•  
  •  
 

SOLON Law, Crime and History (previously SOLON Crimes and Misdemeanours: Deviance and the Law in Historical Perspective)

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Almost half of those receiving the death sentence in late-Victorian and Edwardian England were reprieved. The process of deciding which murderers were to hang and which were to be spared became an increasingly public one, thanks to the growing intervention of the press. This intervention grew alongside the accelerated expansion in the numbers and circulations of newspapers in the second half of the nineteenth century. As the press became a larger part of national life, its more 'popular' and its more local segments carved out for themselves a new and ever more prominent role as major participants in public discourse over 'justice' vs. 'mercy' for condemned murderers. This involvement is a facet of Victorian and Edwardian newspapers that has previously been overlooked. "I always ask to see the local newspaper reports in capital cases." Sir William Harcourt, Home Secretary 18822

Publication Date

2017-04-10

Publication Title

SOLON Crimes and Misdemeanours

Volume

1

Issue

2

First Page

110

Last Page

125

ISSN

1754-0445

Deposit Date

March 2017

Embargo Period

2024-09-16

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Additional Files
license.txt (5 kB)
Download

Share

COinS