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Murder

Amanda Vickery explores murder, with three cases in which men fight and kill each other, all in the name of honour.

For all its elegance and politeness, one of the most striking features of Georgian society is its violence. Murder cases abounded at the Old Bailey. Some were cold premeditated crimes, a tiny minority were committed by women, but the vast majority were the outcome of drunken brawls.

Professor Amanda Vickery uses three Old Bailey murder cases to expose the honour code that governed male aggression - looking at duels, boxing matches and the defence of manly honour.

She begins with a poignant case in which two teenagers fight to the death over a mere piece of cake. The second case involves two builders working on Marylebone Road, whose brawl gathers a huge crowd so that they're unable to stop until one of them dies. And the final case is a duel, in which the man who wins the fight is a blind clergyman.

Listening with Amanda to the Voices from the Old Bailey are Professor Peter King from Leicester University, a leading historian of crime; Karen Harvey, Reader in Cultural History at Reading University; and Robert Shoemaker, Professor of History at Sheffield University and the co-founder of the Old Bailey Online.

The programme is recorded on location in the Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, which has a world-beating collection of 18th century swords and guns, demonstrated by Curator Tobias Capwell. It features readings by Charlotte Stockley, Ewan Bailey, Oliver Soden, David Holt, Damien Bouvier and Steven Webb; and specially arranged music, from singer Guy Hughes and pianist David Owen Norris.

Produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus production for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4.

Available now

43 minutes

Last on

Thu 21 Aug 2014 21:30

Karen Harvey and Amanda Vickery at the Wallace Collection

Karen Harvey and Amanda Vickery at the Wallace Collection

Getting started on the Old Bailey Site

You can find details of all these cases on the website Old Bailey Online. The site includes a video tutorial with search tips and further advice to help you navigate this rich source of archive.

Case 1: Two boys fight over a piece of cake.

William Chetwynd was indicted at Common Law for the Murder ofΜύΜύ Thomas Ricketts

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Case 2: Two building labourers get drunk together

Case 2: Two building labourers get drunk together, and are encouraged to fight a kind of boxing match by a crowd of spectators. One of them dies when he hits his head on a stone on the ground.

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Case 3: A duel between an American and a blind Clergyman – and the Clergyman wins

Amanda Vickery

Professor Amanda Vickery is the prize-winning author of The Gentleman's Daughter (Yale University Press, 1998) and Behind Closed Doors: At Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ in Georgian England (Yale University Press, 2009). She is Professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary, University of London. She lectures on British social, political and cultural history.Μύ

Amanda reviews for The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, and Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4's Saturday Review, Front Row and Woman’s Hour. Her TV series At Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ with the Georgians aired on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ2 in December 2010. She was a judge of the 2011 Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Samuel Johnson Prize.

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London Lives

is the sister site to Old Bailey Online. It makes available, in a fully digitised and searchable form, a wide range of primary sources about eighteenth-century London, many of which concern the same individuals who appeared at the Old Bailey.Μύ



The site includes over 240,000 manuscript and printed pages and over 3.35 million names.

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Contributors

- University of Sheffield

- University of Sheffield

- University of Leicester

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Broadcasts

  • Thu 21 Aug 2014 09:00
  • Thu 21 Aug 2014 21:30