Norwich: Walker, St Lawrence, [1831]

This image, showing Norwich Castle and the place of execution beside the gatehouses, was used frequently on execution broadsides printed by Walker.
This account of the trial and execution of Richard Knockolds (elsewhere called Nockolds) is one of the most dramatic in tone. The text is littered with exclamation marks and superlatives, altogether the style is extraordinary. Knockolds was a Norwich weaver who had set fire to a hay stack in Swanton Abbot in January 1831 and was believed to be a ringleader for arson attacks. In many cases these attacks were a means of demanding wage rises from employers: Knockolds had previously been involved in an attack on weaving loom owners in Norwich in an attempt to intimidate them into raising wages, and clearly the authorities felt it necessary to make an example of him in order to deter others from trying the same means of persuasion. The children so dramatically described in this account were maintained after Knockolds’ death by money raised by exhibiting Knockolds’ dead body and charging people to view it.

Broadsides.B.83.6
Not on display in physical exhibition