Murder, mystery and my family

PhD student Patrick Low will be appearing in an episode of BBC 1’s Murder, Mystery and My Family on Thursday 4th April 2019 at 9.15 am. 

Patrick researches nineteenth-century executions in North East England, and his expertise was drawn on in this episode which features the execution of Michael Gilligan, hanged alongside William McHugh and Elizabeth Pearson at Durham Prison in 1875. Patrick meets the family, talks about the execution and gives details about the prisoners' final moments. 

The changing presentation of execution in Newcastle

PhD candidate Patrick Low has published an article on the changing presentation of punishment, in particular execution. This topic has been at the heart of much criminal historiography. However, little work has been done to examine the transition outside of London. Newcastle offers a fascinating perspective on any national picture of capital punishment, as it adopted changes far later than most, including close neighbours like Durham. In this article - which appears in Law, Crime & History - Patrick questions why so late a transition occurred and what the motivating factors were. Focusing on executions between 1844 and 1863 it shows that far from being led by London, the decisions were largely reactive to immediate crises, chief amongst them an unruly crowd, and not underpinned by any ideological bent. In short, it will argue for caution in speaking of a unified national change in punishment when even to speak of a regional one is problematic.

 

Read 'The changing presentation of execution in Newcastle Upon Tyne 1844-1863' here.

Reflecting on 150 years since the abolition of public execution

PhD student Patrick Low is organizing a one-day conference to mark 150 years since the end of public execution. It takes place on June 6th 2018 at the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle. The event will encourage interdisciplinary insights as well as welcoming scholars from any stage in their career. Subjects for papers may include, but are by no means limited to:

• The legislative build up to the 1868 Act
• The effect of the 1868 Act and its aftermath
• The broader changing nature of punishment
• Media representations of executions
• Individual cases and crimes
• The role of the execution crowd
• The wider impact and awareness of public executions
• Capital Punishment in the arts – including visual, design, performance, media, music and literary genres
• The science of punishment
• Global and provincial perspectives on capital punishment 

The website has more details, including a call for papers.

Criminal corpses

PhD student Patrick Low has taken on the role of Online Exhibition Creator for the University of Leicester's Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse. This Wellcome Trust funded project explores the criminal corpse from the disciplines of archaeology, medical and criminal history, folklore, literature and philosophy, revealing the ways in which its power was harnessed, by whom, and to what ends in Britain between the late seventeenth and twentieth centuries. Patrick was approached by the project team after they had read his blog on execution in North East England: Last Dying Words. You can visit the website here.

                
                 William Heath (1829): Burke and Hare suffocating Mrs Docherty for sale to Dr Knox;
                 satirizing Wellington and Peel extinguishing the constitution for Catholic emancipation. 

PhD student convenes theatre talk

Culture PhD student Patrick Low has been asked by Newcastle's Live Theatre to co-convene a panel for a post-performance talk on pseudoscience for their latest play called, Harriet Martineau Dreams of Dancing. The talk is to be given by Dr Ella Dzelzainis, Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature at Newcastle University and co-author of Harriet Martineau: Authorship, Society and Empire (2010). More details about the event, which takes place on 20th November 2016, can be found here.

Victorian culture and the origin of disciplines

Patrick Low

History PhD student Patrick Low will be giving a talk at a one-day conference to be held at Durham University on Saturday 12th March 2016. The conference focuses on Victorian culture's creation, maintenance and promulgation of disciplines, covering the period of the long nineteenth century. Patrick's talk is entitled 'Dying in Private and the Death of Public Discipline: Execution in the North East, 1868-1878'. The full programme is here.

Social memory and the landscape

John Kippin - Kielder

On 23rd January 2016, history PhD student Patrick Low will take part in an event at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland. He and Emeritus Professor of photography at Sunderland John Kippin will be in conversation with photographer Danni Harper on the subject of social memory and the landscape. Further details can be found here.  

Capital punishment, phrenology and the Lit & Phil

Source: Wikipedia

On February the 18th 2015, Newcastle's Literary & Philosophical Society (The Lit & Phil) will host a study afternoon featuring a wide-range of short talks from academics and Lit & Phil members on the society's history and archives. Amongst the speakers will be PhD student Patrick Low, who will give a talk entitled 'Capital Punishment, Phrenology and the Lit & Phil: The curious case of the “Bumpologist” Mayor, John Fife.' There will also be a ‘show-and-tell’ session and an opportunity to browse through a sample of the Lit & Phil’s collections. Read the full programme here.

Privacy, punishment and the press

Privacy, punishment and the press

Patrick Low (PhD student, Department of Culture) will be giving a paper at Durham University entitled 'Privacy, Punishment and the Press'. His talk takes place at The Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies (CNCS) Postgraduate Research Conversation in the Institute of Advanced Study Seminar Room on 20th November 2014 (4-6pm). Further details can be found here.

The dying voice of the North East

Patrick Low

A new PhD student has started work on an historical study of executions in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1750-1880). Patrick Low - who is a recipient of a Department of Culture Research Studentship - will examine the ways in which public executions were represented in various contexts, and the behaviour of the crowd. Patrick graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2007 and has since been a researcher for the BBC and the Creative Director of an award winning digital agency in Newcastle. Professor Peter Rushton (Department of Social Sciences) is Patrick's Director of Studies.

Patrick keeps a blog about his research at www.lastdyingwords.wordpress.com.