Broadside concerning the execution of Andrew Stewart and Edward Kelly

Commentary

This report of an execution begins: 'Account of the Execution of ANDREW STEWART and EDWARD KELLY, who suffered in Glasgow on Wednesday morning, 1st November, 1826, for Street Robbery with an account of their Behaviour in confinement and on the Scaffold.' It was published on 1st November 1826 by William Carse of Glasgow.

Stewart's victim, Filippo Testti, is called a 'foreigner' in the report, as well as being identified as a looking-glass manufacturer. Testti was probably an Italian immigrant to Scotland. From the start of the industrial revolution in the late eighteenth century, migration to Scotland increased dramatically, but until almost the end of the nineteenth century any Italian immigrants tended to be specialist craftsmen, like Testti. Although no racist motive is imputed to Stewart in this broadside, the new waves of incomers to Scotland certainly encountered suspicion and hostility in some quarters.

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.

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