Download or read book The Encyclopaedia of Scottish Executions 1750 to 1963 written by Alex F. Young and published by Hodder Children's Books. This book was released on 1998 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Containing details of all executions carried out in Scotland from 1750 to 1963, this unique book will be of great value to genealogists and those attempting to trac e ancestors. '

Download or read book Bloody Scottish History Edinburgh written by Geoff Holder and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world – with one of the darkest histories on record. Sweeping through the centuries in a blood-soaked catalogue of assaults, assassinations and all-out attempts at annihilation, this volume reveals the hideous tapestry of death, disease and disaster that lies beneath Edinburgh's stunning façade. You'll never see the city in the same way again...

Download or read book Perthshire Murders written by Geoff Holder and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteenth century crime in Perthshire.

Download or read book Blood and Granite written by Norman Adams and published by Black & White Publishing. This book was released on 2013-02-21 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blood and Granite is a chronicle of the most notorious homicides committed in Aberdeen over the last hundred years. Written by Norman Adams, a journalist who reported on many of the chilling crimes he now recalls so vividly, it is compelling reading for those who are too young to remember - and those who cannot forget. All are human tragedies from the dark side of life, including: • The grudge that ended in death in an East End pub when butcher James Harrow brutally stabbed two workmates in 1901. • The grisly discovery of a woman's arm on the Torry shore in 1945 that signalled the start of a mystery which to this day remains unsolved. • The tragic love affair that led to the gallows in 1963 - the first hanging in Aberdeen for 106 years. • The double life of brilliant scientist Dr Brenda Page of Aberdeen University, battered to death in her flat in 1978. Her murder remains unsolved. • The bar

Download or read book William Hunter s World written by Nick Pearce and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite William Hunter's stature as one of the most important collectors and men of science of the eighteenth century, and the fact that his collection is the foundation of Scotland's oldest public museum, The Hunterian, until now there has been no comprehensive examination in a single volume of all his collections in their diversity. This volume restores Hunter to a rightful position of prominence among the medical men whose research and amassing of specimens transformed our understanding of the natural world and man's position within it. This volume comprises essays by international specialists and are as diverse as Hunter's collections themselves, dealing as they do with material that ranges from medical and scientific specimens, to painting, prints, books and manuscripts. The first sections focus upon Hunter's own collection and his response to it, while the final section contextualises Hunter within the wider sphere. A special feature of the volume is the inclusion of references to the Hunterian's web pages and on-line databases. These enable searches for items from Hunter's collections, both from his museum and library. Locating Hunter's collecting within the broader context of his age and environment, this book provides an original approach to a man and collection whose importance has yet to be comprehensively assessed.

Download or read book Darwin and the Barnacle written by Rebecca Stott and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2003 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of the part played by Darwin's eight-year study of barnacles and how the examination of this tiny marine organism contributed to the development of his theory of evolution.

Download or read book Capital Punishment and the Criminal Corpse in Scotland 1740 1834 written by Rachel E. Bennett and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-12-04 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book provides the most in-depth study of capital punishment in Scotland between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth century to date. Based upon an extensive gathering and analysis of previously untapped resources, it takes the reader on a journey from the courtrooms of Scotland to the theatre of the gallows. It introduces them to several of the malefactors who faced the hangman’s noose and explores the traditional hallmarks of the spectacle of the scaffold. It demonstrates that the period between 1740 and 1834 was one of discussion, debate and fundamental change in the use of the death sentence and how it was staged in practice. In addition, the study provides an innovative investigation of the post-mortem punishment of the criminal corpse. It offers the reader an insight into the scene at the foot of the gibbets from which criminal bodies were displayed and around the dissection tables of Scotland’s main universities where criminal bodies were used as cadavers for anatomical demonstration. In doing so it reveals an intermediate stage in the long-term disappearance of public bodily punishment.

Download or read book Punishing the Dead written by R. A. Houston and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A strikingly original work that shows how treatments of and attitudes towards suicide can illuminate our understanding of the social, political, and cultural history of early modern Britain.

Download or read book Execution Culture in Nineteenth Century Britain written by Patrick Low and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-29 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection offers multi-disciplinary reflections and analysis on a variety of themes centred on nineteenth century executions in the UK, many specifically related to the fundamental change in capital punishment culture as the execution moved from the public arena to behind the prison wall. By examining a period of dramatic change in punishment practice, this collection of essays provides a fresh historical perspective on nineteenth century execution culture, with a focus on Scotland, Wales and the regions of England. From Public Spectacle to Hidden Ritual has two parts. Part 1 addresses the criminal body and the witnessing of executions in the nineteenth century, including studies of the execution crowd and executioners’ memoirs, as well as reflections on the experience of narratives around capital punishment in museums in the present day. Part 2 explores the treatment of the execution experience in the print media, from the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. The collection draws together contributions from the fields of Heritage and Museum Studies, History, Law, Legal History and Literary Studies, to shed new light on execution culture in nineteenth century Britain. This volume will be of interest to students and academics in the fields of criminology, heritage and museum studies, history, law, legal history, medical humanities and socio-legal studies.

Download or read book Life at the Margins in Early Modern Scotland written by Allan Kennedy and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2024-06-04 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the diverse lived experiences of marginality in Scottish society from the sixteen to the eighteenth century. Throughout the early modern period, Scottish society was constructed around an expectation of social conformity: people were required to operate within a relatively narrow range of acceptable identities and behaviours. Those who did not conform to this idealised standard, or who were in some fundamental way different from the prescribed norm, were met with suspicion. Such individuals often attracted both criticism and discrimination, forcing them to live confirmed to the social margins. Focusing on a range of marginalised groups, including the poor, migrants, ethnic minorities, indentured workers and women, the contributors to this book explore what it was like to live at the boundaries of social acceptability, what mechanisms were involved in policing the divide between "mainstream" and "marginal", and what opportunities existed for personal or collective fulfilment. The result is a fresh perspective on early modern Scotland, one that not only recovers the stories of people long excluded from historical discussion, but also offers a deeper understanding of the ordering assumptions of society more generally. Specific topics addressed range from the marginalisation of people with disabilities in the domestic sphere to female sex workers, and the place of executioners in society.

Download or read book A Companion to the History of Crime and Criminal Justice written by Turner, Jo and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2017-06-21 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This companion addresses the history of crime and punishment through entries by expert contributors that select and define the central vocabulary and terminology for the study of the history of crime and punishment. Organized alphabetically, with useful cross-references and bibliographies, it goes beyond mere definitions to offer rigorous critical analysis of the terms and their use within the field, both now and in the past. It will be essential to students, researchers, and teachers in the field.

Download or read book A Tale of Two Cities Concerning the Robbery in July 1811 of the Paisley Union Bank at Glasgow written by and published by Turlough Publishers. This book was released on with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Famous Last Words written by Chris Wood and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2021-06-30 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nothing focuses the mind more starkly than impending death. Its inevitable spectre greets us all; from princes to paupers and nobility to the needy. Prepare to mount the scaffold and share in the final utterings of the condemned; join the stricken in their death beds and witness unburdened tongues wag their closing, and often remarkable confessions as deeply entrenched secrets are finally unshackled in the wake of imminent death. ‘Fates and Final Words’ collects a fascinating selection of destinies culminating in their often flamboyant yet always captivating, final utterances before shuffling off this mortal coil. Revealed inside are tales of sangfroid bravery, astonishing ironies and overdue confessions often betraying grave miscarriages of justice, throughout British history. Revealed inside are tales of sangfroid bravery, astonishing ironies and overdue confessions often betraying grave miscarriages of justice throughout British history. Writer and poet Sir Walter Raleigh had some typically forthright and urging words for his executioner as the hesitant axeman displayed fear and reluctance to perform his stately duties. Having felt the sharp edge of the tool that would presently be rained down upon him, rather than fearing his impending doom, Raleigh would offer goading encouragement to his maker. Were the final words of convicted murderer Ernest Brown a candid confession to another killing he had committed deep in the Northumberland Moors some two years previously which had lay unsolved? And what of Britain’s first actor to have had a knighthood bestowed upon him? Learn of the staggering irony that saw his final words on stage prophetically turn out to be his last in life…

Download or read book Haunted Stirling written by David Kinnaird and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2010-11-08 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From heart-stopping accounts of apparitions, poltergeists and related supernatural phenomena, to first-hand encounters with phantoms and spirits, this collection of stories contains both new and well-known spooky tales from around Stirling. A whole chapter is dedicated to the mysterious goings-on at Stirling Castle, where cleaners in the King's Old Building claimed to have heard footsteps coming from the third floor — which hasn't existed since a fire in the nineteenth-century; while a 1930s photograph purports to capture the shadow of a phantom guardsman — possibly the same 'Highland Soldier' often reportedly mistaken by tourists for a castle guide. The town itself has no shortage of fascinating tales, including the story of the Old Town's most famous phantom, seventeenth-century merchant John 'Auld Staney Breeks' Cowane, whose spirit is said to inhabit his statue each Hogmanay. A playful ghost supposedly throws pots and pans around the kitchens of the Darnley Coffee House, while frequent power failures and mishaps in the Tolbooth Theatre — originally the eighteenth-century Burgh jail — are blamed upon the malicious spirit of the last man hanged, Alan Mair. Drawing on historical and contemporary sources, Haunted Stirling is guaranteed to intrigue and chill both believers and sceptics alike.

Download or read book Glasgow s Black Heart written by Douglas Skelton and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-03-11 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland. It is a city of culture, of impressive architecture, enterprise and endeavour, and is one of warm-hearted, generous people. But it also has a dark side. Beneath the busy streets, the Victorian sandstone and urban trendiness lies a black heart that beats in rhythm with the roar of the traffic and the echo of footsteps on concrete. It is a black heart pumped by greed and lust, violence and murder. And it has beaten since the city first sprang up on that dear, green place on the banks of the Molendinar Burn. This is the epic story of Glasgow crime. Beginning in 1624 when the Tolbooth was built at Glasgow Cross to house the courts and town jail, author Douglas Skelton covers four centuries of Glasgow's hidden history, tracing the formation of the first paid police force in Britain, the Black Assizes of the circuit court and the formation of the city's own High Court of Justiciary. Here you will find the pimps and pushers, gangsters and gangleaders, rioters and robbers who flooded the veins of the city. Famous felons rub shoulders with their less notorious, but equally vicious, counterparts. Here also are the thief-takers, cops, lawyers and judges who tried to stem the gushing flow, some with more success than others. These stories may not be what the City Fathers would like to see on Glasgow's CV, but they are as much a part of its traditions and its legacy as the fish, the bell and the tree.

Download or read book Dark Heart written by Douglas Skelton and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-08-17 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Old Tolbooth Jail - Edinburgh's Bastille - was for five centuries the capital's heart of darkness. The tall, turreted building blocked the High Street like a stone sentinel at the gates of Hell. In its early days, it played host to the Scottish Parliament and the Court of Session, but eventually it became the main jail of the Old Town. And it was a hellhole, the very epitome of what Scots Law called squalor carceris, a foul, dingy, plague-infested purgatory that was, nevertheless, an integral part of the history of the Old Town and the nation. Not for nothing did Sir Walter Scott dub it the Heart of Midlothian. It was home to rich and poor, noble and ignoble, master and servant. Thieves, debtors, murderers and rebels all rotted in its filthy cells - many spending their final hours there before surrendering to the tender mercies of an executioner to be hanged, beheaded or burned. Now, for the first time, the complete story of the Old Tolbooth is told, from its proud beginnings to its final downfall at the hands of municipal vandals. Featuring tales of some of the jail's unwilling residents, including the noblemen who had their heads spiked on its tower, the black magician who threatened a monarch and one who scandalised the town with tales of sexual depravity, Dark Heart is the definitive account of one of the most interesting buildings in Edinburgh's history.

Download or read book John Adam written by Graham Clark and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2013-05-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the fascinating account of the last public hanging, on 16th October 1835 in Inverness, the capital of the Scottish Highlands. The man on the gallows was John Adam, known as The Mulbuie Murderer. Graham Clark uncovers who John Adam was and his motives for the murder of one of the two women with whom he was in relations - his intention to dispense with the woman who was the richest - a classic case of a love triangle ending in tragic circumstances. There was no doubt of John Adams' guilt, although most of the evidence was circumstantial. The author traces his early life, and the traits that led to his execution. The trial was riddled with ineptitude, confusion and bizarre practices - such as a medieval interrogation known as the ordeal and the use of the medical science of phrenology - detection was in its infancy in the 19th century. This is a deeply researched account of an extraordinary murder, trial and execution. The book is illustrated with over 50 unique photographs and facsimiles.