Capital Crimes: Seven Centuries of London Life and Murder

The story of crime and punishment in London is told via accounts of murders from medieval times to the abolition of hanging—a unique history of the city and its underbellyAn essential read for all devotees of London and of crime, this book features vivid recreations of a series of murders, stretching from the killing of Roger Legett, a notorious "questmonger," during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, through to the hanging of Styllou Christofi in 1954. Some of the murderers, such as the political assassin John Bellingham, are still remembered. Others, including the 18th-century highwayman John Davis, are largely forgotten. But all their lives and fates have much to tell readers—about London's changing underworld, about the slow evolution of policing in the city, and about the sometimes strange workings of the law. Above all, they provide a fascinating sideways view of London over the centuries, from the crime-ridden alleyways of the Georgian capital to the supposedly respectable suburbs of Finchley, where the notorious "baby-farmers" Amelia Sach and Annie Walters operated at the beginning of the 20th century.