The New Newgate Calendar

From The Homes, Haunts, and Battlefields of the Covenanters. The martyrs in question, who were among many of that profession in these years, were executed... read more »

As with so many of the cases I research that involve a male perpetrator, this story involves domestic violence – in this case, a jealous husband... read more »

Billingsgate Marketing the morning by Gustave Doré, 1872 Drunkenness is usually associated with this time of year. People have plenty of time off... read more »

We’ve paid tribute before to Christian martyrologies’ adroit remembrances of the dead. December 30 furnishes a crowded example from the Roman... read more »

If one of the aims of late Victorian press was to provide some titillation for their readers over breakfast then this tale, from the end of 1888 (a year... read more »

From Yemen Divided: The Story of a Failed State in South Arabia concerning the juridical follow-up to the ouster of Ali Nasir Muhammad during the a civil... read more »

One of the more unusual crimes to reach the Central Criminal court at Old Bailey was bigamy. I say ‘unusual’ because amongst all the violence,... read more »

From the Richmond (Va.) Whig, Dec. 28, 1866 … … and the same source on Jan. 1, 1867: read more »

James Arthur and Timothy Howard worked together at a charcoal factory in New Gravel Lane, Shadwell. They were workmates and drinking buddies but not close... read more »

In the week before Christmas 1848 a young man named Thomas Pheny walked into a coffee house near Euston Station. He asked the proprietor, Mrs Humphries,... read more »

On the morning of the 27th December the following malefactors were executed in the Old Bailey, viz., Richard Carrol, a blind man, for breaking open the... read more »

The Police courts of the Victorian metropolis did not sit on Christmas Day but the newspapers were printed on Boxing day and they carried the stories of... read more »

At the Fayetteville (Arks.) Court on the 8th inst., John Burnett was sentenced to be hung on the 26th inst., for the murder of Jonathan Selby. -Newark... read more »

By Cassie Watson; posted 26 December 2018. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century coroner’s juries regularly returned verdicts that appeared to determine... read more »

Ordered on Foreign Service, by Robert Collinson (The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology) One of the most modern of crimes is the sale of fake goods... read more »

Happy Christmas! And to celebrate, here’s a nice, festive tale of, um, danger and death in a domestic setting. Like my previous post, this is an... read more »

On this date in 1973, the government of Mohammed Daoud Khan — himself freshly installed as the first Afghan president, after deposing his cousin,... read more »

On this date in 1328, Willem de Deken, burgomaster of Bruges, had his hands cut off and his neck strung up in Paris for treason. Belgian illustrator Jean-Leon... read more »

One of my favorite possessions is a 1961 edition of Eric Partridge’s Dictionary of the Underworld (1949) that has the wonderful subtitle:  Being... read more »

On this date in 1572, Antitrinitarian Calvinist Johann Sylvan lost his head in a Heidelberg market. Sylvan — or Johannes Slyvanus — was a... read more »

In some of the interviews with homeless people and reports of their plights this winter one of the depressing strategies that emerged is that some individuals... read more »

On this day 138 years ago, a sad discovery was made in Heaton’s Court, Briggate, in Leeds. It was two days before Christmas, and somewhere, a woman... 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 »

I imagine that most owners of Indian curry houses have had to put up with a lot of bad behaviour from drunken customers who stumble into their establishments... read more »

Peter Kudzinowski was electrocuted on this date in 1929 in New Jersey. The son of Polish immigrants to Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal mining country,... read more »

The Police Courts of London had the power to act summarily (i.e without a jury) in a large number of instances. Many offences were prosecuted at this level... read more »

From Tyburn Tree: Its History and Annals: The manufacture of silk fabrics was highly protected, but protection did not bring prosperity to the workers.... read more »

The Rose in Hand, Morse Lane. Copyright Stuart Wilding and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons License.   On Christmas night in 1889, the bar... read more »

Lower Thames Street in the late 1800s One of the subjects that continues to fascinate my undergraduate students is infanticide. Almost invariably they... read more »

Monday’s post touched on the subject of prostitution and brothels in central London in the 1880s, suggesting that a young girl of just 14 years of... read more »

From the out-of-print The palace of death, or, the Ohio Penitentiary Annex: A human-interest story of incarceration and execution of Ohio’s murderers,... read more »

In December 1895 Edith Fenn appeared before Mr Lane at the West London Police court. Edith was just 15 years old and worked as a kitchen maid at 21 Courtfield... read more »

On this date in 1591, the Dutch “witch” Marigje Arriens was burned at the stake. A 70-year-old Schoonhoven folk healer, Arriens (English Wikipedia... read more »

Two mass shootings of U.S. World War II infantrymen in Belgium marked this date in 1944. It was the second day of the Battle of the Bulge, Nazi Germany’s... read more »

At seven o’clock in the evening of Thursday 15 December 1887 police constable 432D was on duty in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia. As the officer walked... read more »

On this date in 2010, John David Duty reclined on an Oklahoma gurney with an apology for his victim’s family on his lips, and became a milestone:... read more »

The Old Bailey Voices data is the result of work I’ve done for the Voices of Authority research theme for the Digital Panopticon project. This will... read more »

Plan of the London Docks, by Henry Palmer (1831) Sergeant Aram of H Division Metropolitan Police (18H) was stationed in Flower and Dean Street, one of... read more »

From the San Francisco (Calif.) Call, Dec. 16, 1896. UTAH MURDERER EXECUTED Patrick Coughlin, the Slayer of Two Officers, Shot to Death in Rich County.... read more »

In 1862 there was a moral panic about street robbery.  I’ve covered it elsewhere on this blog and it has been well-documented in the work of... read more »

The modern republic of Turkey executed a woman for the first time in 1931. Fatma Demir (German Wikipedia page: there’s none on Turkish Wikipedia)... read more »

Today finds me, weather permitting, stumping around Whitechapel with my third year undergraduates. This is an annual occurrence for me; in the past 12... read more »

On this date in 1856, the Bourbon monarchy of Naples avenged the near-murder of its king … but neither sovereign nor state would much outlive the... read more »

Goldsmiths’ Hall in the mid-ninetenth century, by Thomas Shepherd It is the time of the year when charities do so much to raise awareness of poverty... read more »

On this date in 1799, Neapolitan Republican Nicola Fiorentino went to the gallows. A precocious and multitalented scholar, Fiorentino (Italian Wikipedia... read more »

In 1885 Parliament passed a Criminal Law Amendment Act. Its subheading explained its purpose: ‘An Act to make further provision for the Protection... read more »

The U.S. states of Illinois, Georgia and California, and the Canadian province of British Columbia, all distinguished December 11, 1903 with hangings.... read more »

In the 1850s transportation to Australia slowly declined before being abandoned in the 1860s. Transportation, which had been the most effective alternative... read more »

Paul’s Wharf by Joseph Pennell (1884) Very many of the crimes prosecuted at the police courts were easily dealt with by the magistracy who handed... read more »

It was 120 years ago today that a little girl was found murdered in a field close to her home – a crime that shocked her local community. This was... read more »