As many of our products are related to the history of Derby, we thought you might like to know the history behind some of the products.
Let's start with this one:
Simply put it's an A3 Framed Reproduction of a Broadside.
But what's a broadside?
These single sheet and frequently sensational publications were often sold at the executions of convicted men and women who were executed in the United Kingdom.
In addition to sometimes lurid descriptions of the crime and trials, many execution broadsides featured the "dying speeches" or confessions and last words of convicts on the scaffold, sometimes in the form of poetry. Often there were warnings to would-be criminals. Increasingly, broadsides were illustrated with wood engravings, showing the execution scene or vignettes of the crime scene.
This broadside was created for the execution of Thomas Hopkinson - an execution that took place in Derby on April 2, 1819.
Thomas Hopkinson had narrowly avoided being executed alongside four other men in 1817 for setting fire to hay and corn stacks - he escaped by turning King's Evidence on them.
However he was convicted of Highway Robbery two years later and this time was 'launched into eternity'.
You can find the story of Thomas, as well as many others, in our book 'Launched Into Eternity: Twenty True Stories of Crime and Punishment in Derby and Derbyshire'.
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