The fascination with executions is really quite bizarre and somewhat alien to me. I cannot fathom why Id ever attend one other than for academic purposes. Why do these events draw people and did people back then go for similar reasons?
It is also worth pondering the structures and policies regarding executions. It seems they were unprepared. It also seems that the details surrounding William's crimes brought more people as opposed to those of the other people who were executed.
There's a lot of literature on this (Violent Victorians by Ros Crone among many many others!), but it fascinates me that people continued to go to prisons when a private execution was taking place. What is the draw of an event you cannot see?
Yes, I suspect the type of crime influenced the size of crowd, but I don't know why the authorities were so unprepared? They should have anticipated a huge crowd, I have no idea why they didn't!
Another powerful article.
The fascination with executions is really quite bizarre and somewhat alien to me. I cannot fathom why Id ever attend one other than for academic purposes. Why do these events draw people and did people back then go for similar reasons?
It is also worth pondering the structures and policies regarding executions. It seems they were unprepared. It also seems that the details surrounding William's crimes brought more people as opposed to those of the other people who were executed.
There's a lot of literature on this (Violent Victorians by Ros Crone among many many others!), but it fascinates me that people continued to go to prisons when a private execution was taking place. What is the draw of an event you cannot see?
Yes, I suspect the type of crime influenced the size of crowd, but I don't know why the authorities were so unprepared? They should have anticipated a huge crowd, I have no idea why they didn't!
And just like that, a PhD project can be born... This is indeed an important question.
JFK.