* was summoned before Mr Montagu Williams at Clerkenwell to explain why he was refusing...
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Try to resist this riveting true crime hook from Murder By Gaslight, who’s been seen guest-blogging in these parts from time to time as well: In...
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Amongst the most common crimes that women were accused of at the summary courts was picking pockets. Female offenders appear in greater numbers (and larger...
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Polish serial killer Joachim Knychala, colorfully known as “The Vampire of Bytom” or “Frankenstein”, was hanged in Krakow just...
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On 27 October 1863 a ‘well-dressed’ man, who gave his name as Thomas Martin, appeared in the dock at Southwark Police court accused of molesting...
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The gorgeous Basilica de San Vicente* in Avila, Spain is dedicated to a trio of Christian martyrs whose feast day today is. (cc) inage from David Perez....
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We’ve all heard strange noises at night and wondered if an intruder is in the house. Mostly it is the wind, or mice, or our imagination, but, just...
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October 27, 1959 headline of the Palm Springs, Calif., Desert Sun. Connecticut reluctantly electrocuted paraplegic murderer Frank Wojculewicz on this date...
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In late October 1888 a man appeared in court at the Guildhall after admitting to multiple murders. The fact that the magistrate let him go probably tells...
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Walkiria (or Walquiria) Afonso Costa was summarily executed on this date in 1974. Sickly and emaciated, the 27-year-old was the last guerrilla left in...
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London was a cosmopolitan city in the nineteenth century. Just as today it was home for thousands of Europeans who lived and worked alongside native Londoners...
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U.S. cult leader Jeffrey Lundgren answered on this date in 2006 for the murders of his disobedient followers. Lundgren cleaved off a small sect of devotees...
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We have spent the past few days in Whitechapel, looking at the cases selected for reporting at Worship Street Police court before Mr Montagu Williams....
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On this date in 1908, the “negro boy scarcely of legal age”* Joe James hanged at Sangamon County jail in Illinois. His alleged crimes helped...
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‘Joseph Carney, a street vendor or “costermonger”, sells fresh herring from a barrow in a street market near Seven Dials’.1 The...
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On this date in 1943, French abortionist Désiré Pioge was guillotined in Paris by the family-values Vichy regime. Very much overshadowed...
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The East End of London is synonymous with boxing. I was fortunate enough to be invited to watch a series of bouts at York Hall a few years ago and the...
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Must Thieves who take men’s goods away Be put to death? While fierce blood hounds, Who do their fellow creatures slay, Are sav’d from death?...
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Yesterday’s blog was about youthful delinquency in 1840s Whitechapel. Today’s concerns more youthful criminals, this time in the West End of...
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Dictator Muammar Gaddafi (several alternate transliterations are familiar, such as Qaddafi and Gadhafi) was killed by his captors during the Libyan civil...
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Rosemary Lane had a reputation for criminality throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The street was one of several in Whitechapel where the...
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Brazil-born, German-descended businessman turned World War I spy Fernando Buschmann was shot for espionage at the Tower of London this date in 1915. Don’t...
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The poor servant girl ‘undone’ by the master (or another male of the house) is a well-worn trope of Victorian fiction. That said it is fairly...
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The sixfold Tyburn hanging on this date in 1769 — all six men condemned for non-homicide property crimes.* The acquitted Giuseppe Baretti. We notice...
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King’s Cross station, c.1862 When, in October 1868, a customer reported losing several of his possessions on a train the Great Northern Railway company...
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On this date in 1902, Jim Buchanan was tried, convicted, sentence, and immediately executed in Nagocdoches, Texas … with his full assent. Barely...
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The ‘From Hell or ‘Lusk’ letter In mid October 1888 the London, national and even the world’s press were full of the news...
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Above: Cristus Factus Est, composed by the black Venezuelan musician Juan Antonio Caro de Boesi. He was shot on this date in 1814 by the notoriously brutal...
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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...
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Our old familiar the Newgate Calendar supplies us with this narration of a Scottish Jacobin to pop the powdered wigs from Edinburgh to Westminster. A published...
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Guest post by Ian Williams, 10 October 2019 Wager of law was a central part of a serious disagreement between the courts of King’s Bench and Common...
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The law is supposed to deal with everyone equally, regardless of race, gender, or class. The law supposedly protects the poorest in the land and the richest,...
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China Communist revolutionary hero Chen Jue was executed on this date in 1928 by the nationalist Kuomintang. Chen Jue with his wife Zhao Yunxiao or Yunqi...
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Police constable George Booty of the City force probably spent a considerable amount of his time moving on and arresting drunks. It was part and parcel...
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Endocrinologist Dr. Bronislava Poskrebysheva was shot on this date in 1941. She was the Jewish Lithuanian wife of Alexander Poskrebyshev, who was Stalin’s...
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Violence was topic for most of the cases reported in the evening Standard newspaper on 13 October 1877. Just as modern readers are shocked by hearing...
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On this date in 1942, the survivors of a remarkable rebellion in a Soviet gulag camp were shot. The Ust-Usinsky rebellion in Russia’s northern Komi...
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On Saturday 8 October 1853 Henry Julian, a young ‘gentleman’, took delivery a new suit of clothes. He had ordered a week earlier, from Thomas...
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October 11, 1636 was a grievous date for self-proclaimed prophet Johann Albrecht Adelgrief, who was burned as a sorcerer and heretic. Adelgrief (English...
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Augustus Guerrier was a troubled soul. In October 1883 the cook was charged with stealing and set in the dock at Wandsworth Police court where it was revealed...
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Polish murderer Waldemar Krakos was hanged on this date in 1983 in Warsaw’s Mokotow Prison. With a partner, Wiktor Maliszewski, he’d bludgeoned...
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By Krista J. Kesselring, 10 October 2019 Early modern coroners and their juries appear to have had extraordinarily high success rates in identifying...
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Clerkenwell Prison , c.1862 PC William Warren (208N) was perambulating his beat when he saw a man and a woman leant up against the railings at the corner...
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On this date in 1732, Tyburn groaned with 13 men (no women) hanged en masse for various crimes — the most eye-catching of whom per the account of...
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Indecent assault takes many forms, and in the rather staid newspaper reports of the 1800s, detail is rarely given. This case therefore is a little unusual...
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