The New Newgate Calendar

Although the primary accounts — those by conquistadors Hernán Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and historian Francisco Lopez... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints: February: Bishop Versaglia (left) and Father Caravario. BB Aloysius Versaglia, Bishop and Martyr (1873-1930),... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

John Binns as pictured in his autobiography, 1852 In the late 18th century, a number of political or ‘State’ prisoners were sent to Gloucester... read more »

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... read more »

To Madame la Comtesse de Feuillide this novel is inscribed by her obliged humble servant The Author. -Jane Austen’s author’s dedication in... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

(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... read more »

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... read more »

(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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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,... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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,... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

Early on Monday, February 13 in 1995, the eastern Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines carried out a surprise triple hanging. Brothers... read more »

Richard Davey, John Young and William Cornish had entered the Wandsworth Union workhouse in February in search of food and shelter. Unfortunately for them... read more »

John Hungerford Pollen for collecting and translating this document in Unpublished Documents Relating to the English Martyrs. It comprises the testimony... read more »

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... read more »

We return for this post to a hanging we have previously attended, an uncommonly interesting February 11, 1751 dectuple execution at Tyburn. Hulking pugilist... read more »

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... read more »

Communist revolutionary and Soviet military leader Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko (or -Ovseenko) was purged on this date in 1938. Portrait of Antonov-Ovseyenko... read more »

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.... read more »

From America’s State Trials, vol. II, whose “Narrative” excerpted here continues in the form of trial transcripts explicating the particulars... read more »

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... read more »

(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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »

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... read more »