Look beyond the pretty cottages and gentle landscapes of the Cotswolds, and you will find a dark history of crime and punishment. From child thieves, poachers, conmen, prostitutes and would-be suicides to bigamists, highwaymen and murderers, the Cotswolds has had its fair share of criminals – treated in what appears to us today to be an arbitrary and often unduly harsh manner by judges and juries. What crimes were committed in this rural society in the past, and how were they punished? This book looks at the variety of punishments bestowed to miscreants – from being hanged from a portable gallows at the scene of a crime to transportation or hard labour – and why some were punished more than others. Evidence is taken from contemporary sources: prison records, newspaper accounts and broadsides that celebrated the lives and deaths of local characters. It is a fascinating and shocking read.

Look beyond the pretty cottages and gentle landscapes of the Cotswolds, and you will find a dark history of crime and punishment. From child thieves, poachers, conmen, prostitutes and would-be suicides to bigamists, highwaymen and murderers, the Cotswolds has had its fair share of criminals – treated in what appears to us today to be an arbitrary and often unduly harsh manner by judges and juries. What crimes were committed in this rural society in the past, and how were they punished? This book looks at the variety of punishments bestowed to miscreants – from being hanged from a portable gallows at the scene of a crime to transportation or hard labour – and why some were punished more than others. Evidence is taken from contemporary sources: prison records, newspaper accounts and broadsides that celebrated the lives and deaths of local characters. It is a fascinating and shocking read.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence. This book is the first academic study of the post-mortem practice of gibbeting (‘hanging in chains’), since the nineteenth century. Gibbeting involved placing the executed body of a malefactor in an iron cage and suspending it from a tall post. A body might remain in the gibbet for many decades, while it gradually fell to pieces. Hanging in chains was a very different sort of post-mortem punishment from anatomical dissection, although the two were equal alternatives in the eyes of the law. Where dissection obliterated and de-individualised the body, hanging in chains made it monumental and rooted it in the landscape, adding to personal notoriety. Focusing particularly on the period 1752-1832, this book provides a summary of the historical evidence, the factual history of gibbetting which explores the locations of gibbets, the material technologies involved in hanging in chains, and the actual process from erection to eventual collapse. It also considers the meanings, effects and legacy of this gruesome practice.

Text covers a selected portion of Gloucestershire.