On this date in 1940, Cayetano Redondo was shot at Madrid’s largest cemetery. Cayetano Redondo (English Wikipedia page | Spanish | Esperanto), a former journalist and editor, was the socialist onetime mayor of Madrid — having ascended tha...

Continuing with the sifting of the voluminous and chaotic sources available on the web, having previously codified Luttrell,  I now present the  Somers’ Tracts. This is a collection of texts and pamphlets from the library of Baron John Somers...

(From the May 22, 2001 Eugene Register-Guard, which is also the source of the quoted text below.) Sex workers face a struggle worldwide for labor rights and human rights. At the extreme end of the criminalization spectrum was the fate of the unidenti...

Reblogged from Early Modern Notes: Talk given at Our Criminal Past: Digitisation, Social Media and Crime History Workshop, London Metropolitan Archives, 17 May 2013 My academic apprenticeship, in Aberystwyth, was spent engrossed in two things: first,...

Reblogged from WaywardWomen: So much of the history of crime focusses upon the interaction between the legal apparatus of the state – the police, the court room, the prison- and the behaviours of those acting outside of social and legal norms. For...

Think of this as the “more hack, less yack” post. I’m putting together an aggregator for history of crime/justice/punishment blogging: The New Newgate Calendar I’ll do more later and add a form for people to submit more blogs...

My digital crime history talk included some mention of ‘crowd sourcing’ and our stuttering efforts in this direction (on various projects) over the last five years or so. This post is intended as a marker to get down some further thoughts...

It might have been May 19, 399 BCE* — and if not, we’re in the neighborhood — that the original gadfly** philosopher Socrates obeyed a death sentence from his native Athens and quaffed a cup of deadly hemlock. It’s one of the...

A second follow up to my digital crime history talk with (hopefully) some more practical notes and resources. I’m as guilty as anyone of holding on to my old research data (databases, transcriptions, abstracts, calendars, etc of primary sources...

A quick post, just to expand on my thoughts about the Text Creation Partnership in my talk. How might this model work in practice for crime (and other) archives, in partnership with institutions like TNA or local record offices and publishers like An...

Talk given at Our Criminal Past: Digitisation, Social Media and Crime History Workshop, London Metropolitan Archives, 17 May 2013 My academic apprenticeship, in Aberystwyth, was spent engrossed in two things: first, early modern Welsh and northern En...

On this date in 1891, U.S. President Benjamin Harrison settled a death penalty case from the remote Navassa Island by granting a commutation. Back in the 19th century, islands stacked high with guano were worth their weight in bird crap. The phosphat...

Thanks for the guest post to Nancy Bilyeau, the author of The Crown and The Chalice, thrillers set in Tudor England. The main character is Joanna Stafford, a Dominican novice. On this day in 1521, Edward Stafford, 43, third duke of Buckingham, was be...

It is 50 years today since Soviet military intelligence officer Oleg Penkovsky was executed for spying for the Americans. Penkovsky, whose father died fighting for the anti-communist Whites during the Russian Civil War, lived up to his western handle...

On this date in 1863, two men were shot* on the beach at Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie, site of a Civil War prison. Their crime: recruiting for the Confederate army behind Union lines. William Corbin, from the 1897 A Short History of the Soldi...

Tuesday, 15 May 1928: 11th sitting of the coroner’s inquest, in Coleford.After brief testimony from police superintendant J. Shelswell and a recalled Alice Sayes, the main event of this sitting is testimony by Beatrice Pace herself, who denies givi...

So much of the history of crime focusses upon the interaction between the legal apparatus of the state – the police, the court room, the prison- and the behaviours of those acting outside of social and legal norms. For historians and enthusiasts of...

(Thanks to historian Courtney Thomas for the guest post. -ed.) The crimes of Mervyn Touchet (executed on May 14, 1631), second Earl of Castlehaven, caused a sensation in Stuart England. Convicted of rape and sodomy by a jury of his aristocratic peers...

Monday, 14 May 1928: 10th sitting of the coroner’s inquest, in Coleford.Other than brief testimony from a former quarry co-worker of Harry’s, Ralph Dowle, the medical testimony continues. Ellis is recalled, and extensive evidence is given by Prof...

By Paul Emanuelli, reposted with permission from unpublishedwriterblog. In the winter of 1803, everyone in Hammersmith had seen the white ghost, or knew someone who had. It haunted the churchyard and the narrow passage that ran into Black Lion Lane.

On this date in 1945, five days after the Germans had surrendered to the Allies in World War II, two deserting sailors were shot at Amsterdam. Dorfer (top) and Beck. The strangest thing: Bruno Dorfer and Rainer Beck were deserters of the Wehrmacht&...

Thursday, 10 May 1928: 9th sitting of the coroner’s inquest, in Coleford.Drs Du Pré and Nanda are recalled to clarify certain matters. Chief Inspector George Cornish of Scotland Yard describes his investigations and the circumstances that led to B...

Wednesday, 9 May 1928: 8th sitting of the coroner’s inquest.Having heard a great deal of what could be called ‘circumstantial evidence’ in previous sittings, the coroner’s inquest finally turns to medical and forensic testimony. Key witnesses...

As I mentioned in a previous post, undercover work was a significant part of policing London. The only problem was that, in the beginning, undercover police had no way to properly identify themselves. They had full powers of arrest as police constabl...

TweetI’ve been looking recently at the number of people who were hanged in Gloucestershire during the eighteenth century, and have been playing with statistics to see if any conclusions could be drawn from the bare figures. Using Richard Clark&...

Thursday, 3 May 1928: 7th sitting of the coroner’s inquest, in Coleford.Testimony is given by Alice Sayes (one of Beatrice Pace’s closest friends) and her husband Leslie. Both of them firmly deny the rumours circulating that Leslie Sayes was havi...

Reblogged from Crime in the Community: A guest post by Helen Rogers Last Friday (26 April 2013) the Bank of England announced it is replacing the image of Elizabeth Fry on its five pound note with Winston Churchill. Instantly there were calls on Twi...

One of the central aspects of my work on the Pace case was the effort by Scotland Yard detectives (led by Chief Inspector George Cornish) to solve the mystery of Harry Pace's death.The Pace matter, as I show in the book, proved a particularly difficu...

Wednesday, 2 May 1928: 6th sitting of the coroner’s inquest, in Coleford.Testimony is given by George Mountjoy (Harry Pace’s executor), Harry Winter (a fellow patient with Harry when he had been hospitalised the previous year), Harold Jones (aka,...

Poor old James Holt, a man who went to the scaffold not entirely convinced that the death sentence was the …Continue reading »

The reforms proposed by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling filled news headlines today. His objective is clear. To make prisons, tougher on inmates, and therefore no longer a ‘reward’ for those who break the law. The reforms that will come into eff...

My colleague Steve Marti recently came up with the idea to do a history podcast here at Western. He has based it on the BBC Radio 4 series “The Unbelievable Truth.” His version, “Hysterically Inaccurate,” follows the same basi...

A guest post by Helen Rogers Last Friday (26 April 2013) the Bank of England announced it is replacing the image of Elizabeth Fry on its five pound note with Winston Churchill. Instantly there were calls on Twitter to reinstate … Continue readi...

TweetThe man is a law unto… Jeremy Kyle. I’m sure a lot of people – even if they deny it to their friends – have watched the odd snippet, at least, of one of his programmes. It often seems to follow the same format and subject...

Just a quick reminder, as it seems somehow newly relevant: Harvard professor Steven Pinker, who last week landed in third place on Prospect magazine's 'World Thinkers' list, referred to The Most Remarkable Woman in England on Twitter as 'A fascinatin...

Thursday, 26 April 1928: 5th sitting of the coroner’s inquest, in Coleford.Testimony from acquaintances of the Paces continues, with two fellow patients who had known Harry while he had been hospitalised the previous year, Arthur Smith and Edwin Mo...

Reblogged from The Victorian Commons: For historians of the Victorian House of Commons, there is perhaps no richer source for throwing light on the political personalities of the day than the journals and diaries of nineteenth-century Members of Par...

Early Modern Resources is going to change. The site has been accumulating content for more than a decade now without changing significantly in its functions or intent. Meanwhile, the Web has expanded dramatically. There are now far more high-quality...

“Wine Cures the Gout, the Colic and the Phthisic, Wine is to all men the very Best of Physic.” - …Continue reading »

TweetStow-on-the-Wold is today best known as a rather genteel Cotswold town, full of antique shops, weekending Londoners and Japanese tourists. Twice a year, the Stow horse fair sees an influx of Traveller families from across the country come to cam...

Thursday, 19 April 1928: 4th sitting of the coroner’s inquest, in Coleford.Testimony is given by a variety of friends and acquaintances of Beatrice and Harry: Albert Jones, Reginald Martin, Charles Fletcher and Fred Thorne.

Wednesday, 18 April 1928: 3rd sitting of the coroner’s inquest, in Coleford.The inquest hears testimony from Gertude Pace (Leonard Pace’s wife), who – like other family members – is very critical of Beatrice.(From left) Leslie, Dorothy, Selwy...

One of the difficult things about studying detectives is that they can be difficult to define. What is a detective? Is it someone who does what we in the 21st century would call ‘detective work’? Is it someone who self-identifies as a one...

It seems worth taking a few moments to reflect on the weekend’s blogging – it was wonderful to read so many stories and experiences. I was particularly delighted not simply at the numbers who participated by blogging and tweeting –...

“EXPLANATION.– In the fore-ground are three Seamen playing at cards, one of whom, by the archness of his countenance, appears …Continue reading »

TweetThe Old Bailey Online website, which details nearly 200,000 criminal trials held at the Old Bailey in London, marks its tenth anniversary this weekend. Yesterday, I published a case study taken from it – the tale of the Winchcombe highwaym...

TweetIn the first week of December 1704, ten men and women found themselves on trial in the Justice Hall of the Old Bailey. Only three were subsequently executed – one of them a Cotswold native. John Smith was, in some ways, unlucky to be condemned...

In this anniversary year of the Old Bailey Online, I thought I would take the opportunity to reflect on my use of the Old Bailey Proceedings and to consider how the digitisation of this rich landscape of the mundane and … Continue reading ͛...

Whilst excellent research has been published on the forgery of notes in early nineteenth century Britain (particularly by Randall McGowen), the broader culture of counterfeiting, and specifically coining, has not been well served. For the early moder...

One day towards the end of the last millennium, a pair of historians of early modern London hatched a crazy plan to digitise a massive and obscure (to everyone except a few academic crime and legal historians) primary source, published between the 16...