The New Newgate Calendar

Post Archives

Archives for September 2018

On this date in 1921, the villain in the Case of the Ragged Stranger went to the gallows in Chicago. Then-24-year-old World War I veteran Carl Wanderer... read more »
James Randall had bought a packet of what he believed to be tobacco from someone, possibly a dock worker, at one of the many pubs in and around the City... read more »
Brazilian Communist guerrilla Helenira Rezende was summarily executed in the field on this date in 1972. “Preta” to her comrades, she was a... read more »
One of the most recognisable names in the Whitechapel murder case is that of Dr George Bagster Phillips, H Division’s divisional surgeon. Dr Phillips... read more »
It was an ordinary weekend in the autumn of 1904,  and the Dover police were about to have the relative peace broken by William Hoffman. “I... read more »
Ellen Dunn was sitting at her desk in the evening, doing her household accounts. She had her receipts and an account book open in front of her, and a bag... read more »
This day’s post arrives to us via George Wallace: American Populist, and it concerns not the pugilistic Wallace but a previous Alabama governor,... read more »
Mao Zemin, younger brother of Communist leader Mao Zedong, was executed on this date in 1943. A party cadre since 1921, the non-chairman Mao served a variety... read more »
There are plenty of cases of fraud that came before the Metropolitan Police courts in the Victorian period. From individual attempts to extort money from... read more »
From the New York Times, September 27, 1879: ANTHONY BLAIR HANGED TEN THOUSAND SPECTATORS TO SEE HIM DIE — THE HISTORY OF HIS CRIME. Nashville, Tenn.,... read more »
Naomi Klein, 2007,“The Shock Doctrine”, London, Allan Lane. I am grateful to Halima Nawaz for challenging me to read Klein’s “The... read more »
I am a little late in getting this up today because I’ve been working on the final draft of my new solution to the Jack the Ripper mystery. All the... read more »
On this date in 1714, Geczy Julianna was executed in the marketplace of Gyor as a traitor. “The White Woman of Locse” — which is also... read more »
William Helps was standing watching the concourse at Ludgate Hill railway station when a gentleman attracted his attention. Helps was a station inspector... read more »
On this date in 1788, Pennsylvania highwaymen-cousins Levi and Abraham Doan(e) were hanged on Windmill Island, Philadelphia.* A whole clan of outlaws turned... read more »
Frank and the fabulously named Tirquinia Keeling were drunk, and soon quite disorderly. It was a Monday night in Septemebr 1890 and the pair were wandering... read more »
By Ashley Borrett, PhD student at the University of Hull When I started my PhD back in 2013, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to research but had limited... read more »
By Cassie Watson; posted 23 September 2018. Crime historians are familiar with some of the more widely reported cases of delayed or failed executions that... read more »
Interior of the London Pavilion Music Hall (c.1861) There is tendency for people to act differently when they are away from home. We let our hair down... read more »
Original Dublin broadsheet via James Kelly’s Gallows Speeches: From Eighteenth-Century Ireland: THE LAST SPEECH, CONFESSION AND DYEING WORDS OF CATHRINE... read more »
Prompted by a facebook post from the Police historian Neil Bell I decided today to go back to 1862 to see if there was any hint of that year’s big... read more »
On this date in 1882, Jack Chatman hanged in Louisiana’s Bossier County for murder. The attached, racist article is from the New Orleans Times=Picayune... read more »
This story is both sad and dramatic as it concerns a man’s very public attempt at suicide. Most of the cases that I’ve written about previously... read more »
A sobbing 17-year-old* Alireza Molla-Soltani was publicly hanged at dawn on this date in 2011 in Karaj for slaying an Iranian muscleman. Yoked: the murder... read more »
Since 1908 we have had separate courts for juvenile defendants and even before then there was a recognition that young children at least needed to be dealt... read more »
On this date in 1821, Brazil’s saint of freedom was martyred by the Portuguese. Francisco José das Chagas, fondly remembered as Corporal Chaguinha,... read more »
Old postcard of Smirke’s Westgate Bridge, with steamboat passing under In 1806, an Act of Parliament was passed which facilitated the building... read more »
I have just completed the final draft of my ‘Ripper’ solution book and its now off with my co-author for his last amendments. We have to do... read more »
On this date* in 1442, Vietnamese writer, commander, and politician Nguyen Trai died for regicide. The Confucian scholar (English Wikipedia entry | the... read more »
We cadge today’s entry from the August 1950 Kansas Historical Quarterly; the article “Legal Hangings in Kansas” by Louise Barry can be... read more »
For many people arriving in London in the 1880s the capital was a stopover en route to somewhere else; for many European Jews that ‘somewhere else’... read more »
On this date in 1682, the boyar Ivan Andreyevich Khovansky went from being the power behind the throne to one of the skulls under it. A veteran military... read more »
So, Cabbies, how long would you wait for a fare to come back and pay you? John White drove a hansom cab in 1856 (cab no. 3,264) and he had a fairly regular... read more »
The execution of legendary German bandit and mass-murderer Peter Niers took place in Neumarkt on this date in 1581 … or at least, it started on... read more »
An Edwardian trial used legislation from larceny to witchcraft to prosecute a husband and wife palm-reading team… In 1904, an ordinary looking,... read more »
When Mr and Mrs Thomas French began to notice money was missing from the till they scratched their heads for an explanation. The couple ran the Chequers pub... read more »
An account by the Ordinary of Newgate Samuel Smith … in fact, A True Account of the Behaviour, Confessions, and last Dying Speeches of the Condemned... read more »
Deal porters on the London Docks There was plenty of violence in nineteenth-century London. Much of it was drunken and most of the perpetrators and women... read more »
The implacable Duke of Alva/Alba bloodily suppressing the Low Countries’ revolt against Spain claimed the head of Flemish nobleman and poet Jan van... read more »
William Brennan made a robust defence of his actions when he appeared before Alderman Lawrence at Guildhall Police court in September 1848. The City of... read more »
Prison records reveal fascinating, complex and often tragic human stories. Delving into almost any prisoner’s life will reveal points of interest,... read more »
Roberto Giron and Pedro Castillo, peasants who raped and murdered a four-year-old girl, were shot at the Guatemalan town of Escuintla on September 13,... read more »
I grew up in Finchley in North London. It was then (and is now) a multi-cultural  suburban centre with a busy high street, a couple of nice parks,... read more »
The imperial eunuch An Dehai was beheaded in Jinan on this date in 1869. He was so much the favorite that it’s been clained that the redoubtable... read more »
All sorts of things come up in the reports of cases at the Metropolitan Police courts. These really were quite diverse in the areas they covered; while... read more »
Ernest Harrison, Sam Reed and Frank Howard, confessed to the murder of Washington Thomas, an aged, respectable colored man. Thomas was employed in a tobacco... read more »
On Wednesday the 6 September 1883 the assistant medical officer at the Highgate Infirmary on Dartmouth Park Hill ordered that Eli Sparksman be discharged.... read more »
On September 10, 1941, the German authorities occupying Norway martyred two labor activists. The Third Reich occupied Norway in the spring of 1940, adding... read more »
In October 2007 the charity Help for Heroes was launched. On its front page its makes this powerful statement: ‘Today, seven people will be medically... read more »
In the early morning hours on this date in 1943, Jarmila Zivcova, her husband Vaclav Zivec, and their friend Ruzena Kodadova were beheaded in Berlin. These... read more »