Durham Executions
From 1700 To 1900
Published on 21. November 2007
192 pages
978-1-78340-812-2 (ISBN)
Description
Widespread poverty continued to exist in Durham at the start of the twentieth century. Improvement in working and housing conditions was a slow. Wages in dominant industries associated with iron and coal were higher than those who still worked on the land, in service and elsewhere but, for most families, it was a hard existence. The social and economic context of capital crimes are apparent in many of the cases featured in this volume. Alcohol-fuelled jealousy or the need for money was often the prelude to a meeting with the executioner. The voices against capital punishment became louder as the century progressed-but too late for the 55 men hanged at Durham, the last in 1958. Executions took place in private and, though witnessed, were not the great public spectacles of the past-but they provided good copy the newspapers of the day and the hangmen maintained a celebrity status.
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Maureen Anderson
Durham Executions: the Twentieth Century
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10/2008
Wharncliffe Books
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Maureen Anderson
Durham Executions: from 1700 to 1900
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Person
Maureen Anderson was born in Scotland but spent many years in Australia, returning to Teesside in the 1970s where she has written many local and social history books. She now lives at Seaton Carew..
Content
- Intro
- Also by
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- CHAPTER 1 - Executioners
- CHAPTER 2 - Durham Gaol
- CHAPTER 3 - No Motive 1745
- CHAPTER 4 - The Disgraced Soldier 1768
- CHAPTER 5 - The Highwayman 1770
- CHAPTER 6 - The Poisoned Cake 1798
- CHAPTER 7 - The Colliery Watchman 1819
- CHAPTER 8 - I 'Will' have your Money 1822
- CHAPTER 9 - Trial of a Servant 1831
- CHAPTER 10 - The Pitman & the Magistrate 1832
- CHAPTER 11 - Murder On Board the Phoenix 1839
- CHAPTER 12 - The Jarrow Murder 1859
- CHAPTER 13 - Dangerously Drunk 1860
- CHAPTER 14 - The Jealous Miner 1860
- CHAPTER 15 - The Old Woman of Hobbletrot 1862
- CHAPTER 16 - Twice Hanged 1865
- CHAPTER 17 - Jealousy of a Paramour 1869
- CHAPTER 18 - Death at Darlington 1869
- CHAPTER 19 - False Witness? 1873
- CHAPTER 20 - Arsenic and Carbolic 1873
- CHAPTER 21 - Three Murder Trials 1874
- I Stabbed to Death
- II Kicked to Death
- III Slashed to Death
- CHAPTER 22 - The Irish Miners 1874
- CHAPTER 23 - Murders and Executions 1875
- I Poisonous Powder
- II No Motive
- III The Drowned Man
- CHAPTER 24 - He Shot His Brother-in-Law 1876
- CHAPTER 25 - Evil or Insane? 1878
- CHAPTER 26 - The Shoemaker and the Farm Girl 1880
- CHAPTER 27 - He Wanted to Hang 1882
- CHAPTER 28 - A Gruesome Execution 1883
- CHAPTER 29 - Revenge on a Blackleg 1883
- CHAPTER 30 - Murder of a Police Sergeant 1884
- CHAPTER 31 - Malice Aforethought 1888
- CHAPTER 32 - A Funeral instead of a Wedding 1891
- CHAPTER 33 - Battered to Death 1898
- Chronology of Executions
- Sources
- Index
