•  
  •  
 

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

John Walliss

Document Type

Article

Abstract

From 1830 to the abolition of public executions in 1868, there was a growing critique of the execution crowd among elite commentators. To date, however, most, if not all, discussion of this critique has focused on the metropolis, elite groups and decision makers and on national newspapers such as The Times. The aim of this article is to shift the focus away from the metropolis towards the provinces, by exploring how the execution crowd was represented in the provincial press. While there have been several analyses of how executions were represented in the provincial press during the period, there has been little sustained discussion of how the crowd were represented. Drawing on a sample of 145 accounts of executions published between 1830 and 1868 it will explore how the execution crowd was presented in four Lancashire newspapers, the Liverpool Mercury, Manchester Times, Lancaster Gazette and Manchester Courier. It will show how the majority of reports depicted the crowd in neutral terms, passing no commentary – either negative or positive – on their composition or behaviour. One newspaper, however, the liberal Liverpool Mercury, consistently reported execution crowds in negative terms as part of its broader critique of capital punishment and public executions.

Publication Date

2016-01-01

Publication Title

SOLON Law, Crime and History

Volume

6

Issue

2

First Page

54

Last Page

70

ISSN

2045-9238

Deposit Date

April 2017

Embargo Period

2024-10-23

Creative Commons License

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

Download

Share

COinS