The New Newgate Calendar

This headline tally from the Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette of July 1, 1893 omits an additional Georgia hanging on the same day (also overlooked by the Espy... read more »

Blackwall viaduct, 1843 In late June 1850 Lady Lennard was travelling with her steward, Mr Parrott, on a London omnibus towards The Blackwall Railway.... read more »

A London omnibusWilliam Alfred Elliott was a 40-year-old actor with a bit of a problem. A pornography problem. Of course, it being the 1890s, this was... read more »

On this date in 1996, Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya massacred hundreds of prisoners in mass shootings at Tripoli’s notorious prison Abu Salim. Human... read more »

As someone who lives in London and regularly uses the ‘tube’ (the underground railway,  for those unfamiliar with the metropolis) I am... read more »

If her [England’s] empire means ruling the world as Denshawai has been ruled in 1906 — and that, I am afraid, is what the Empire does mean... read more »

Margaret Clayton was 50 years of age, or so she thought, when she appeared at Worship Street Police Court in June 1847, seeking the magistrate’s... read more »

Islington High Street, c.1890 On June 27 1884 The Morning Post reported on several London’s police courts as well as updating their readers on an... read more »

Today’s tale from colonial Virginia’s slave power arrives via A Documentary History of Slavery in North America. The Espy file gives June 29... read more »

A century ago today* Dragutin Dimitrijevic — better known by his code name “Apis” — was shot on the outskirts of Salonika (Thessaloniki)... read more »

I am a cat person – two of them let myself and my wife live in their house and feed them – and neither one has ever deliberately scratched... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) At 11:35 a.m. on this day in 1880, three teen boys were publicly hanged in Canton,... read more »

At about four in the morning of June 23 1870 Mr Richard Valpy and his family returned to their home in Wimbledon, having spent the evening and night at... read more »

Pastel painter Rosalie Filleul (English Wikipedia entry | the far more detailed French) was guillotined on this date in 1794, during the Paris Terror.... read more »

The Police Courts of London were established in the late eighteenth century, after the passing of the Middlesex Justices Act (1792). The press reported... read more »

On this date in 1505, seven women and a man were burned in the town of Cemmo in Lombardy’s Val Camonica — the first victims of that region’s... read more »

The first Church on this site was begun in 1829. The district, which comprised the plain to the north and east of the Western Tiers, watered by the South... read more »

Steam boats at Old Swan Pier, near London Bridge After 1869 there was a change to the law. This was one of the long term consequences of the moral panic... read more »

On this date in 1936, Edward Cornelius hanged at Victoria’s Pentridge Gaol for the vicarage murder. The Murder at the Vicarage also happens to... read more »

New publication! A History of Gloucester Prison, 1791-1950.  Published by Glos Crime History Books, May 2017. ISBN 978-1-5454-7984-1. Paperback, 136... read more »

Great Ormond Street Hospital, c.1858 from The Illustrated Times  Most if us are familiar with the amazing work that Great Ormond Street hospital does... read more »

This date in 1877 was Pennsylvania’s “Day of the Rope”, a Thursday blackened by the execution of ten Irish coal miners as labor radicals.*... read more »

The Findmypast search page for its crime collection Findmypast added a final 68,000 records to its collection of England and Wales Crime, Prisons and Punishments... read more »

  The small sandstone island of Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour is best known as a convict stockade which held the ‘worst’ of the convict... read more »

There was much less understanding of mental health in the Victorian period than there is today. Public asylums were largely used as dustbins for the unwanted... read more »

Theatre Royal, Launceston Tasmania, Monday 27 July 1874 Theatre Royal, Launceston, from Weekly Courier, 19 August 1905, p. 22 Joshua Artis elbows his way... read more »

  I have referred previously to criticism of the police in the decades after their creation in June 1829. Historians such as Robert Storch have pointe... read more »

The recent election fiasco gave no answer to the important Brexit questions. This is because the election failed to engage with the issues. In this respect,... read more »

Whig knight Sir Thomas Armstrong was hanged, drawn, and quartered on this date in 1684, for adhering to Lord Russell‘s treasonable Rye House Plot.... read more »

1843 could certainly be viewed as one of the low points of welfare policy in this country. 1834 saw the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act, an act designed... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this day in 1985, murderer Kent Bowers met his death by hanging at Belize Central... read more »

Soviet resistance operatives Maria Kislyak, Fedor Roudenko and Vasily Bougrimenko hanged on this date in 1943 by Nazi occupation. Kislyak, an 18-year-old... read more »

  For those of you following this blog regularly and especially this week I hope you can see that I have tried to follow the ‘doings’... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this date in 2008, serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki was hanged in Japan, alongside... read more »

  There were no cases from the Thames or Worship Street Police Courts reported in the London press on 17 June 1881. As an exercise in following one... read more »

On this date in 1939, Illinois electrocuted Robert Nixon for bashing Florence Johnson to death with a brick as he burgled her Chicago home.* The Chicago... read more »

The Illustrated London News’ coverage of another burglary case – this time from 1928 – where fingerprint analysis was crucial It was... read more »

Sadly no Thames or Worship Street cases were included in newspaper reports for the 16 June 1881. This is one of the perils of historical research, those... read more »

Limehouse, Tower Hamlets. This photo is early 1900s but the scene would have been quite similar in the 1880s There were two reported cases from the Thames... read more »

On this date in 1820, William Holmes, Edward Rosewain, and Thomas Warrington aka Warren Fawcett all hanged in Boston as pirates. A Scotsman, an Englishman,... read more »

Rufinus and Valerius, Roman tax collectors who converted to Christianity and were martyred at Soissons during the Diocletian persecution in 287, are honored... read more »

Congress Hall, Clapton – a Salvation Army mission None of the London papers reported the business of the Thames Police Court in their editions on... read more »

Sugar being loaded at the West India Docks c.1900 So far this week at the Thames Police Court we have had three assaults (one of them domestic), a stabbing... read more »

June 13 is the feast of St. Cetteus, patron of the Adriatic port city of Pescara. This saint’s legends the line between just-so story and real historical... read more »

The spinning room in the Shadwell rope works c1880 This week I am looking at the business of just one of London’s police courts, Thames (in East... read more »

June 12 is the feast date* of Saint Eskil, a martyr to the slow Christianization of Scandinavia. Ol’ “God-kettle” was one of several... read more »

Whatever Executed Today has done by way of its daily trade in memorable deaths was done earlier, deeper, and more consequentially by the index of hagiographies... read more »

June 11 is the feast date of St. Barnabas, St. Paul‘s New Testament wingman. A Cypriot Jew named Joseph, “Barnabas” (“Son of Encouragement”)... read more »

By Cassie Watson; posted 11 June 2017. On the afternoon of Friday 27 September 1895 news broke of the discovery of the body of a young woman lying dead... read more »

This week I am going to take a slightly different approach to my selection of cases. Instead of taking them from across a range of Police Courts I am going... read more »