The New Newgate Calendar

On this date in 1724, four members of a colonial religious cult were hanged together at the gallows of Charleston, South Carolina. The Dutartre family,... read more »

The opportunity to connect each Old Bailey convict from their trial, to the ship they sailed on, to the records of their lives in Australia is only one... read more »

This collection of ten essays concerns the interaction of ordinary women with the legal system of England and Wales. A common theme running through them... read more »

Liverpool’s St George’s Hall – former location of the Assizes On 26 and 27 September, criminal historians from across the UK –... read more »

At the end of August, I visited Tsukigata, a small town in Hokkaido where the Kabato Central Prison was located from 1881 to 1919. The town was established... read more »

British Crime Historians Symposium 4, 26 September 2014. Paper presented by Dr Rhiannon Markless, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Roehampton. ... read more »

The most well-known prison reformer in Britain is probably John Howard, whose State of the Prisons, published in three editions in 1777, 1780 and 1784,... read more »

On this date in 1469, Lancastrian nobleman Sir Humphrey Neville and his brother Charles were beheaded at York under the eyes of King Edward IV. These Nevilles... read more »

On this date in 1529, the city of Cologne burnt Protestant evangelist Adolf Clarenbach at the stake. Clarenbach (English Wikipedia entry | German) was... read more »

I am delighted that my first academic article has just been published, in the Journal of Victorian Culture. The subject is cock-fighting and prize-fighting... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On an unspecified Saturday afternoon in September 1944, a Dutch Jew was hanged... read more »

“Newly caught Herero prisoners-of-war were hung by the neck. Since that day, I would often see Herero swaying from the branch of a tree.” -Diary... read more »

This is the final part of my series this week on the Ullingswick Murder. Click on the links for Parts One, Two, Three and Four. The trial of William Hope... read more »

The penultimate part of my story of the Ullingswick Murder. Catch up on Parts One, Two and Three by clicking the links. William Hope’s entry in the... read more »

On this date in 1911,* Dmitry Bogrov was hanged in Kiev for assassinating Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin. Many could diagnose the long-advancing... read more »

On this date in 1651, the ronin Marubashi Chuya was crucified for a failed attempt to topple the Tokugawa shogunate. Allegedly disaffected of the national... read more »

"The forces of sex and madness have been historically linked together in a multitude of ways. Notoriously, pyschodynamic theories of mental disorder...accorded... read more »

The third part of my series on the Ullingswick Murder of 1862. Catch up with Parts One and Two by clicking the links. Entry for Mary Corbett in the 1861... read more »

On this date in 1603, a man claiming to be the long-lost Portuguese king was publicly hanged on a square in the Andalusian city of Sanlucar. Not Marco... read more »

Part Two of my series this week on a notorious 1862 murder. Catch up with part one here. Victorian policeman, by Antony McCallum The next morning, a thatcher,... read more »

This week, I am writing about a notorious murder case that took place in rural Herefordshire in 1862. A post each day this week will look at a specific... read more »

This date in 1692 saw the last executions of the Salem witch trials. Eight souls hanged from sturdy trees at Gallows Hill on the occasion: Mary Easty... read more »

On this date in 2006, the government of Kurdistan hanged eleven members of an alleged “terrorist cell” in its capital of Erbil. Sheikh Z(h)ana... read more »

On this date in 1246, the Russian prince Mikhail of Chernigov was put to death by the Mongol commander Batu Khan for refusing to make an idolatrous gesture... read more »

On this date in 1946, the Soviets occupying East Germany executed Bible scholar Ernst Lohmeyer. A fifty-five-year-old professor when the NKGB whisked him... read more »

On an uncertain date in September of 1306 — sometime after the mid-September English capture of Kildrummy Castle — Nigel de Brus was drawn... read more »

Curious about what early prison food was like? This 3:43 minute video from Zagat’s “Bizarre Bites: Prison Food Taste Tests” takes viewers... read more »

From Frank Graziano’s Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America: In Arequipa, there is active devotion to Victor Apaza Quispe, who was... read more »

The Carceral Archipelago panel in Paris During the first week of September, members of our European Research Council funded project, Carceral Archipelago,... read more »

The first native Korean Catholic priest, Andrew Kim Taegon, was martyred for his faith on this date in 1846. Catholicism had begun making inroads in Korea... read more »

"Reconsidering Southern African Studies from the Indian Ocean." This challenge underpinned two wonderful days of discussion at the University of the Western... read more »

On this date in 1731, Catherine (or Catillon) Repond was burned at the stake in Freiburg — the last person executed for witchcraft in Switzerland,... read more »

On this date two centuries ago, a man on a mission of mercy found his accidental entry into history. The mercy in question was required for a Maryland... read more »

On this date in 1418, the Duke of Milan annulled his marriage at the headsman’s block. Beatrice (English Wikipedia entry | Italian) was initially... read more »

Daryl Holton went to the Tennessee electric chair. Holton was an depressive Gulf War veteran with an acrid relationship with his ex-wife Crystle. Bitter... read more »

In 1842, the Spectator [1] noted an anomaly “in the courts of justice”, and presented it to its readers in wonder. It was a case that should... read more »

Eighty-five years ago today, the state of Georgia executed a gentleman whose most remarkable characteristic to his contemporaries was that he was the onetime... read more »

My previous post dealt with feigning insanity and Broadmoor and it was shown that one of the reasons Broadmoor patients reportedly feigned (or in some... read more »

On this date in 1573, the Hanseatic city of Hamburg beheaded the Seeräuber Hans von Erschausen with his crew, leaving naught but a vast row of pike-mounted... read more »

I was born near Goshen, in the state of Connecticut, about the year 1793. My father was a show-man, and his business leading him much from home, I was... read more »

On this date in 1971, the Nigerian robber Ishola Oyenusi — “smil[ing] to his death,” in the words of the next day’s paper —... read more »

"What I read must be licked into shape by my brain" (Thomas Laycock; quoted in James n.d.: 29)after ypsyork.orgThomas Laycock was born the son of... read more »

One hundred years ago today, during the Battle of the Marne, seven French soldiers were shot without trial for retreating. Most of the resources about... read more »

On this date in 1771, the German outlaw Matthias Klostermayr was broken on the wheel in Dillingen. The “Bavarian Robin Hood” (English Wikipedia... read more »

While legal authority lay with the king, his secretaries of state, judges, sheriffs, justices of the peace and parish constables, authority within the... read more »

September 5 is International Indigenous Women’s Day, in honor of the torturous execution in Bolivia on this date in 1782 of the Aymara peasant rebel... read more »

William Hogarth’s “Servants” One case that came before magistrate William Bromley in Warwickshire in the late 17th century showed the... read more »

On this date in 1922, Spanish royalist Gen. Francisco Javier de Elio was garroted in Republican Valencia. Elio (English Wikipedia link | Spanish) was a... read more »

Till was hung yesterday for murder and rape with trimmings -Ezra Pound’s Pisan Cantos, remarking on the (real-life) execution of an army private... read more »

My new book, Early American Criminals: An American Newgate Calendar, Chronicling the Lives of the Most Notorious Criminal Offenders from Colonial America... read more »