Broadside entitled 'Glasgow Trials'

Commentary

This broadside begins: 'An account of the names and crimes of the different prisoners who have been tried at the Spring Circuit, Glasgow, where the Honourable the Lord Justice Clerk and Lord Moncrieff presided. John Thomas Gordon, Esq, Advocate-Depute.' It was printed by Muir of Glasgow.

This broadside provides a list of all prisoners who were tried at the Spring Circuit Court in Glasgow, between the 21st and 23rd April 1841, along with their crimes and sentencing. Whilst many of the crime broadsides published at this time carried sensationalist accounts of gruesome and shocking murders, this court circular offers an interesting and typical cross section of nineteenth-century criminal activity.

Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.

previous