CHAPTER VIII
NEWGATE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Newgate Calendars—Their editors and publishers—All based on sessions' papers—Demand for this literature fostered by prevalence of crime—Brief summary of state of crime in the first half of the 18th century—State of the metropolis—Street-robberies—Burglaries—Henry Fielding on the increase of robbers—The Thieves' Company—The Resolution Club—Defiance in the Law Courts—Causes of the increase of crime—Drunkenness—The Gin Act—Gaming universal—Faro's daughters—State Lotteries—Repression of crime limited by hanging—No police—The "Charlies" or watchmen—Civil power lethargic—Efforts made by private societies for reformation of manners—Character of crimes—Murders, duels, and affrays—Richard Savage, the poet, in Newgate for murder—Major Oneby commits suicide—Marquis de Paleoti committed for murder—Colonel Charteris sentenced to death, but pardoned—Crime in high place—The Earl of Macclesfield, Lord Chancellor, convicted of venal practices—Embezzlement by public officials.
Prison calendars obviously reflect the criminal features of the age in which they appear. Those of Newgate since the beginning of the eighteenth century are numerous and voluminous enough to form a literature of their own. To the diligence of lawyers and publishers we owe a more or less
complete collection of the most remarkable cases as they occurred. These volumes have been published under various titles. The "Newgate Calendar," compiled by Messrs. Knapp and Baldwin, attorneys at law, is one of the best known. This work, according to its title-page, professes to contain "interesting memoirs of notorious characters who have been convicted of outrages on the law of England; with essays on crimes and punishments and the last exclamations of sufferers." There are many editions of it. The first was undoubtedly published by Nuttall, Fisher, and Dixon, of Liverpool; a later edition issued from the Albion Press, Ivy Lane, London, under the auspices of J. Robins and Co. But another book of similar character had as its compiler "George Theodore Wilkinson, Esq.," barrister at law. It was published by Cornish and Co. in 1814, and the work was continued by "William Jackson, Esq.," another barrister, with Alexander Hogg, of Paternoster Row, and by Offor and Sons of Tower Hill as publishers. Early and perfect editions of these works are somewhat rare and curious, fondly sought out and carefully treasured by the bibliophile. But all of them were anticipated by the editors of the "Tyburn Calendar," or "Malefactor's Bloody Register," which appeared soon after 1700 from the printing-office of G. Swindells, at the appropriate address of Hanging Bridge, Manchester. The compilers of these volumes claimed a high mission. They desired "to
fully display the regular progress from Virtue to Vice, interspersed with striking reflections on the conduct of those unhappy wretches who have fallen a sacrifice to the injured laws of their country. The whole tending to guard young minds from allurements of vice and the paths that lead to destruction." Another early work is the "Chronicle of Tyburn, or Villainy displayed in all its branches," which gave the authentic lives of notorious malefactors, and was published at the Shakespeare's Head in 1720. Yet another, dated 1776, and printed for J. Wenman, of 144 Fleet Street, bears the title of "The Annals of Newgate," and claims, upon the title-page, that by giving the circumstantial accounts of the lives, transactions, and trials of the most notorious malefactors it is "calculated to expose the deformity of vice, the infamy, and punishments naturally attending those who deviate from the paths of virtue; and is intended as a beacon to warn the rising generation against the temptations, the allurements, and the dangers of bad company."
All Newgate calendars have seemingly a common origin. They are all based primarily upon the sessions' papers, the official publications which record the proceedings at the Old Bailey. There is a complete early series of these sessions' papers in the Library of the British Museum, and another in the Home Office from the year 1730, including the December sessions in 1729. The publisher, who
is stated on the title-page to be "T. Payne, at the corner of Ivy Lane, near Paternoster Row," refers in his preface to an earlier series, dating probably from the beginning of the century, and a manuscript note in the margin of the first volume of the second series also speaks of a preceding folio volume. These sessions' papers did not issue from one publisher. As the years pass the publication changes hands. Now it is "J. Wilford, behind the Chapter House, St. Paul's;" now "I. Roberts at the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane." Ere long "T. Applebee in Bolt Court, near the Leg Tavern," turns his attention to this interesting class of periodical literature. He also published another set of semi-official documents, several numbers of which are bound up with the sessions' papers already mentioned, and like them supplying important data for the compilation of calendars. These were the accounts given by the ordinary of Newgate of the behaviour, confessions, and dying words of the malefactors executed at Tyburn, a report rendered by command of the mayor and Corporation, but a private financial venture of the chaplain's. As the ordinary had free access to condemned convicts at all times, and from his peculiar duties generally established the most confidential relations with them, he was in a position to obtain much curious and often authentic information from the lips of the doomed offenders. Hence the ordinary's account contained many criminal autobiographies, and probably
was much patronized by the public. Its sale was a part of the reverend gentleman's perquisites; and that the chaplains looked closely after the returns may be gathered from the already mentioned application made by the Rev. Mr. Lorraine, chaplain in 1804, who petitioned Parliament to exempt his "execution brochure" from the paper tax.