‘The Great Portion of the Scum of Society’? Representations of Execution Crowds in the Lancashire Press, 1830-1868

From 1830 to the abolition of public executions in 1868, there was a growing critique of the execution crowd among elite commentators. To date, however, most, if not all, discussion of this critique has focused on the metropolis, elite groups and decision makers and on national newspapers such as The Times. The aim of this article is to shift the focus away from the metropolis towards the provinces, by exploring how the execution crowd was represented in the provincial press. While there have been several analyses of how executions were represented in the provincial press during the period, there has been little sustained discussion of how the crowd were represented. Drawing on a sample of 145 accounts of executions published between 1830 and 1868 it will explore how the execution crowd was presented in four Lancashire newspapers, the Liverpool Mercury, Manchester Times, Lancaster Gazette and Manchester Courier. It will show how the majority of reports depicted the crowd in neutral terms, passing no commentary – either negative or positive – on their composition or behaviour. One newspaper, however, the liberal Liverpool Mercury, consistently reported execution crowds in negative terms as part of its broader critique of capital punishment and public executions

From The Rapture to Left Behind: The Movie and Beyond: Evangelical Christian End Times Films from 1941 to the Present

This article traces the development of evangelical Christian ‘rapture films’ from the 1940s to the present day, focusing in particular on the place of the Left Behind series. In doing so, it locates the series within its genre; highlighting the ways in which it drew on, developed, and in some cases rejected earlier tropes, motifs and dramatis personae. Following on from this, the article will discuss the release of Left Behind: The Movie, its failure at the box office and critical panning, and the consequences that these have had on the rapture film industry. Finally, it concludes by discussing two recent releases by the mainstream production company The Asylum/Faith Films and what these mean for the future of the rapture film genre

Charisma, volatility and violence: assessing the role of crises of charismatic authority in precipitating incidents of millenarian violence

In this article the author develops some of the points he has made elsewhere regarding the role of what may be termed ‘crises of charismatic authority’ in producing volatility or even violence within marginal apocalyptic religious groups. The last quarter of the twentieth century witnessed several incidents where such groups engaged in violent actions against themselves, others in the outside world, or typically both (among them the Peoples Temple in Guayana in 1978, Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas in 1994, Order of the Solar Temple in Switzerland, Quebec and France in 1997, Aum Shirinkyo, Japan in 1995, Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, Uganda in 2000). This notion of ‘crises of charismatic authority’ has in many ways become a central, recurring theme in the author's analysis of these incidents. While accepting that such crises were typically not sufficient in themselves to have precipitated each of the dramatic denouements the author has examined, he has come to the conclusion that they did play a major role in each; such crises played a much more significant role than that played by external opposition in almost all of the cases the author examined (the case of the Branch Davidians being perhaps the exception that proves the rule). In this article, the author discusses what he means by crises of charismatic authority (an important task in itself due to the diverse understandings of ‘charisma’ found within the literature) and presents a comparative analysis of some of the ways in which these crises can occur

The (Un)Christian Road Warrior: The Crisis of Religious Representation in The Book of Eli (2010)

In a recent review of The Book of Eli (JRF 14:1), Adam Porter has claimed that the movie is an “affirm[ation] of God and an exploration of “the way religion can be used, both positively and negatively”. In our article, we will argue instead that the role of religion in the movie is much more ambiguous than this and that the movie not only fails to resolve the differences between putative ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ uses of religion, but, indeed, is also based on a highly problematic understanding of the role of religion and particularly religious texts within society

The administration of justice in Wales during the long eighteenth century

Over the course of the last forty years or so, a growing body of historical scholarship has emerged exploring various aspects of crime and the administration of justice in England and Wales during the long eighteenth century. To date, however, much of this work has been skewed heavily towards the south east of England, and particularly towards metropolitan London’s Old Bailey, and, consequently, there has been comparatively little published work on the periphery. Indeed, one geographical region of England and Wales that has generated comparatively little work in this area is Wales itself. This article will review the relatively small historiography on the administration of justice in Wales during the long eighteenth century. In doing so, it will highlight the ways in which patterns of indictments, convictions and executions were both similar and, crucially, different to those found in England during the period

‘RECEIVE THIS AS A VOICE FROM THE DEAD’: THE FINAL WORDS OF THE ENGLISH HANGED, 1840-68

This article explores the final words of condemned prisoners who were executed in England between 1840 and 1868. Drawing on a sample of just over a hundred accounts of executions from the provincial press, we show how, although the majority of those sentenced to death died penitent, appearing resigned to their fate and offering warnings to others should they risk a similar demise, there was some deviation from this script. In particular, we focus on the role of chaplains in encouraging, if not cajoling, suitable contrition and penitence from the prisoners from the condemned cell to the gallows

Celling the Endtimes: The Contours of Contemporary Rapture Films

This article examines the contours of contemporary rapture films, examining them as cultural documents that reflect the particular religio-political worldviews of their producers, and more broadly of the evangelical Christian/premillennialist milieu in which they are produced and consumed. In particular, it argues that the films may be seen to operate on several levels simultaneously. On one level they seek to educate their viewers in the specifics of premillennial understandings of prophecy in an entertaining manner and encourage those who have not yet done so to undergo a born again experience. However, on another, equally important level, they also serve to articulate and possibly even redefine a sense of evangelical identity within the context of a late modern, increasingly globalised world through the language and imagery of the apocalypse

Crimes Against Non-human Animals: Examining Dog Fighting in the UK and the USA through a Green Criminology Perspective

This article reviews the social scientific literature on dog fighting in the UK and USA since the 1990s. The review is structured in 5 sections. The first will situate the review theoretically by introducing key ideas within green criminology that will inform the discussion, specifically the concepts of harm, nonspeciesism and species justice. The next section will then begin the review itself by presenting a typology of the different levels or types of contemporary dog fighting found in the UK and USA. In doing so, it will explore how they differ in terms of frequency, level of organisation, visibility, participants, and the nature of the fight itself. Following on from this, the third section will explore both the motivations of contemporary dog fighters, as well the justifications that they deploy to defend their ‘sport’ to (often critical) outsiders. The fourth section will adopt a green criminological perspective to explore the various harms of dog fighting for society in general and, not least, for the fighting dogs themselves. The final section will then conclude by bringing together the threads of the analysis and highlighting some directions for future research

Crime and Justice in Georgian Cheshire: The Chester Court of Great Sessions 1760-1830

The criminal justice system of Georgian England and Wales has generated a great deal of interest from historians of crime for several decades. To date, however, the majority of research has focused on the south east of England and, in particular, The Old Bailey. Consequently, outside of a growing body of work on the Courts of Great Sessions in Wales, there has been little work focusing on the operation of justice in the north of England during the period. This article aims to contribute towards a refocusing of the historiography towards the north of England by presenting a quantitative analysis of the administration of justice in Georgian Cheshire, focusing on the operation of the Chester Court of Great Sessions between 1760 and its abolishment in 1830. The article will argue that analysis of the Chester Court of Great Sessions reveals a system in which, if the accused was successfully indicted, he or she faced a strong likelihood of being found guilty. More than likely, they would have been indicted for a property offence, most commonly larceny, for which they would receive a brief period of imprisonment. The sex of the accused would appear not to have influenced the verdict of the jury, although it would appear to have impacted on the severity of sentence passed. Crucially, if they were a woman and had been convicted of any other crime than murder then it was highly unlikely that, even if capitally convicted, that they would die on the gallows. Men, in contrast, could find themselves on the gallows after being convicted of a far wider range of offences

Fan filmmaking and copyright in a global world: Warhammer 40,000 fan films and the case of Damnatus

The last decade has witnessed a proliferation, both online and off-line, of films produced by amateurs inspired by mainstream films, TV shows, and novels. As with much other fan production, fan films exist in, at best, a legally gray area since they are produced by amateurs, rather than by the media companies that own the copyrights to the films and novels that provide both their inspiration and settings. I examine the phenomenon of fan filmmaking, focusing on films produced by fans of the Warhammer 40,000 (W40K) tabletop battle game. In particular, I examine the case of Damnatus: The Enemy Within (Damnatus: Feind Im Innern, 2005), a German-made fan film set in the W40K universe, which was banned from release by the game's rights holder, the UK company Games Workshop, in 2007. Damnatus offers an interesting case study in both the ongoing struggle between rights holders and textual poachers and the tensions that can exist between different legal understandings of copyright in an increasingly globalized world