Execution of two celebrated enemies of Old England

printed text

The arms of two gibbets extend symmetrically, high above a bonfire; between them is an equally high post supporting a board on which the title is etched. From one (right) dangles a realistic effigy of Napoleon (scarcely caricatured) in cocked hat, uniform, and Hessian boots. From the other hangs a ruffianly fellow holding a dark lantern. They face each other in profile.

  • Creator: Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756-1827, artist.
  • Title: Execution of two celebrated enemies of Old England & their dying speeches, Nov. 5th, 1813 [art original].
  • Production: [England], [1813]

Catalog Record

Drawings R79 no. 22 Box D305

Acquired April 2023

Execution of John Stacey, at Winchester

printed text

Printed in two columns. With woodcut illustration at top that depicts the chaotic scene of the execution, which took place on the day of the Magdalen Hill Fair, Winchester, in front of a huge crowd.

  • Title: Execution of John Stacey, at Winchester, for the horrid murders of Mr. Langtrey and his housekeeper, at Portsmouth.
  • Publication: [London] : Printed by J. Catnatch, 7, Monmouth-Court, 7 Dials, [1829]

Catalog Record

File 523 Ex96 829+

Acquired July 2022

The trials of Charles Shaw, aged 16

printed text

  • Author: ShawCharles, -1834.
  • Title: The trials of Charles Shaw, aged 16, for murdering John Oldcroft, aged 9. Richard Tomlinson for murdering Mary Evans, his sweetheart. Mary Smith, for drowning her infant child. Who all three received sentence of death, at the late Staffordshire assizes, execution last Wednesday, March 19, 1834.
  • Publication: [London] : G. Smeeton, Printer, 74, Tooley Street., [1834]

Catalog Record

File 523 Sh534 834+

Acquired February 2022

Execution at Horsemonger-lane Jail

description below

  • Title: Execution at Horsemonger-lane Jail, Monday, April 11, 1836, [of] Wm. Harley for the Chipstead burglary …
  • Published: [London] : Printed by Taylor, 14 Waterloo-road, near the Victoria Theatre, Lambeth, [1836]

Catalog Record

File 523 Ex96 836++

Acquired December 2020

The new Newgate calendar

see description belowWith engraved plates showing prisons, executions, portraits, trial at the Sessions House, Old Bailey, crimes on land and at sea. Directions to binder at end of volume 3.
Contents continues: … mutineers, coiners, highwaymen, footpads, housebreakers, rioters, extortioners, sharpers, forgers, pickpockets, fraudulent bankrupts, money-droppers, imposters, and thieves of every description. Containing also a number of interesting cases never before published; with occasional essays on crimes and punishments, original anecdotes, and observations on particular cases; explanations of the criminal laws, the speeches, confessions, and last exclamations of sufferers, to which is added, a correct account of the various modes of punishment of criminals in different parts of the world.

  • Author: Knapp, Andrew.
  • Title: The new Newgate calendar : being interesting memoirs of notorious characters, who have been convicted of outrages on the laws of England, during the seventeenth century, brought down to the present time. Chronologically arranged. Comprising traitors, murderers, incendiaries, ravishers, pirates … / by Andrew Knapp and William Baldwin, attornies at law.
  • Publication: London : Printed and published by J. Robins and Co., Ivy-Lane, Paternoster-Row, [1820?]

Catalog Record

521 6

Acquired June 2019

Peeling a Charley

“Peel kicks a lean old watchman behind, and drags from his shoulders his patched and tattered coat. Just behind him (right) is a big bonfire in which a watch-box and battered lanterns are blazing; beside it lie more lanterns, a rattle, and staves. In the background a watchman hangs by the neck from the branch of a tree, still holding rattle and lantern. Beside the tree is a pond from which projects an arm clutching a rattle. Peel says: ‘”But such a poor, bare-forked animal as thou art–Off–off you lendings: come unbutton here vide Shaks–‘ [“Lear”, III. iv]. The terrified watchman answers: ‘”Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that: You take my house, when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life, When you do take the means whereby I live, vide Shaks.’ [“Merchant of Venice”, IV. i].”–British Museum online catalogue.

  • Printmaker: Heath, William, 1795-1840, printmaker.
  • Title: Peeling a Charley [graphic] / William Heath.
  • Publication: [London] : Pub. Sep. 29th, 1829, by T. McLean, 26 Haymarket …, [29 September 1829]

Catalog Record 

829.09.29.01+

Acquired October 2018

Fashionable ties, or, Modern neckcloths

Fashionable ties, or, Modern neckcloths

A macabre caricature divided into two compartments, The Dandy and The Dangle. On the left, a strutting dandy ties his neckcloth in front of a mirror saying: ‘I declare these large Neckcloths are monstrously handy, They [serve] for a shirt too and make one a Dandy.’ The right hand image is of a dandy, head covered in a cloth, dangling from a wooden beam with a tie around his neck. Behind him is a town square and in the foreground, a crowd looks on. The image is accompanied by the text: ‘When a man comes to this there’s little to hope, His neat Dandy Neckcloth is changed for a Rope’.

  • TitleFashionable ties, or, Modern neckcloths [graphic].
  • Publication[London?] : [publisher not identified], [ca. 1810]

Catalog Record 

810.00.00.83+

Acquired November 2017

The modern Puritan

lwlpr32191 (1024x685)

A cat is hanging from a tree outside St Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics in Old Street, London, condemned by a man dressed as a Quaker, with a tartan cloak. The on-lookers call him a ‘Merry Andrew’ (i.e. a person who amuses others by ridiculous behavior), believing him to be a resident of the building behind (renamed St Andrew’s). The Quaker has a number of petitions and bills under his arm. Between 1830 and 1847 the M.P. for Wigtownshire, Sir Andrew Agnew, introduced four bills to the House of Commons attempting to enforce the better Observance of the Sabbath. On his third attempt Charles Dickens wrote ‘Sunday Under Three Heads’ (1836), a personal attack on Agnew, whom he described as a fanatic, motivated by resentment of the idea that those poorer than himself might have any pleasure in life. Agnew left Parliament in 1837, ending the campaign.

  • PrintmakerGrant, C. J. (Charles Jameson), active 1830-1852, printmaker.
  • TitleThe modern Puritan [graphic] : hanging a cat on a Monday for killing a mouse on a Sunday!!! / C.J. Grant.
  • PublishedLondon : Pubd. by G. Tregear, 123 Cheapside, April 1833.

Catalog Record & Digital Collection

833.04.00.02+

Acquired September 2014

Last dying speech…of the unfortunate malefactors

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An account of the execution of nine criminals on 1 December 1785: James Nesbitt, John Isaacs, George Manning alias Francis Hill, Michael Smith, William Powley, William Vandeput, Daniel East, James Beaman, and Francis Storer. The description of the crimes of each individual is followed by a moral in verse.

  • Title: Last dying speech and confession, life, character, and behaviour of the unfortunate malefactors, executed this day before the Debtors Door, Newgate : with a copy of the letter which Mr. Francis Storer sent to his wife and the verses which Mr. Vandeput wrote in his cell the night before he suffered.
  • Published: [London] : Printed and sold in Long-Lane, West Smithfield, [1785?]

Catalog Record

File 52 L349 785

Acquired April 2013

Remarkable criminals 1713-1767 (spine title)

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Bound with 27 other titles. To view other titles, search Orbis by call number: 521 6. (Local call number)

Spine title: Remarkable criminals 1713-1767. A collection of pamphlets, prints (many from The Tyburn chronicles and The malefactors register), newspapers and newspaper clippings, chapters from books, and other publications, all related to famous crimes.

Bound with: London morning penny post | Genuine history of the inhuman and unparalell’d murders committed on the bodies of Mr. William Galley, a custom-house officer in the port of Southampton, and Mr. Daniel Chater | Eliz. Jeffryes & Jno. Swan condemn’d at Chelmsfod-Assizes for the murder of Mr. Josh Jeffryes | Funeral procession of the celebrated Mr. Jonathan Wild thief-taker General of Great Britain & Ireland | True and genuine account of the life and actions of the late Jonathan Wild |  Several degrees taken by Jonathan Wild | Genuine memoirs of the life of Sir John Dinely Goodere, Bart. who was murder’d by the contrivance of his own brother | True effigies of Captn. Goodere, Matthew Mahony, & Charles White drawn from [the] life by order of the Captn. during their confinement in Newgate at Bristol |Matchless villany, or, A full and authentic narrative of the robbery and murder of John Penny, Esq | Genuine tryal at large of Mary Blandy, spinster, for poisoning her late father Francis Blandy |Miss Blandy now confin’d in Oxford Goal on suspicion of poisoning her father | Miss Molly Blandy who with her own & her sweetheart’s contrivance, is charged wth. barbarously & inhumanly poisoning her own father for his estate | Capt. William Henry Cranstoun with his pompous funeral procession in Flanders | Authentick memoirs of the wicked life and transactions of Elizabeth Jeffryes, spinster : who was executed on Saturday, March 28, 1752 | True effigies of James Hall | Life of Theodore Gardelle, limner and enameller : with a particular description of the murder of Anne King; and the inhumane means taken to conceal the same | Mrs. Elizabeth Brownrigg | Elizabeth Brownrigg, executed Septr 14th, 1761 for [the] murder of Mary Clifford | Genuine and authentic account of the life, tryal and execution, of Elizabeth Brownrigg : who was executed on Monday the 14th of September, 1767, for the barbarous murder of Mary Clifford, her apprentice girl | Richd. Noble stabbing John Sayer, Esqr. in the Mint, Southwark | Tapner & Cobby &c. the smugglers going to hang Chater the Custom House officer in the well | Mills and Rowland, smugglers, whipping Richard Hawkins to death at the Dog on Slendon Common | Inhuman manner in which the smugglers treated Chater the Custom-house officer, in Old Mill’s turf-house | Smugglers breaking open the Kings Custom House at Poole Octr. 7, 1747 | Miss Blandy at the place of execution near Oxford, attended by the Revd. Mr. Swinton | Surgeon Forbes visiting Mr. Jeffries at Walthamstow, who has just before been shot by Jno. Swan | Theodore Gardelle having murder’d Mrs. King, burns some of her body & hides the rest

  • Title: A full account of the case of John Sayer, Esq. :  from the time of his unhappy marriage with his wife, to his death. Including the whole intrigue between Mrs. Sayer and Mr. Noble and the prosecution at large against Noble, as appear’d at the Coroner’s inquest and at Kingston-Assizes.
  • Edition: The second edition, with additions.
  • Published: London : Printed, and sold by A. Baldwin at the Oxford Arms in Warwick-Lane, 1713.

Catalog record

Quarto 521 6

Acquired October 2012