The New Newgate Calendar
Post Archives
Archives for February 2018
Although the primary accounts — those by conquistadors Hernán Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and historian Francisco Lopez...
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John Rooney had ‘parked’ his dust cart as he often did while he went to see he if there was any need for his services. The Lambeth based dustman...
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February 27 is honored to be the feast date of Saint Honorina, patron of boatmen (a field of metaphorical import to this site) as well as liberated prisoners...
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A Southwark street in the 1890s Serious violence such as attempted and actual murder was rarer in the nineteenth century than we might think from all the...
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On this date in 1838, William Moore hanged at High Street, Maitland, New South Wales, a mere 25 days after slaughtering his master. Australian convicts...
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Henry Morey served in the City of London Police, a separate institution to the Metropolitan Police created by Robert Peel in 1829. The City jealousy guarded...
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From Butler’s Lives of the Saints: February: Bishop Versaglia (left) and Father Caravario. BB Aloysius Versaglia, Bishop and Martyr (1873-1930),...
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Sir Albert de Rutzen Most of those appearing before the police magistrates of London were members of the working class. The vast majority were being prosecuted...
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Early coverage of the case in the Sunderland Daily Echo of 1 January 1936 Many murder cases of the late 19th and early 20th centuries continue...
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On this date in 1799, the Bishop of Potenza was lynched by the faithful. Andrea Serrao English Wikipedia entry | Italian) was a late disciple of the reformist...
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The steam train had opened up Britain and given the Victorians opportunities to visit the seaside and enjoy other leisure pursuits, such as a day at the...
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On this date in 2000, Egypt hanged two Islamic militants whom it had been torturing for months. They were signal early victims of the U.S. Central Intelligence...
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John Binns as pictured in his autobiography, 1852 In the late 18th century, a number of political or ‘State’ prisoners were sent to Gloucester...
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David Connor was a drunk. And when he was in his cups he was extremely violent. Plenty of people would testify to that fact, including the police to whom...
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To Madame la Comtesse de Feuillide this novel is inscribed by her obliged humble servant The Author. -Jane Austen’s author’s dedication in...
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Below are three calls for papers and proposals that have come into our inbox recently. None of these are specifically about early modern prisons, but they...
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Mary Anne Loane was a ‘poor thinly-clad and wretched-looking’ woman who came to see the Thames Police court magistrate to seek his help. She...
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On this date in 1896, Russian refugee Ivan Kovalev was hanged for a Sacramento double murder. Kovalev and nine other Russian convicts had in 1893 fled...
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One of the many functions of the Police Court magistrate in London was to deal with parents who refused to send their children to school. School boards...
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(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) The Latin legal term corpus delicti literally translates to “the body of...
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Charles Wehrfritz was on his way back home from the pub after enjoying his ‘supper beer’ following a day’s work when he ran into his...
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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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Posted by Sara M. Butler; 19 February 2018. Should animals be seen as persons under the law? At first glance this question may seem preposterous, but many...
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Sir Alexander Grant had a long lineage. In 1852 he was 69 years of age and would die two years later. Grant had served as an MP for various constituencies...
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Death is our most modest gift to the people. Each death is a small window closing on nihilism. And each death is a panel of mystery closing on lies, corruption,...
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Resting stevedores on the London Docks, c.1890 1889 has gone down in Trade Union history as one of the most significant. This was the year of the Great...
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On this date in 1955, Thai royal secretary Chaliew Pathumros and royal pages Butr Patamasarin and Chit Singhaseni were shot as regicides. (Many other transliterations...
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We know that London was a cosmopolitan city in the Victorian age, and that it sat at the heart of Empire and world trade. Ships brought cargoes from all...
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Anaconda Standard, Jan. 11, 1917: The story of the crime was that seven negroes boarded an eastbound freight train on the Great Northern railway at Nihil...
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Yesterday we heard about a domestic abuse case from Holloway involving a bricklayer who set about his drunken wife with an iron poker. Today the roles...
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On this date in 1673, Indians named Kaelkompte and Keketamape were sentenced to hanging and gibbeting for the murder of an English soldier near Albany,...
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We are staying in 1891 today to see if any there were any Police Court developments in the wake of Frances Coles’ murder on the 13 February of that...
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On some undateable occasion in the second year of our Lord, Roman Emperor Augustus had his notorious daughter’s lover put to death. Half-predator...
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Posted by Krista Kesselring; 14 February 2018. As noted in my last post, stories from the Court of Star Chamber’s proceedings can offer remarkable...
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In a rather self-publicising post (sorry), I’m pleased to say that I have an article published in the new issue of the Law, Crime and History journal...
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At 2.15 in the morning on 13 February 1891 the last of the Whitechapel murder victims was discovered, by a raw police constable on his first unsupervised...
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Early on Monday, February 13 in 1995, the eastern Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines carried out a surprise triple hanging. Brothers...
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Richard Davey, John Young and William Cornish had entered the Wandsworth Union workhouse in February in search of food and shelter. Unfortunately for them...
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John Hungerford Pollen for collecting and translating this document in Unpublished Documents Relating to the English Martyrs. It comprises the testimony...
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Our class of boys was told repeatedly at school about the dangers of throwing paper darts or flicking elastic bands at each other. ‘You’ll...
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We return for this post to a hanging we have previously attended, an uncommonly interesting February 11, 1751 dectuple execution at Tyburn. Hulking pugilist...
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The Bow Street Police court in 1881, with a Police van (or ‘black Maria’) In most of the reports of the ‘doings’ of the Victorian...
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Communist revolutionary and Soviet military leader Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko (or -Ovseenko) was purged on this date in 1938. Portrait of Antonov-Ovseyenko...
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Occasionally a dip into the Police Courts reveals an individual that we can trace using some of the existing historical databases for the history of crime....
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From America’s State Trials, vol. II, whose “Narrative” excerpted here continues in the form of trial transcripts explicating the particulars...
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In today’s Britain we are used to a 24/7 retail culture. We can shop every day of the week from dawn to early evening and beyond and the notion of...
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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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The entrance to the Regent’s Canal at Limehouse in 1823 A few days ago I wrote up the case of mechanic that rescued a woman from drowning herself...
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On this date in 1885, anarchists August Reinsdorf and Emil Küchler were guillotined for a failed attempt on the life of Kaiser Wilhelm I. The King...
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The current exhibition at LMA incorporates a recreation of what it would have been like in the Old Bailey for defendants One of the great things about...
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