In April 1837, Charles Bartlett was executed at Gloucester Gaol for the murder of his mother-in-law. His execution was widely reported and became a subject of controversy. Not only had Bartlett theatrically declared his innocence from the gallows, but the behaviour of officers in charge of the spectacle drew comment. Abolitionists and opponents of public executions were appalled by the disorderly conduct of the hangman, the sheriff and the governor. In this article, Steve Poole explores how the death of Charles Bartlett led to heated debate over the reform of capital punishment.
Tag: capital punishment
The Transition of Taunton from ‘wicked town’ to ‘peaceable borough’
In the years after 1600 Taunton was marked by a heady mixture of radical Puritanism and the volatile wool trade. Together these pitched Taunton into the centre of the Civil War in the area and, on two occasions in the second half of the seventeenth century, into open rebellion against the government. William Gibson follows Taunton’s transition from a centre of rebellion to peaceable borough in the eighteenth century.
Wood-taking and customary practice: William Hunt’s Justices Notebook, 1744-49
'The surviving notebooks of eighteenth century magistrates can be used by historians to investigate the extent to which customary culture was constrained and regulated by law. Wood-gathering may have been essential to the economy of the rural poor, but it remained theft in the eyes of the law. Carl Griffin opens the notebook of William Hunt of West Lavington in Wiltshire and finds that it was a crime that kept the magistrate peculiarly busy'.