Nineteenth-Century Criminal Tattoos Project

Thanks to funding from BA/Jisc Digital Research in the Humanities, the Digital Panopticon has a new baby project!
Tattooing has a long history, but the practice increased significantly in Britain and Australia in the nineteenth century, when a growing number of criminal convicts acquired tattoos. Their many meanings include expressions of love, hope, pain, defiance, fraternity, and religious commitment, and aspirations […]

7 Nov 2018

Gendered Justice? The Fate of Convicted Murderers at the Old Bailey, 1780-1880

A guest post by Emma Barrett, University of Sheffield.
On what basis were people sentenced to death in late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century England? Between 1780 and 1880, 253 defendants were convicted of murder and sentenced to death at the Old Bailey, but only 28% were executed; instead, many were imprisoned, transported or pardoned. My initial research hypothesis focused on gender as the […]

Project Conference, September 2017: Registration is Open!

To mark completion of the four year AHRC funded project ‘The Digital Panopticon: The Global Impact of London Punishments’ we are hosting a three day conference. Join us at Liverpool’s St George’s Hall for three days of papers, round-tables, and events on the topic of crime and Punishment in Britain and Australia 1780-1925.
Date: Wednesday 13th- Friday 15th September       […]

20 Jul 2017

The voices of the Old Bailey: ‘Data Sprint’ workshop, University of Sussex

‘I beg for mercy; I am sorry for what I have done’
‘I was very heavy in liquor; I got this tankard and I did not know how’
‘It was extreme distress drove me to do it’
‘I declare myself righteous between God and myself’
‘I did not know my first husband was alive, as he had left me seventeen years’
‘I don’t know what […]