Recorder's Report and Lamentation of the Unhappy Men doom'd to die

Broadside printed with the Newgate Recorders 'Report, and Lamentation of the Unhappy Men Doom'd to Die'. The report, illustrated with a woodcut of a prisoner in the condemned cell includes a list of prisoners condemned to die together with a list of those who had been sentenced to death but were reprieved by the King. Typically the broadsheet concludes with a moral poem. Those condemned to die included Thomas Chapman and William Johnson for stealing a horse, Charles Melford & William Melford (brothers) & Jeremiah Sullivan for burglary. These prisoners were publicly executed at Newgate on 12th March 1828.

Such broadsides were popular with Londoners hungry for news of impending public executions in the capital. Until 1868 public hangings were a popular form of entertainment for the London crowd. Such occasions provided an opportunity for cheap printers and street vendors to 'turn a penny on the street' by selling accounts of the crimes, trial and 'dying speeches' of those due for execution. Criminal and execution broadsides were published by a small number of printers many of whom, such as Thomas Birt, James Catnach and James Pitts were based around the Seven Dials area of London. Spelling and grammar was often poor and the details not always accurate.