Broadsheet, criminal broadside

Criminal broadside entitled 'The Sorrowful Lamentation, and last Farewell to the World' printed with a list of the forty six prisoners, tried and convicted at the last September 1826 sessions at the Old Bailey together with details of their crimes that include return from transportation, housebreaking, highway robbery, theft and burglary. The broadside is illustrated with a woodcut engraving of the Recorder making his 'Report to the King in Council, at St. James's Palace' The broadside notes that the King was pleased to respite all the prisoners except John Hayes for burglary, Jas Boyce for highway robbery, Robert King and John Robinson for highway robbery, George Nicholls & James Gouldby for highway robbery. The broadsheet concludes with a poem. The prisoners were executed on 29th November 1826.

Such broadsides were popular with Londoners hungry for news of crimes and criminals in the capital. Until 1868 public hangings were a popular form of entertainment for the London crowd. Such occasions provided an opportunity for cheap printers and street vendors to 'turn a penny on the street' by selling accounts of the crimes, trial and 'dying speeches' of those due for execution. Criminal and execution broadsides were published by a small number of printers many of whom, such as Thomas Birt, James Catnach and James Pitts were based around the Seven Dials area of London. Spelling and grammar was often poor and the details not always accurate.