Crime & Law

  • 1593: Christopher Marlowe is killed at Deptford

    On 30 May 1593, Christopher Marlowe was killed at Deptford. The inquest recorded a quarrel at the house of Eleanor Bull. Marlowe had spent the day there with Ingram Frizer, Robert Poley and Nicholas Skeres. The dispute was said to have been over payment. Frizer stabbed Marlowe above the eye, and Marlowe died from the…

  • 1679: Habeas Corpus Act receives royal assent

    The Habeas Corpus Act received royal assent on 27 May 1679. Habeas corpus already existed. The act made the remedy harder to ignore. Habeas corpus was a way of testing detention. A prisoner could be brought before a court, and the court could ask by what authority that person was being held. Locking someone up…

  • 1701: Captain Kidd is executed at Execution Dock

    William Kidd was hanged at Execution Dock in London on 23 May 1701 after being convicted of piracy and murder. Kidd’s case was awkward because he had not begun as a simple outlaw. He was a Scottish sailor who had been commissioned as a privateer and authorised to attack certain enemy or pirate vessels. Privateering…

  • 1809: First prisoners arrive at Dartmoor Prison

    On 24 May 1809, around 2,500 French prisoners of war arrived at Dartmoor Prison. The prison had been built during the Napoleonic Wars, when Britain needed secure places to hold men captured in the long war with France. Dartmoor did not begin as the civilian prison it later became. Its first purpose was military: large-scale…

  • 1868: Michael Barrett is publicly hanged at Newgate

    Michael Barrett was hanged outside Newgate Prison on 26 May 1868. He became the last person publicly hanged in England. Barrett had been convicted after the Clerkenwell explosion of December 1867. The blast was connected to an attempt to free Fenian prisoners from the Clerkenwell House of Detention. It caused civilian deaths and injuries, and…

  • 1895: Oscar Wilde is convicted of gross indecency

    Oscar Wilde was convicted at the Central Criminal Court on 25 May 1895 and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour. The conviction followed a failed libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of Lord Alfred Douglas. Wilde had gone to court as the complainant. When the case collapsed, evidence raised there…

  • 1945: Heinrich Himmler dies in British custody

    Heinrich Himmler killed himself in British custody on 23 May 1945 after his identity had been confirmed. Germany had surrendered earlier that month, but the end of the war in Europe did not bring an orderly end to Nazi power. Allied forces were dealing with prisoners, fugitives, displaced people and the remains of a collapsed…