The New Newgate Calendar
Post Archives
Archives for November 2018
Today was the first time that I’ve used this blog in my own teaching. I’ve discussed it at conferences and with colleagues but thus far I hadn’t...
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I’ve recently been researching petty offences in the early part of the 20th century, and tracking how changing technology and transportation affected...
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(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...
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Italian Communist Vincenzo Baccala was executed on this date in 1937 … but not by the fascists. The blackshirted turn of his country in the 1920s...
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The act of going to law was often a last resort, a necessary act to put an end to a problem that had resisted all attempts resolution. While it was sometimes...
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On this date in 1857, the Utah Territory finished the extrajudicial executions it had botched three days before. As we have detailed, Utah’s Mormon...
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Henry Morris was woken in the middle of the night by a cry from his brother. Getting up he noted that it was four in the morning and he shuffled his way...
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Nevada executed Floyd McKinney in its gas chamber on this date in 1943. McKinney had caught a ride westward across the state on Highway 50 with 2nd Lt....
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In 1871 Queen Victoria had been on throne for 34 years. Her husband Albert had been dead for a decade and she was yet to adopt the title of Empress of...
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We resort to a footnote in a Newgate Calendar edition for today’s interesting anecdote: John Clarke was a watch-case maker, of good repute, in London....
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William Slade wasn’t a bad lad but like many nine year old boys he was fascinated with guns. His father kept a loaded revolver in his desk and, while...
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By Eddie Mullan “The couple had disappeared under mysterious circumstances.” It was this comment from a fellow researcher that led me to uncover...
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“Six ‘gentlemen of good address,’ known as the Aiken party, rode into Salt Lake Valley from California in October 1857 and were never...
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The first “executions” meted out by Mormon captors to the Aiken or Aikin Party men who were attempting to cross the war-footing territory eastward...
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Mr Adams had employed George Groves in his warehouse for 14 years. In that time the man had been a model employee, never late, never any trouble, always...
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This week my undergraduate students at Northampton have been looking at marital violence in history. I’ve set them reading by a variety of historians...
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On this date in 1793, Clément Charles François de Laverdy, Marquis of Gambais and the ancien regime‘s former Controller-General of...
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The late 19th century saw increased efforts to solve crimes and apprehend criminals using scientific methods. In France, the criminologist Alphonse Bertillon...
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There are few crimes that generate so much emotion as the killing of a child. Every year at least one of my students is likely to come forward to suggest...
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This primer appeared in Lloyd’s Evening Post (Dec. 21, 1763) and is also to be found in a 1764 compendium called The polite miscellany: containing...
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On this date in 1635, Dutch soldiers occupying Formosa (Taiwan) massacred 26 people of the holdout aboriginal village of Mattau. The Dutch had established...
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When Edward O’Connor got home from the pub he was disappointed that his wife hadn’t got his dinner ready. Mrs O’Connor was pretty used...
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The name at the head of this page is probably unknown to the English reader, and yet I think it should become a household word like that of Garibaldi or...
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PowerPoint presentation: What is Murder? Click on the link above to access my PowerPoint “What is Murder?” It will run automatically,...
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The detective department were a belated addition to the Metropolitan Police. When Sir Robert Peel created his ‘bluebottles’ in 1829 he modeled...
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William Charles Benson hanged at Wandsworth prison on this date in 1928, the murderer of his ice cream factory co-worker’s wife. Benson in 1925 had...
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As a follow up to my previous post on the Journals of the House of Commons, a list of freely available volumes of its companion, the Journals of...
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The morning after the Duke of Wellington’s funeral was a busy time for the Guildhall Police court. By all accounts the funeral was a extraordinary...
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William Blake said, “Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be True.” And I am bemused that I spend so much time...
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You might be forgiven for thinking that a London waterman was someone that worked on the river in the Victorian period. This is certainly what these men...
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“This story transports readers back to a pre-internet Golden Age when newspapers enjoyed handsome profits and were the major provider of in-depth...
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(Thanks for the guest post to American newsman and reformer John L. O’Sullivan. Best-known as the fellow who coined that potent brand for American...
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On this date in 1936, the Seven Martyrs of Madrid became martyrs.* These sisters of Catholicism’s Visitandine or Visitation Order were the last...
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Mrs Sarah Cameron ran a tobacconist shop on the Broadway in Westminster, central London. One evening in November 1840 a young man called William...
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Some of the cases that came before the Police Court magistrates seem particularly unimportant or trivial. It must have been quite frustrating, if not downright...
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A French evangelical named Claude Le Painctre — on mission evangelizing back in his dangerous homeland after previously escaping to exile in Geneva...
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On this date in 1888, Massachusetts almost hanged Sarah J. Robinson. The reader will easily infer from press appellations such as the “Massachusetts...
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If you visit Hyde Park this weekend you will see many things: couples strolling arm in arm, dog owners walking their pets, cyclists clad in lycra and joggers...
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The publisher Pen & Sword appears to be increasingly publishing books by academic crime historians – a move that I heartily approve of, perhaps...
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On this date in 1822, Johan Wilhelm Gebhardt was executed at the Dutch-founded South African settlement of Paarl. His offense, unusual but not unheard-of...
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Lynsey Black, Maynooth University This article first appeared in BSC Newsletter No. 82, Summer 2018, ISSN 1759-8354 11 http://www.britsoccrim.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Black.pdf...
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This is another example of mid-nineteenth century attitudes towards mental illness. At the time mental health was not as well understood as it is today...
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Iran today hanged two men for financial crimes. Vahid Mazloumin, dubbed “the Sultan of Coins”, was arrested in July with two tons of gold coins...
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This is a very sad story which really seems to have been the result of an accident rather than any intent on the part of the perpetrator. However, it is...
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On this date in 1989, Sri Lankan Marxist revolutionary Rohana Wijeweera was — by at least some accounts, properly disputed by the authorities —...
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Henry Yeomans, University of Leeds This article first appeared in BSC Newsletter No. 82, Summer 2018, ISSN 1759-8354 11 Available here On 1st...
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The London press delighted in occasionally giving their readership a flavor of the drama that unfolded in the metropolitan police courts. There was plenty...
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Iain Channing, University of Plymouth This article first appeared in BSC Newsletter No. 82, Summer 2018, ISSN 1759-8354 17 Available here. We are...
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David Churchill, University of Leeds This article first appeared in BSC Newsletter No. 82, Summer 2018, ISSN 1759-8354 11 Available here Criminology...
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On this date in 1717 a witch hunt in the Bavarian town of Freising concluded with the beheading of three beggar children as magicians.* The accusations...
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