In December, 1811, all London was convulsed with terror at the tidings of the horrible slaughter wreaked at 29 Ratcliff Highway and 81 New Gravel Lane, and soon, from the Prince Regent’s table at Carlton House to the tap-room of the lowest dram-shop in Wapping, the hideous subject engrossed all. Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday, 27 August 1887 These murders, now generally referred to as the Ratcliff Highway Murders, represent one of the bloodiest chapters in British crime history, and might have …
crime history
As part of our history of law and crime month on The Archive, we are delighted to featured a very special guest post by author and former probation officer Martin Baggoley, who has written extensively on the history of crime and punishment. In this guest post, Martin describes how he used The Archive to research the tragic topic of infanticide in Victorian Salford, a desperately sad chapter in Britain’s crime history. So read on to discover the methods that Martin …
Tags
This week at The Archive we are delighted to have added 54,622 brand new pages, with four brand new titles joining us over the past seven days alone. From Glamorgan to Gravesend, from Sussex to Staveley, read on to discover more about our brand new titles of the week, and also to find out more about the significant updates we have made to our existing titles from England and Wales. Plus, we use our new newspapers to understand more about early attitudes to …
Tags
Following on from our look at life on board the prison hulks of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in this special blog we are going to take a look at what life was like behind prison bars over a century ago. Dartmoor Prison | The Sphere | 10 December 1927 Using our newspapers, we will try to understand what life was like for the men and women sentenced to prison time in the United Kingdom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: …
Tags
On 15 July 1910 the Sheffield Evening Telegraph recorded the anniversaries of the day. One particular entry was this: Prison hulks first seen on the Thames…1776 But what were the prison hulks, and what was life like on board these ‘floating hells,’ as they came to be known? Prison hulk Warrior at Woolwich | Illustrated London News | 21 February 1846 As part of our history of law and crime month here on The Archive, we will take a look at what life was like on …
Tags
This week at The Archive we have added 71,798 brand new pages to our ever growing collection, with a duo of brand new titles joining us this week too, from Cornwall and Buckinghamshire respectively. So read on to discover more about which new titles we have added, the ten titles we have updated, and also to find out more about the last moments of Mary Pearcey, condemned to death in 1890 for murder. Register now and explore the Archive The first new title of …