Claire B. Blog 5: "Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders"

The Harvard Law Library houses a collection of more than 500 broadsides spanning the years 1707 to 1891. Styled at the time as last dying speeches, these "programs" were sold for a penny or less to the people who gathered to witness public executions in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain.

Published in British towns and cities by printers who specialized in this type of street literature, a typical example features an illustration (usually of the criminal, the crime scene, or the execution); an account of the crime and (sometimes) the trial; and the purported confession of the criminal, often cautioning the reader to avoid the fate awaiting the perpetrator. The title of the collection, "Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders," stems from the criminal theme of the broadsides, which include accounts of executions for such crimes as arson, assault, counterfeiting, horse stealing, murder, rape, robbery, and treason.

Collection Principles

The Harvard Law School Library's collection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British crime broadsides dates from 1932 with the purchase from the London bookseller Marks & Company of a folio scrapbook entitled "Executions of criminals: more generally known by the uninviting name of 'Dying speeches.'"

Acquired to supplement the Library's existing collection of eighteen- and nineteenth-century British and American trials, the scrapbook contained more than 280 broadside dying speeches, engravings, newspaper clippings, and holograph pages pertaining to sensational London crimes and executions primarily during the period 1820-1840. The anonymous compiler, states in his introduction to the album that he collected the material to demonstrate the barbarity of public executions. The scrapbook serves as a snapshot of British capital crime of the period. The broadsides selected for digitization, according to Harvard, comprise one of the largest collections recorded and the first to be digitized in its entirety.

Object Characteristics

The broadsides themselves are each a sheet of paper printed on only one side and measuring about 50 x 36 cm. Harvard offers little in the way of documentation of the process, equipment used, or even dates. Their Office of Information Systems has some vague information online of the projects they are working on and some of the metadata standards they use, but it is difficult to find technical information on any one collection.


Metadata

Some item records contain minimal metadata (title, creator if available), and others are more comprehensive, with publisher, form/genre, subject listings, and notes about the item (often notes will dictate the first few lines of text or other parts of the text that may be difficult to read from the image alone). Each record links to a "page delivery service" where you can zoom up to four levels or convert images to PDF for printing.

A basic keyword search is available, as is a category search (where viewers can search by type of crime, year or site of publication, printers, name of person or people condemned, and name of victim. Browsing is possible by title, subject, name, and form/genre.

Intended Audience

This collection seems best-suited to people who know what they are looking for or who are using the collection as a finding aid so they can visit the Harvard library in person. I imagine historians, journalists, and artists would all find the collection appealing, if they are able to get past the unappealing interface. People interested in the grotesque in imagery and text could find some fascinating content here as well.