The New Newgate Calendar

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Archives for April 2015

The Body of Millicent Dawes is found in the canal. Illustrated Police News, 11 Nov 1871, p.1. (British Newspaper Archive. Image copyright of The British... read more »
On this date in 1963, Jorge del Carmen Valenzuela Torres — better known as Chacal de Nahueltoro — was shot at Chillan for murder. Perhaps... read more »
The Private Secretary's Cottage is the second-oldest building in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery precinct, after the Commissariat Store. It is situated... read more »
Moments after midnight today, Indonesia shot eight men for drug trafficking. Coffins and grave markers for the condemned, readied prior to their executions. Bitterly... read more »
In 1837, wealthy landowner and ex-magistrate James Mudie returned to London and published a book entitled The Felonry of New South Wales. In it, he described... read more »
On this date in 1634, the Russian general Mikhail Borisovich Shein was executed on Red Square for losing to the Poles. Shein (English Wikipedia entry |... read more »
This post is intended to very briefly describe a project I am about halfway through – that seeks to experiment with the new permeability that digital... read more »
TUNIS. PARIS, April 28. The first execution in Tunis since the French occupation took place yesterday. Three Kroumirs, Ali Ben Debbah, Mahomed Ben Salah,... read more »
The forms of law can appear opaque. Ostensibly they are designed to ensure a measure of due process. Their impact on accused and complainants may be unpredictable.... read more »
Back before being pope meant jeweled slippers and your own guillotine, the bishopric of Rome — at least as chronicled in the early histories of the... read more »
Tasmania is renowned for the rich heritage of historic buildings but even by Tasmania's standards, The Manse in Kempton, built in the early 1840's from... read more »
In this blog post, as promised, I will be talking about Henry Tyrel, an outlaw whose execution I mentioned in my previous post. I also mentioned Henry... 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 »
Anna Schnidenwind, nee Trutt, was burned at the stake in Endingen am Kaiserstuhl on this date in 1751 — the last “witch” executed in... read more »
Around the spring of 1290, bad-boy Norwegian nobleman Alv Erlingsson was broken on the wheel by a Danish sheriff. Sometimes remembered as the “last... read more »
Two hundred years ago today, Lancaster Castle hosted a quintuple hanging, starring career thief George Lyon. At age 54, Lyon could be considered a throwback:... read more »
In the year since I joined The Carceral Archipelago, it has been a pleasure to support the novel and extensive research being conducted by the project read more »
Milton is the name of the substantial two storey Georgian stone house near the Hobart Rivulet. The style of the house is consistent with it having been... read more »
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this date in 1897, criminals William Haas and William Wiley became the first... read more »
Bondy, today a Paris suburb, was in the Middle Ages a forest notorious for the bandits and murderers who laired in its leafy shadows — a reputation... read more »
For the past several weeks, radio listeners who tune in to the drive-time programme of comedians Dave Hughes and Kate Langbroek have been enthralled by... read more »
On this date in 1779, Londoners crowded Tyburn to witness the hanging of James Hackman for a sensational high-society murder. Just twelve days before his... read more »
Port Arthur's agricultural heritage generally takes a back seat to its history of crime and punishment. But in the early 1870s Port Arthur was a productive... read more »
Pendleton Correctional Facility, Indiana (1) Visit by Keele University Criminology students, April 17th, 2015 We would like to thank the staff and inmates... read more »
The ferocious commitment of the Third Reich to fight to the last man even when World War II provided the occasion (or the pretext) for many of that bloody... read more »
On this date in 1635, Elizabeth Evans (known as “Canonbury Besse”) was hanged for murder. Sometimes characterized as one of early modern Europe’s... read more »
This date in 1355 was the morning after the failed coup of Venetian Doge Marino Faliero. And it was the first date that vengeance began to fall upon the... read more »
The generations-long conquest of indigenous peoples in North America might look from posterity like a historical ienvitability, but the 1715-1718 Yamasee... read more »
This lonely but isolated red-brick portico, which stands beside the Midland Highway at Somercotes just south of Ross, is all that remains of one of colonial... read more »
On this date in 1322, Bartholomew de Badlesmere, the first (of only two) Baron Badlesmere, The barons in the dangerous age of Edward II were marked by... read more »

Thanks to everyone for the positive response to my first blog post, it has encouraged me to start writing more, so you won't have to wait two years for... read more »
On this date in 1805, servant Mary Morgan, age 17, was hanged at Presteigne for murdering her bastard child. An undercook in M.P. Walter Wilkins‘s... read more »
On this date in 1969, the Central African Republic’s dictator Jean-Bedel Bokassa had his number two condemned for plotting against him, and summarily... read more »
The church of St John the Baptist is a simple and modest sandstone church surrounded by a churchyard which contains many graves and monuments of the early... read more »
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this day in 1945, mere weeks before Germany’s surrender, U.S. Private... read more »
“The Home Secretary has issued orders for the execution of Bucknell, convicted at the late Somerset Assizes of the brutal murder of his aged grandfather... read more »
On this date in 1879, a circuitous four-year journey to the gibbet — quite Odyssean by 1870s standards — concluded when John P. Phair was hanged... read more »
What are the Irish plea rolls? Simply put, plea rolls are court records. They include a summary of judicial cases, verdicts and the punishments or awards... read more »
Iraqi cleric Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was hanged on this date in 1980 in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. One of the greatest Shia scholars of the 20th century,... read more »
This date in 1859 saw the joint hanging of four youths from a notorious Baltimore gang, and in honor of the occasion thousands upon thousands of curiosity-seekers... read more »
This lovely two storey townhouse was originally the home of John Ross, who constructed his Patent Slip shipbuilding facility at Battery Point in 1856.... read more »
From the Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser, Feb. 15, 1764: Extract of a letter from a gentleman at Liverpool, dated Feb. 2. On Monday night was apprehended... read more »
In April 1905, elderly Henry Ayling appeared before Judge Burnside and a jury of 12 peers in the Perth Criminal Court on a charge of bigamy. The key question... read more »
On this date in 1772, Mary Hilton was burned at the stake in Lancaster for “petty treason”: poisoning with arsenic her husband, John, a blacksmith. She... read more »
William Whittle, a Catholic, was executed at Lancaster on this date in 1766 for murdering his Protestant wife and their children in a religious frenzy. For... read more »
Lancaster’s harsh assizes earned it the nickname “Hanging Town”, and in its time what is today the verdant grounds of Williamson Park... read more »
This nomadic old doorway has been moved twice in its long life. Once, when it was removed from the gaol and re-erected outside the school on the main road,... read more »
On this date in 1895, William Lake died in the electric chair for soiling Albion, N.Y., with a most gory crime of passion. The farmhand Lake nursed a very... read more »
In honor of Good Friday (in 2015), we pay tribute today to the Diocletian-era Christian martyrs Agape, Chionia and Irene. The three virgin sisters whose... read more »
Broadside of Robert Blakesley’s execution, 1841 Look at a criminal broadside from the 19th century. There are the drawings – generic depictions... read more »