Broadside reporting the trial and sentence of Robert Tennant

Commentary

This report begins: 'A Full and Particular Account of the Trial and Sentence of ROBERT TENNANT, who is to be Executed at Stirling, on Wednesday morning, the 2d of October and his body buried within the prcincts of the Jail there, for the Horrid murder of William Peddie, labourer, by felling him on the head with a Hammer, on the evening of 3d of August, 1833, while breaking stones on the road, in the parish of Falkirk.' This broadside was published in Edinburgh, by Menzies.

Robert Tennant had a drinking problem and had flown into a rage and killed his 70-year-old foreman when asked to leave his job because of it. This broadside is one of several which the National Library of Scotland holds relating to this case, and is interesting especially for its style; the majority of the text is in note form, as though it has been taken directly from a reporter's notepad.

Reports recounting dark and salacious deeds were popular with the public, and, like today's sensationalist tabloids, sold in large numbers. Crimes could generate sequences of sheets covering descriptive accounts, court proceedings, last words, lamentations and executions as they occurred. As competition was fierce, immediacy was paramount, and these occasions provided an opportunity for printers and patterers to maximise sales.

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