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Legal History Miscellany: Legal History Miscellany – Posts on the History of Law, Crime, and Justice
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By Cassie Watson; posted 27 March 2026.
What did a cheese thief in Victorian Lancashire have in common with a pitman in County Durham, a bigamist in the Rhondda Valley, or an eighteenth-century Welsh labourer? They were all repeat offenders who earned themselves a memorable nickname: Dick the Devil. I came across the last-mentioned of these ne’er-do-wells, ...
Posted by Sara M. Butler, 5 February 2026.
The church tried its best to vilify social mobility in late medieval England, encouraging good Christians to embrace their place in society (no matter how low!) as ordained by God, and not strive for more. Nonetheless, England’s nascent middle class fantasized of something better. They hoped that their hard work, p...
Posted by Krista J. Kesselring, 6 January 2026.
January now sees many people choose to change what they eat, some in hopes that doing so serves a greater good beyond just improving their personal health. Some go vegan: in ‘Veganuary,’ millions of people pledge themselves to a m...
By Cassie Watson; posted 26 December 2025.
In the wake of the Thames Torso Murders (1887–89), the Jack the Ripper killings of autumn 1888, and several subsequent unsolved murders that were thought possibly to be the work of the Ripper,[1] the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Jam...