The New Newgate Calendar

On this date in 1996, the people of the Veracruz town of Playa Vicente visited an orderly extrajudicial lynching on an accused rapist and murderer. This... read more »

Watch out, it’s a peaky blinder! I thought I’d draw together a few links to news stories or other articles I’ve seen over the past month... read more »

In 1867 parliament passed one of its more sensible pieces of legislation, the Vaccination Act (30 & 31 Vict. c.84). This built upon several previous... read more »

On this date in 1694, a young woman died an infanticide in Viborg, Denmark. Denmark in the 17th century consolidated into an absolute monarchy and with... read more »

Are you a cat person or a dog one? I have cats but love dogs too; I just don’t have time in my life for them at the moment. Cats are more self-contained... read more »

You might want to take a deep breath for this September 16, 2014 bulletin from the South China Morning Post titled “Singer who left six lovers to... read more »

Having just dealt with two gentlemen who had been found drunk and drawing a crowd around them near Cremorne Gardens, Mr Arnold’s Westminster Police... read more »

On this date in 1588, Elizabethan England celebrated the defeat of the Spanish Armada with Catholic gallows spread throughout London, claiming eight souls... read more »

Isaac Jones was a violent man when he was in his cups. He had that in common with very many in nineteenth-century London and his poor wife and family suffered... read more »

Outside Chester Prison in Cheshire on this date in 1861, Martin Doyle became the last hanged in Britain for “mere” attempted murder. He’d... read more »

In August 1887 London had little inkling of the terror that was to haunt the East End in just a year’s time. There was violence and crime aplenty... read more »

Via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Officials in Afghanistan say that 17 civilians, including two women, have been beheaded in the southern Helmand Province‘s... read more »

Elizabeth Couldry was standing at her door in Sugarloaf Court in the City of London (which led into Leadenhall Street, above) watching a group of boys... read more »

“I love acting. It is so much more real than life.” –Oscar Wilde August 25 is the feast date of Saint Genesius of Rome. He’s the... read more »

Alcoholism is a debilitating addiction than ruins not only the life of the person affected but that of those around them. Since the Second World War most... read more »

The watching public at Wandsworth Police court witnessed an unusually dramatic case on 23 August 1886. Emily Parry, an 18 year-old domestic servant, was... read more »

On this date in 1217, the pirate Eustace the Monk was defeated in battle and summarily beheaded, scuppering an ongoing invasion that nearly seated a French... read more »

Original Dublin broadsheet via James Kelly’s Gallows Speeches: From Eighteenth-Century Ireland: THE LAST SPEECH AND DYING WORDS OF PETER DALTON... read more »

William Whitlock was a brave man and a humanitarian; someone who was prepared to risk his own life to save others. While we should always be sensible about... read more »

(Thanks to English Presbyterian poet Robert Wild for the guest post in verse, celebrating the martyrdom of his coreligionist Christopher Love. Love died... read more »

Although we often think of the 19th and early 20th century press as prone to exaggeration and hyperbole in their coverage of crime – and some papers,... read more »

The crowd that had gathered around Thomas Masters on Houndsditch one early evening in August 1867 looked angry. Angry enough at least to worry one passerby... read more »

In the Louviers case, a horrid record of diabolism, demoniac masses, lust and blasphemy, on 21 August, 1647, Thomas Boullé, a notorious Satanist,... read more »

Bluegate Fields by Gustave Doré (1872) Bluegate Fields in Shadwell was, by all accounts, ‘a terrible place’ in the 1800s. Gustave Doré... read more »

The Michelangelo sculpture variously known as Apollo, Apollo-David, or Apollino* was commissioned by Baccio Valori, who met his end on the scaffold on... read more »

Holywell Street, central London, late 1800s  One of the things ‘we think we know’ about the Victorians is that they were very prudish... read more »

Samuel Sainsbury was a 45 year-old carman – the late nineteenth-century equivalent of the modern ‘white van man’. I think it is fair... read more »

The hanging, and then posthumous beheading and head-spiking, of the Virginia slave Abram lacks any firmer primary date than the signature given this Richmond... read more »

On this date in 1885, the Colombian rebel Pedro Prestan hanged at a railroad at the town of Colon, on the isthmus of Panama that was then still a part... read more »

It was claimed last week (by the Daily Express) that assaults on the police had risen to ‘28 attacks a day on officers in crime epidemic’.1... read more »

(Thanks to Richard Clark of Capital Punishment U.K. for the guest post, a reprint of an article originally published on that site with some explanatory... read more »

The Phoenix in East Smithfield Yet again this week we have witnessed some terrible examples of violence in the domestic news. Yesterday a policeman was... read more »

Eighty-three-year-old Catholic theologian Charles-Louis Richard was shot by the army of revolutionary France on this date in 1794 in Mons, Belgium. Although... read more »

In most assault cases heard before the Metropolitan Police courts the magistrates had the option to fine or to imprison defendants. There was clear class... read more »

The last execution in the state of New York occurred on this date in 1963 when Harlem murderer Eddie Lee Mays — who shot a woman dead in the course... read more »

By Sara M. Butler; posted 15 August 2019. About six months ago, I stumbled across an intriguing 2011 article by Stephen Alsford on the subject of medieval... read more »

The MeToo movement in the US and over here has helped expose the widespread exploitation of power by men for their own sexual gratification. Several prominent... read more »

I recently reviewed one book relating to Truman Capote’s writing of In Cold Blood – and now, fast on its heels is another book which touches... read more »

On this date in 2018, Nebraska executed Carey Dean Moore for killing two cab drivers all the way back in 1979 — 39 years earlier. It had been over... read more »

Fanny Corzinski had just left home with her husband to go to a wedding. She was dressed in her best outfit and was wearing gold earrings for the occasions.... read more »

Leslie George Stone hanged at Pentonville Prison on this date in 1937 for a murder that was revealed by the fabric of his trousers. The naked body of Stone’s... read more »

I’m just back from a holiday where the temperature hasn’t dropped below 30 degrees Celsius the whole time, so I identified with this 1930 image... read more »

When John Henry Marler was brought before Mr Lushington at Thames Police court on a charge of attempted murder it must have excited some interest in the... read more »

On this date in 1335,* imperial power in Japan received the executioner’s decisive verdict. The three-year Kenmu Restoration (1333-1336) makes an... read more »

John Woods was sleeping off the effects of an evening’s drinking when he was discovered, curled up on a doorstep on the Minories, by detective George... read more »

We have this incident courtesy of Robert Plot’s 17th century The natural history of Stafford-shire; the date of the (attempted) execution is inferred... read more »

Mr Savory Moriston had been out in the Haymarket, dining with friends during one of his regular visits to London. Moriston was a Hamburg based merchant... read more »

United States torturer Dan Mitrione was executed on this date in 1970 by Uruguayan guerrillas. A onetime Indiana beat cop, Dan Mitrione graduated to an... read more »

The Police Courts were places where people could bring their grievances on all manner of things in the 1800s. It is easy to get the impression that their... read more »

Photo from here, with the caption “Execution of Mir Hashim (Tabrizi). Mir Hashim and his forces had joined the pro-Mohammad Ali Shah forces in laying... read more »