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’s fantastic … 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 camp … 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 highwayman. … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
TweetThe Gentleman’s Magazine recorded the death of Harry Waller in June 1824, “on the Continent”. He lived at Hall Barn, near Beaconsfield, but was also rector of Farmington, a mile north of Northleach in Gloucestershire, having been presented to that … Continue reading
TweetIn my opinion, you can never have enough museums that focus on the criminal heritage of England. Gloucestershire is already fortunate, then, to have The Old Prison at Northleach (as regular readers will know, this is one of my favourite … Continue reading
Tweet“Putting your money where your mouth is” – a common phrase, but one that became something of a personal mission for one Cotswold resident during the early Victorian era. This resident was the rector of Bourton-on-the-Hill, the Reverend Dr Samuel … Continue reading
TweetThe Civil War collection of paintings bequeathed to Stow-on-the-Wold by Captain Christie Crawfurd in the 1930s is to go on public display. Captain Crawfurd (1859-1948) had been visiting the Cotswold town when his wife became ill; she was looked after … Continue reading
Tweet “Was executed, and afterwards hung in chains, on a gibbet 30 feet high, on Campden-hill, in Gloucestershire, William Kelly, for the murder of Richard Dyer, a gardener at Campden.” (Annual Register for the Year 1772) Steve Poole, at the … Continue reading
TweetLast week, I went to a seminar at the Institute of Historical Research in London to hear Dr Steve Poole, an associate professor of social and cultural history at the University of the West of England, talk about the hanging … Continue reading
