Crime and punishment - Getty Images

Crime and punishment

An 1870s illustration of a typical London artisan terraced houses with washhouses, privies and yards leading on to an alley, all dominated by railway viaducts. (Photo by Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Victorian London’s East End: what can a foul murder tell us about life in the city?

Four police officers, members of the Bow Street Horse Patrol, pose for a photograph with a horse.

The rise of the Great British 'bobby': a brief history of Britain's police service

Operators dealing with emergency calls at New Scotland Yard, London, c1956. (Photo by Reg Speller/Getty Images)

5 crimes that changed law enforcement in Britain

Prince Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland and fifth son of King George III

The Duke of Cumberland and his valet: a bloody tale of attempted murder. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A crowd gathers to watch the witnesses arrive for the trial of John George Haigh, the 'acid bath murderer', in Lewes, East Sussex, July 1949. (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

10 facts about crime on the home front in the Second World War

Britain’s secret wartime prison. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

East End crime. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An illustration of a public execution at Newgate, London, late 18th century. (Photo by Museum of London/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The LibraryA deadly obsession in Victorian London

History quiz – prison escapes and the princes in the Tower. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

(BBC/Caryn Mandabach Productions Ltd/Tiger Aspect/Robert Viglasky)

Peaky Blinders: behind the scenes with creator Steven Knight. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration of electric chair

Q&AWho invented the electric chair?

A Black Market camera seller

Criminals of the Blitz: how the German bombings created a golden age of crime

The Victorians’ grisly fascination with murder

The Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchilsea in a duel at Battersea Fields. (Culture Club/Getty Images)

Pistols at dawn: duelling in the Victorian age

9 astonishing deaths reported in Victorian newspapers

Photo of Chelsea Pensioners

Q&ACould you really once be hanged for impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner?

Incent's House as it stands today on the Berkhamsted High Street. (Creative Commons)

The hunt for the Tudor hitman

Great Train Robbery’s Ronnie Biggs dies

A policeman feels the full force of a blast in this illustration – from the 7 June 1884 issue of 'The Illustrated Police News' – depicting a Fenian attack on Scotland Yard. The Fenians' dynamite campaign of the early 1880s provoked a radical response from the British government. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Victorian war on terror

Beaumaris Gaol, Anglesey, Wales. The prison could accommodate up to 30 inmates under the so-called 'silent system', in which inmates slept in separate cells at night but worked and attended chapels and classes together during the day. (Ashley Cooper via Getty Images)

History Explorer: 19th-century prison reform. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

'Britain needs police museum' says crime historian

A woodcut depicting a witch hanging in England, c17th Century. (Bettmann via Getty Images)

Witches in the dock: 10 of Britain’s most infamous witch trials

History on trial

The "hauntingly beautiful" Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, was never at ease in Vienna's stuffy court. (Getty Images)

A big day in history: a royal icon is stabbed through the heart

Hans Litten (centre) in court while representing communists, 25 August 1932. Litten’s decision to subpoena Hitler a year earlier was to cost him his life. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Hitler in the dock

A 17th chart or map shows reefs and hazards to ships.

The notorious Captain Kidd

Ruby Sparks: the smash-and-grab gangster. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Gold Mining At Mount Alexander

Convicts and colonisers: the early history of Australia

Rebellion and terrorism. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The LibraryMedieval outlaws: the real Robin Hoods