{"id":2534,"date":"2020-04-13T10:30:38","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T10:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/?p=2534"},"modified":"2025-12-17T15:19:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:19:40","slug":"crime-in-the-broadsides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/2020\/04\/13\/crime-in-the-broadsides\/","title":{"rendered":"Crime in the Broadsides – March 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At a time when newspapers were taxed, broadsides were vehicles for popular culture which were just affordable by the working class (the average cost of a broadside was a penny, with some ballads costing a ha\u2019penny.) Typically, broadsides were single sheets, printed on one side only. Some communicated public information; many were printed for entertainment. They were ephemeral \u2013 cheaply printed for distribution among the lower and middle classes by chapmen, hawkers and street criers, or, for pasting onto walls by way of reaching wider audiences. In the Nineteenth Century, machine-press printing helped to bring about a proliferation of this street literature. It is remarkable that any broadsides have survived and yet almost 850 have been catalogued and digitised from Newcastle University Library\u2019s Special Collections.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the many themes to be treated in broadsides, is crime. The end of the Eighteenth Century\/beginning of the Nineteenth Century saw increases in both crime and poverty, with the majority of criminal acts being property offences. More goals were being built but there was also a move away from harsh punishment, with transportation replacing execution for some serious crimes and more lenient sentences, with attempts at rehabilitation, replacing harsh sentences for petty crimes. The first police force was introduced in 1829 and there would not be an organised police force until 1856 and so it was that prosecutions were usually brought about by private individuals; usually the victims of the crimes. Prosecution associations were community organizations whose members were citizens that paid dues to cover the costs of private prosecutions. Sometimes, they provided a form of crime insurance. Broadsides 5\/1\/35<\/a> 5 Guineas Reward<\/em> is evidence that these prosecuting associations also covered the costs around soliciting information: printing reward notices and contributing reward money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newcastle\nUniversity Library\u2019s Special Collections has several reward posters that were\nprinted under the auspices of the North Shields and Tynemouth Association for\nProsecuting Felons. Like the hanging ballads, these reward posters were\nformulaic, made use of stock woodcuts and were cheaply printed. They were\nmoralistic, casting criminals as \u201cevil disposed\u201d persons that carried out their\ndeeds \u201cmaliciously\u201d even though the crime might have been the theft of food to\nfeed the family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this\nexample from 1818, Monkseaton farmer John Crawford has suffered criminal damage\nto a gate, two ploughs and a railing. He has put up three guineas (roughly\n\u00a3180.90 today) as a reward for information leading to successful prosecution\nand the prosecution association has increased the reward by two guineas\n(roughly \u00a3120.60 today).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"5
5 Guineas Reward poster concerning damage to a gate, two ploughs and the theft of railings at the farm of Mr. John Crawford, Monkseaton<\/a><\/em> (1818) [Broadsides 5\/1\/35]<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Calendars of Prisoners, like Broadsides 5\/3\/1<\/a>, are lists of prisoners awaiting trail. They are formal documents, typically providing the names, ages, trades and offences of the accused as well as the names of the Magistrates that committed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nexample lists the prisoners awaiting trial in Newcastle, in August 1825. The\nprisoners range from Mary Simpson (age 17) who was accused of stealing fabric,\npillow cases, books and brooches to Robert Scope (age 80) accused of assault\nand theft. Some of the printed entries have been annotated by hand to record\nthe verdict after trial. There is also a section for convicts at the end of the\ndocument: those prisoners to have been found guilty at trial and which have now\nbeen sentenced. They include Mary Ferguson (age 71) who was sentenced to gaol\nand given four months\u2019 hard labour, such as working the treadmill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Northumberland.
Northumberland. A Calendar of the Prisoners, In the Gaol of our Sovereign Lord the King, in and for the county of Northumberland, for what Crimes, and by whom and when committed, in Order to take their Trials at the next aAsizes, and General Gaol Delivery, to be holden at the Castle of Newcastle upon Tyne, in and for the said County, on Wednesday the Third Day of August, 1825, before the Honourable Sir John Bayley, Knight, one of the Justices assigned to hold Pleas before the King himself; and the Honourable Sir John Hullock, Knight, one of the Barons of His Majesty’s Court of Exchequer, at Westminster<\/a> <\/em>(1825) [Broadsides 5\/3\/1]<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Broadsides 5\/2\/12<\/a> Execution of George Vass, <\/em>is an example of a hanging ballad, or execution ballad. In the Nineteenth Century, public executions attracted large crowds of spectators and one of the ways in which people experienced public executions was through broadsides and ballads. Hanging ballads would be sung at executions and the ballad sheets sold by the singers. They were formulaic but combined news from local reports with sensational, moralistic accounts of the crimes committed. The audience could expect to learn about the crime, the behaviour of the prisoner, an account of his\/her last words, a description of the execution and a warning against leading a similarly criminal life lest the audience end their days at the gallows too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Vass\nwas 19 years old when he became the last person to be executed by public\nhanging in the Carliol Square gaol, Newcastle upon Tyne, at 08:00 on 14th<\/sup>\nMarch 1863. He had been found guilty of the rape and murder of Margaret\nDocherty on New Year\u2019s Eve 1862. Margaret lies in the cemetery of All Saints\nChurch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Execution
Execution of George Vass For the Murder of Margaret Docherty, at the West Walls<\/a><\/em> (1800s) [Broadsides 5\/2\/12]<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In the Nineteenth Century, crime was never far from the common people and, through broadsides and other publications, knowledge of criminals and their crimes became well-known; often sensationalized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can find many more digitised images from our Broadsides Collection online on CollectionsCaptured.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also find out more about another Broadside from a previous Treasure of the Month for A reward poster concerning the breaking into the shop of Messrs Wigham and Prior in the Fish Market, North Shields and subsequent theft of part of a side of bee (1817) on our blog.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a time when newspapers were taxed, broadsides were vehicles for popular culture which were just affordable by the working class (the average cost of a broadside was a penny, with some ballads costing a ha\u2019penny.) Typically, broadsides were single … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5894,"featured_media":2537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[852,24],"tags":[91,410,658,86,417],"class_list":["post-2534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-special-for-everyone","category-treasure-of-the-month","tag-19th-century","tag-broadsides","tag-crime","tag-ephemera","tag-execution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2534"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2572,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534\/revisions\/2572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/speccoll\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}