"The Criminal Law Consolidation Act of 1861 reduced the number of capital crimes to four, murder, high treason, piracy and arson in a Royal Dockyard, (this was a separate offence, not high treason).  In reality, except for four executions for attempted murder, this act was more of a tidying up exercise as nobody else had been hanged for a crime other than for murder since 1837.

The 1864 Royal Commission on Capital Punishment sat for two years and concluded that there was no case for abolition of the death penalty but did recommend ending public executions. (Franz Muller, above, was hanged whilst the committee was sitting).

In the Spring of 1868, England and Scotland carried out their last public executions.  In Wales, the last one had been two years earlier when 18 year old Robert Coe was executed outside Cardiff prison on the 12th of April 1866 for the murder of John Davies.  Joseph Bell became the last person to die in full public in...

Cigars began being manufacted in Britian in 1820

"A tiny medicine-chest was open upon the dressing-table, and little stoppered bottles of red lavender, sal-volatile, chloroform, chlorodyne, and ether were scattered about. Once my lady paused before this medicine-chest, and took out the remaining bottles, half-absently, perhaps, until she came to one which was filled with a thick, dark liquid, and labeled "opium—poison." pg 345

Medicine chest, c 1850an english medicine chest c 1850 was one of the most popular types that opens whit a lid. In the lid is a label with the text: thomas ruster, chemist, high st & john st, maryport. There is a recipe is provided written out in1873. The bottles...