The New Newgate Calendar

On this date in 1794, the Polish princess Rosalie Lubomirska was guillotined during the Paris Terror. The hottest thing to come out of Chernobyl before... read more »

In my 18th century research, I've found the odd case of pregnant women being ferried across parishes in an attempt by overseers to shift financial responsibility... read more »

On this date in 1612, the Scottish noble Robert Crichton, Lord Crichton of Sanquhar, swung for revenge served very cold. Sanquhar (alternatively, Sanquire)... read more »

On this date in 1927,* the Bohemian playboy Jind?ich Bažant was hanged at Kutna Hora for a murder spree directed at his several lovers. Thanks to wealthy... read more »

On this date in 1622, the swashbuckling Ruthenian nobleman Samuel Korecki was strangled by the Ottomans. Korecki English Wikipedia entry | Polish) was... read more »

I have long been interested in Bermuda. Like the island that I studied for my PhD thesis, Mauritius, it has no indigenous population. It was settled during... read more »

Japan is in the news this morning for the surprise hanging of 68-year-old Masanori Kawasaki. Kawasaki stabbed to death his sister-in-law Keiko Miura and... read more »

Well done Pam Cox on a fascinating programme about 19th century female shop workers. (Shopgirls: The True Story of Life Behind the Counter, BBC2, 24 June... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this date in 1646, a black slave named Jan Creoli was executed in Manhattan,... read more »

Previous articles on this blog have discussed a common counterfeiting technique known by eighteenth century contemporaries as ‘Raising Scepters’.... read more »

On this date in 1340, the English and French fought an early naval engagement of the Hundred Years’ War: the Battle of Sluys. The English won the... read more »

At dawn this date in 1977, child murderer Jerome Carrein was guillotined in the courtyard of Douai prison. He was the second-last person executed in France’s... read more »

Before he was sent to Broadmoor, at the request of his family and friends, H. D. was examined by Dr J. M. Winn and Dr L. F. Winslow. Winslow reported to... read more »

Mary Ann – fifth entry – appeared before the Warwick Assizes under her first married name of Brown. At the Loughborough Petty Sessions in April... read more »

A Venetian rebel was beheaded on this date in 1310. Our grim tale actually tacks back to an altogether different death: the sudden January 31, 1308 demise... read more »

23 January 1840 We need to talk about Walter Tunmore because Sarah Martin needs to talk about him. Yesterday was no exception. 'The boy Tunmore is so quick... read more »

The novel East German polity was coming in the late 1950s to a crossroads that saw security paranoia ratchet up dramatically. Emigration to West Germany... read more »

[Originally posted here, November 2007] The criminals went to the place of execution in the following order, Morgan, Webb, and Wolf, in the first cart;... read more »

The Digital Panopticon Project is delighted to announce the availability of six PhD studentships, funded by both the AHRC and the participating Universities.... read more »

Recent posts on this blog have frequently mentioned the alienist, Forbes (Benignus) Winslow. Today's offering takes a closer, albeit brief, look at the... read more »

[Originally posted here, February 2005.] A couple of blog posts about monstrous births in the early modern period over the last few days: Natalie at Philobiblon... read more »

On this date in 1979, the American Broadcasting Company journalist Bill Stewart was executed at a somocista checkpoint during Nicaragua’s bloody... read more »

This date in 1936 marks the first and only occasion that the federal government hanged a (non-murdering) kidnapper under the Lindbergh Law. Even before... read more »

[originally posted New Year's Day 2005] Back on the beach this afternoon. It was colder than at midnight on New Year’s Eve. And it has been a little... read more »

[Originally posted here (June 2005), in a series of posts on 'Archive fever'.] I haven’t actually read Jacques Derrida’s Archive fever (Mal... read more »

During my research trip to Seville in January 2014, and then again in March, I had the opportunity to visit the exhibition Pacífico: España y la aventura... read more »

Originally posted here (February 2008) Last November, I dashed off a quick post about someone I’d encountered in an Ordinary’s Account: It’s... read more »

On this date in 1950, Taiwan’s former nationalist governor Chen Yi was shot for a dalliance with the Reds. A Kuomintang officer since China’s... read more »

Originally posted here (June 2004). I got round to reading some of William Salesbury’s A briefe and a playne introduction, teaching how to pronounce... read more »

Originally posted here (March 2005). Some women have never lacked historians: usually unusual women of high social status (who had some influence on the... read more »

Originally posted here, January 2005. In 1682, a satirical little book about the Welsh was published: Wallography, or the Britton described, by “WR”,... read more »

On this date in 1800 — which was the same date they buried his victim — the 23-year-oldstudent Suleiman al-Halabi was put to death in Cairo... read more »

… and I never did manage to come up with a more imaginative name for the blog. So, what did blogging do for me? It brought me a lot of new friends... read more »

The question of wrongful confinement was debated in the press and sensationalised by novelists. In the mid-eighteenth century Daniel Defoe condemned the... read more »

On this date in 1578, Cossack hetman Ivan Pidkova lost his head in Lviv. Pidkova* — the name means “horseshoe” and alludes to the horsemanship... read more »

On 25 June 1660, Samuel Pepys recorded that he and his wife Elisabeth had travelled to Dorset House 'to deliver a list of the names of the justices of... read more »

June 15 is the feast date of the early Christian saint and martyr Vitus. The 6th century roster Martyrologium Hieronymianum gives us “In Sicilia,... read more »

On this date in 1972, three hardened criminals were shot at Bangkok for a savage stabbing murder. We turn for the particulars here to The Last Executioner,... read more »

Here Dr Lambe, the conjurer lyes, Against his will untimely dies The Divell did show himselfe a Glutton In taking this Lambe before he was mutton The Divell... read more »

In July 1946, Gloucestershire newspapers reported that “a prison without walls or locks” was to be opened in the grounds of Tortworth Court,... read more »

On this date in 1535, in the doomed Anabaptist commune of Münster, the dictator Jan van Leiden personally beheaded one of his 16 wives. If it seems unfathomable... read more »

A few weeks ago, it was wonderful to have our first Carceral Archipelago project panel. The three postgraduates working on the project - Carrie Crockett,... read more »

London Times, June 9, 1948: SCHOOLS DISPUTE IN HUNGARY CARDINAL’S REPLY TO MINISTER CATHOLICS’ CONCERN BUDAPEST, June 8 The village priest... read more »

On this date in 1902, the Jewish socialist Hirsh Lekert was hanged in Vilna (Vilnius) for his attempt on that city’s governor. The 22-year-old shoemaker,... read more »

American poet Jill McDonough wrote this moving sonnet to the Irish servant Margaret Gaulacher (sometimes also called Margaret Callahan), who was hanged... read more »

“On the 31st ult. a writ of enquiry was brought before the Sheriff of Lancashire, in which the plaintiff was a respectable manufacturer at Bolton-le-Moors,... read more »

The last execution in the history of the former state of Czechoslovakia occurred on this date in 1989. Staggering home extremely drunk late one autumn... read more »

On this date in 1820, Louis Pierre Louvel was guillotined at Paris’s Place de Greve for murdering the heir to the French throne. Louvel (French link)... read more »

Hospital Schoolboy, Great Yarmouth, 1840 by Thomas Chevalier Date painted: c.1840 Great Yarmouth Museums 21 and 22 January 1840 The five young prisoners... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this day in 1962, 30-year-old Henry Adolph Busch went to the gas chamber at... read more »