The New Newgate Calendar

On this date in 1797, a president of the floating republic was put to death by an empire of the lash. The occasion brings us to the era of Great Britain’s... read more »

I often wonder what the Victorians would make of our society if they could visit it. I imagine they’d be both awed and shocked if they were able... read more »

Anti-Communist resistance fighters Gerhard Benkowitz and Hans-Dietrich Kogel were executed by East Germany on this date in 1955. Benkowitz The two Weimar... read more »

Recently, there have been several exhibitions in London that I’ve wanted to see, relating to some of my main interests – photography, history... read more »

One of the classic ‘screen’ images we have of the late Victorian/Edwardian period is that of Eliza Doolittle selling flowers in Covent Garden... read more »

A gentleman with the interesting name of Sedley Alley was executed by lethal injection in Tennessee on this date in 2006, for the positively horrific rape-murder... read more »

William Pomroy, a police constable in A Division was stationed opposite Westminster Hall in the early evening of Tuesday 27 June 1866.  As the... read more »

A letter from Aranjuez, dated June 30, says, Don Francis de Sallesar y Corvetto, a native of Murcia, where his father was regidor, was on Friday publicly... read more »

In 1689 the merchant John Farmer complained to the Earl of Nottingham that he and a companion had been imprisoned at Beaumoris without accusation or warrant.... read more »

This case is quite unusual and barely qualifies as a case the London magistracy could hear at all. Indeed Mr Hardwick, the incumbent justice at Marlborough... read more »

On this date in 1685, Roundhead militant Richard Rumbold — known affectionately to his comrades from the English Civil War as “Hannibal”,... read more »

Elizabeth Avery had committed a very common crime in early Victorian London and received a very usual sentence for it. When she was brought before the... read more »

It was a black hood for the Blackout Ripper on this date in 1942. Charming Royal Air Force serviceman Gordon Frederick Cummins gave rein that February... read more »

The reports of the Police Courts of Victorian London provide a useful reminder that there is very little that is properly ‘new’ in our supposedly... read more »

On this date in 1931, Chiang Kai-shek had the former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party executed. Xiang Zhongfa was a dock worker unionist... read more »

One of the ‘big ideas’ of the late twentieth century was privatization. The principle was that all things are made better by competition. The... read more »

From the public domain History of Siskiyou County, California Illustrated with Views of Residences, Business Buildings and Natural Scenery, and Containing... read more »

This will be a post in two parts about data relating to the series of Westminster Coroner’s Inquests on London Lives, which cover the period 1760-1799.... read more »

Pasquelio Cascarino ran an ice cream shop at 1 Neate Street, Camberwell with other members of his family. Italians in London were closely associated with... read more »

This ghastly description of a botched hanging comes courtesy of the out-of-print The palace of death, or, the Ohio Penitentiary Annex: A human-interest... read more »

We’ve met Henry Cooper before on this site. No, not the boxing legend who once floored Mohammed Ali, but a serial fraudster who got himself locked... read more »

On this date in 1779, American Revolution patriots hanged Henry Hare as a spy at Canajoharie in upstate New York. In the first years of the revolution,... read more »

Most of the drugs that are prohibited by law today were legal in the nineteenth century but contemporaries recognized that there was a problem with drug... read more »

  The main objective of the ‘Carceral Archipelago’ project has been to write the history of convicts and penal colonies into global history,... read more »

On this date in 1890, an affectionate married couple hanged together in Elko, Nevada, for a murder they insisted they had not authored. We obtain this... read more »

The Metropolitan Meat Market at Smithfield  The City of London actively policed the market at Smithfield so as to protect the citizens of the capital... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this date in 1944, nineteen-year-old serial killer Seisaku Nakamura was hanged... read more »

The Royal Exchange and Bank of England (you can see the railings and the gas lamps on the left hand side)  PC Batchelor was on his beat in Threadneedle... read more »

Indonesian migrant worker Ruyati binti Sapubi was beheaded in Mecca on this date in 2011 for the meat cleaver murder of her mistress. She numbered among... read more »

By the time Ann Poulter was brought before the magistrate at Marlborough Street she had recovered sufficiently from her pregnancy to face a rigourous legal... read more »

June 17 of 1581 was the alleged condemnation date — the best specific calendar date we have — for the German robber/murderer Christman Genipperteinga... read more »

Street fight in Seven Dials, by George Cruikshank c.1839 Seven Dials was notorious in the 1800s as a place of desperate poverty and criminality. It was... read more »

Dying graciously is a — in that blessed space of unfeigned equanimity, in between fright and bluster — is a difficult art. On this date in... read more »

William Thomas’ son – Thomas Thomas – had been a difficult child. He had grown up in a large family with eight siblings, another one... read more »

Anti-fascist teacher Raymond Burgard was beheaded on the fallbeil on this date in 1944, in Cologne. A literature instructor at Paris’s lycée... read more »

In mid June 1882 a well-dressed man was stood in the dock at Southwark Police court and charged with conspiracy to steal (or rather defraud) from two German... read more »

“Sermon preached at Haddam [Connecticut], June 14, 1797. On the day of the Execution of Thomas Starr, condemned for the murder of his kinsman Samuel... read more »

Mr Selfe was the presiding magistrate at the Westminster Police court in June 1863 and he was not a man to be trifled with. So when James Cowen appeared... read more »

Women dying of arsenic poisoning were a popular subject for the press – this later example is from the Illustrated Police News It was January 1888.... read more »

This honourable man, a good knight and a gentle; of living somewhat dissolute; plain and open to his enemy, secret to his friend, easy to beguile, as he... read more »

When Sergeant Gillett (31N) found Amelia Cooke and her children sleeping under the stars he decided to act. It wasn’t the first time the woman and... read more »

On this date in 1941, Brooklyn gangster Pittsburgh Phil went to the Sing Sing electric chair. The smart-dressed Pittsburgh Phil* — “Harry... read more »

Spitalfields Market, c.1842 This is a very curious case and one which may require some deeper digger over the next few weeks. In May 1848 a murder was... read more »

Cry, after my death, against military justice! -Henri Herduin, in his last letter to his wife On this date in 1916, which happened to be Pentecost, two... read more »

James Hall was working as a builder in a yard on Manresa Road in Westminster. He was climbing the scaffolding to readjust it when a piece of wood sailed... read more »

On this date in 1697, the Paisley, Renfrewshire Gallow Green played stage for the strangling and burning of six “witches.” They’re known... read more »

Here is something slightly different today, not a case from the Police courts but the consequence of the savage penal system that existed in the late 1800s.... read more »

On June 9, 1944, the 2nd SS Panzer Division hanged 99 habitants of the French town Tulle as revenge upon the French Resistance. On June 7, the Communist... read more »

London was an extremely busy port city in the Victoria period. Goods came in and out of the docks and the river teamed with shipping, bringing travellers... read more »

On this date in 1639, the Duke of Valette was beheaded in Paris as a traitor. Having anticipated this cruel stroke, however, he was happily away in England... read more »