Crime & Punishment

Featured criminals

Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper, the most famous murderer in English history, killed nine prostitutes in 1888.

Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd was the demon barber of Fleet Street, who put his customers in a big meat pie.

Did you know…?

In 1419, the following crimes were all punished by the pillory: selling putrid pigeons; soothsaying to a mazor; placing a piece of iron in a loaf of bread; making false bow-strings; practising magic; lying to the Mayor, and pretending to be a holy hermit.

Did you know…?

In 1562, the laws of London said: no man shall maintain any mad dogs; no man shall bury any dung within the liberties of the City; no man shall have any goats, hogs, pigs, hens, cocks and ducks in the street; no man shall blow any horn in the night, and no man shall go in the streets with bow bent.

Criminals in the 16th-century

Bawdy Baskets – female vagabonds · Demanders for glimmer – people who pretended to have lost all their possessions in a fire · Dommers – people who pretended to be deaf mutes · Fraters – people who went around pretending to be collecting alms for the local hospital · Hookers – people who stole clothing through an open window using a hooked stick · Palliards – people who created sores on their body to elicit sympathy from the public · Priggers – horse thieves · Rufflers – rogues who begged from the strong and robbed the weak · Whip-Jacks – people who pretended to be shipwrecked sailors

Featured crimes

Peasant’s Revolt (1381)
The Peasant’s Revolt, led by Wat Tyler in 1381, almost cost Richard II his throne.

Gunpowder Plot (1605)
The Gunpowder Plot was an infamous attempt by Guy Fawkes to blow up King James I in 1605.

English crime timeline

60 AD Queen Boadicea ransacks the city · 870 St. Edmund is murdered by the Danes · 979 Edward the Martyr is murdered · 1002 Æthelred massacres all the Danes · 1066 William the Conqueror kills King Harold · 1067 England rebels against the Normans · 1132 Henry I allows the City to appoint a sheriff · 1139 Civil war in England · 1170 Thomas Becket is murdered · 1173 Rebellion against Henry II · 1306 Robert the Bruce rebels against the English · 1321 Civil war in England · 1348 Plague wipes out half the city’s population · 1381 The Peasant’s Revolt · 1388 First public execution at Tyburn · 1400 Rebellion of Owain Glyndwr · 1450 John Cade’s rebellion · 1535 Henry VIII executes Thomas More · 1536 Dissolution of the monasteries · 1539 Old Bailey is built next to Newgate Prison · 1554 Wyatt’s rebellion · 1555 Persecution of the Protestants begins · 1569 The Northern rebellion · 1587 Elizabeth I executes Mary Queen of Scots · 1601 Essex’s rebellion · 1603 The plague kills 300,000 · 1605 Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot · 1642 Civil war in England · 1649 Execution of Charles I · 1665 Plague hits London · 1666 The Great Fire of London · 1679 The Rye House Plot · 1715 Jacobite rebellion · 1745 Jacobite rebellion by Bonnie Prince Charlie · 1770 Newgate Prison is rebuilt · 1780 The Gordon Riots · 1783 Last public execution at Tyburn · 1812 PM Spencer Percival was assassinated · 1819 The Peterloo massacre · 1831 The Swing riots · 1834 Slavery abolished all over the British Empire · 1839 The Chartist riots · 1886 Metropolitan Police move to New Scotland Yard · 1888 Jack the Ripper kills five women · 1889 London dock strike · 1926 General Strike · 1950 Scottish students steal the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey · 1968 The Kray Twins get sent down for murder · 1972 National miners’s strike · 1979 The IRA kills Airey Neave · 1980 Dissidents seize the Iranian Embassy · 1983 The IRA kills six at Harrods · 1984 Miners’s strike · 1990 The Poll Tax Riots · 1991 IRA launches a mortar bomb into Downing Street · 1992 The IRA bombs the Baltic Exchange · 1993 The IRA bombs Bishopsgate · 1996 The IRA bombs Canary Wharf · 1999 Nail-bomb in the Admiral Duncan pub · 2005 Al Qaeda bombs the tube trains