The New Newgate Calendar

A national revenge drama 21 years in the making culminated on the gallows of Pentonville Prison on this date in 1940. The story of Udham Singh‘s... read more »

1848 was another hard year for the Irish people. The potato blight continued to bring famine to Ireland and tens of thousands left their homes and communities... read more »

On July 4th 2018, the eminent scholar of empire, Professor Philippa Levine (University of Texas, Austin), launched my edited volume, A Global History of... read more »

There is still a ‘proper’ milkman who delivers in the early hours of the morning in our street. Milkman used to be ubiquitous though; this... read more »

Arsonist-murderer August Sternickel was executed by Prussia on this date in 1913. Sternickel was a miller by training and a thief by inclination, having... read more »

Paddy Wivell’s (@Paddywivell) Channel 4’s documentary series Prison (July 19th and 26th, 2018) was uncomfortable but compelling viewing.... read more »

London Railways, 1899 In the 1800s increasing numbers of people commuted to work five or six days a week. Trams and railways were the preferred option... read more »

On this date in 1556, Agnes Waterhouse became the first known woman executed for witchcraft in England. “Mother Waterhouse” came accused as... read more »

We return today as we have done several times previously to James Kelly’s Gallows Speeches From Eighteenth-Century Ireland. The crime in question... read more »

I wonder how many of us have had our fortunes told? Perhaps you’ve had your palm read at a fair, or been to see a tarot reader, or have paid to have... read more »

Te Kumete (J. S. Prout, Hobart 1846) British Library, Oc2006,Drg.30, AN76380001 Research Brief 31 In October 1841, William Phelps Pickering became the... read more »

Te Kumete (J. S. Prout, Hobart 1846) British Library, Oc2006,Drg.30, AN76380001 Research Brief 31 In October 1841, William Phelps Pickering became the... read more »

In the eighteenth century provincial magistrates spent a lot of their time adjudicating on cases of illegitimacy. While it wasn’t exactly a crime... read more »

Scottish Covenanter Donald Cargill ascended his Edinburgh gallows on this date in 1681 with the undaunted last words, “The Lord knows I go on this... read more »

On this date in 1961,* two 22-year-old Soviet men were — very much to their surprise — shot as black market currency speculators. Ian Timofeyevich... read more »

Amid all the squabbling and back-biting that surrounds the UK’s prolonged exit from the European Union one of the more depressing traits that has... read more »

On this date in 1402, the Yongle Emperor cemented his seizure of the throne by purging Confucian scholar-bureaucrat Fang Xiaoru with a legendary extermination... read more »

After finishing my PhD at the Carceral Archipelago project in September 2017, I became the Pearsall Fellow in Naval and Maritime History at the Institute... read more »

I imagine that you, like me, are suffering from this prolonged bout of hot weather. The British trend to grumble whatever the weather of course; it is... read more »

On this date in 1951, liberal East German activist Arno Esch was shot in Lubyanka Prison outside of Moscow. Plaque at the University of Rostock honoring... read more »

Prisoners quarrying at Portland Prison c.1880s Celia Harrison was having tea with her aunt and her grandmother, Emma Harrison, on 22 July 1895 when there... read more »

Poet Nikola Vaptsarov was shot on this date in 1942 for organizing anti-fascist resistance in Axis Bulgaria. A communist machinist — the Varna naval... read more »

Steelhouse Lane police station (photo by Andy Mabbett – used under Creative Commons) I’m a great fan of police museums. These tend to be smaller... read more »

When John Long appeared at the Westminster Police court in July 1883 it was his second time there in the space of a few days. John hadn’t done anything... read more »

Gruesome Gertie galloped her last on this date in 1991, when that Louisiana mercy seat claimed her final soul, Andrew Lee Jones. Gertie’s reign in... read more »

Horses were a familiar site in mid-Victorian London. They pulled omnibuses and carts, hackney carriages and coaches, and – since this was still an... read more »

Missionary Antonius Hambroek was put to death on this date in 1661 as the warlord Koxinga wrested control of Formosa (Taiwan) from the Dutch. In the 1620s,... read more »

The Royal London Militia dept, Finsbury, 1857 Thomas Cole ran a pub on Shoreditch High Street called the Star and Garter. No doubt it was a fairly rough... read more »

New Zealand farmer William Bayly or Bayley hanged at Auckland’s Mount Eden Prison on this date in 1934 as the world’s worst neighbor. They... read more »

At the beginning of the week the Fire Serve in Greater Manchester declared that they had finally put out the fires that have devastated Saddleworth Moor... read more »

(Thanks to George Bruce Malleson for the guest post on Italian humanist Jacopo Bonfadio (English Wikipedia entry | Italian). Although time’s ravages... read more »

I found this in a 1916 Prison Directory online; it’s a fascinating insight into how prisoners used to be punished. In this case, prior to the city... read more »

George Cruikshank, ‘A destitute girl throws herself from a bridge, her life ruined by alcoholism’, (1848) Sometimes the London press seems... read more »

Franz Laubler was broken on the wheel in Dresden on this date for assassinating Protestant deacon Hermann Joachim Hahn. Hahn was a well-connected pastor... read more »

Comedian Lee Mack (photo by Amanda Benson via Wikimedia Commons) I have a confession. Despite being a historian, keen amateur genealogist and former editor... read more »

There was an annual horticultural show in Chiswick in the nineteenth century. Exhibitors displayed their plants and produce and there seems to have been... read more »

This morning I am working on the latest draft of my next book, which offers a (hopefully) plausible solution to the Whitechapel murders of 1888. So I’m... read more »

The public domain volume 1886 Professional Criminals of America might divert the devotee of classic true crime with its numerous vignettes from the latter... read more »

On this date in 1714, the Tyburn gallows groaned with eleven felons … luckless small-timers, most of them (as we shall see) repeat offenders, whom... read more »

After yesterday’s light diversion into the music halls we return to the grim reality of the Metropolitan Police courts in the middle of the nineteenth... read more »

For a change of scene today’s case comes not from the Police courts but from the High Courts of Justice on the Strand. It was a civil case, brought... 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 »

Yesterday’s case involved an alleged assault on a young girl and today’s is clearly similar. I think this demonstrates two things that perhaps... read more »

Our “execution” this date is of the mob justice variety — said mob being panicked Viennese bracing for Ottoman investiture. As is generally... read more »

Our research project is featured as a case study in this recent publication from the National Archives on collaboration between the Archives and Higher... read more »

You’ll not find the single execution (and its accounting of fees) that forms the very slim hook for this post until the very end of an extensively... read more »

The Battle of Magdala, 1868 When PC William Towsey of the City constabulary turned into Bishopsgate Churchyard on his beat he saw a man and young girl... read more »

Mary Ashford spent the last evening of her life out dancing at a local ball, held in a pub near her house in the Midlands. The following morning, her lifeless... read more »

It is not often that the Police Magistrates of London side with the defendant in the dock over the prosecutor but this is one of those cases. Arthur Brotherton... read more »

The French spy Florence Hensey was due to die at Tyburn on this date in 1758. As it happened, the only violence done there was to the spectators. A well-traveled... read more »