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= Ordinary of Newgate's Account = The Ordinary of Newgate's Account was a sister publication of the Old Bailey's Proceedings, regularly published from 1676 to 1772 and containing biographies and last dying speeches of the prisoners executed at Tyburn during that period. The Accounts were written by the chaplain of Newgate Prison, recounting the statements made by the condemned during confession. Over 400 editions were published, containing biographies of some 2,500 executed criminals.

Although both the Ordinary and the Accounts were the targets of many objections and criticism during the 18th century, since much of their contents can be verified from external sources, if carefully used these accounts provide an important source of knowledge on many aspects of 18th century English history.

All surviving accounts relating to convicts tried at sessions of the Old Bailey court and published under the name of the Ordinary of Newgate can be consulted on the Old Bailey Proceedings Online website.

Form of the Accounts
The external form of the Accounts underwent several changes during the century, in its size, format and layout. In only twenty years, from something close to a broadside they became a small pamphlet, indicating both consolidation as a specific genre and the permission given by the City Officials. They were published at the price of 2 or 3 pence as folio broadsheets until 1712, when they were expanded to six folio pages. During the 1720s the type size was reduced and a third column was added. By 1734 they comprised sixteen or twenty-eight quarto pages and they were sold for 4 or 6 pence.

On the other hand, the internal form of the Accounts remained almost unchanged through the century. They were divided into five section: the first contained the basic facts of the trial, its date, the magistrates present at the trial, the members of the two juries and a summary of the proceedings; the second offered the synopsis of the sermon given by the Ordinary and cited the biblical texts from which he preached to the condemned; the third was a description of the life and crimes of the condemned; the fourth was composed of various items, sometimes narratives supposedly written by the condemned themselves, a brief essay on some topic like smuggling that the Ordinary or his printer thought appropriate, or copies of letters sent to the condemned; the fifth was a recount of the events of the hanging itself, the psalms sung and the condition of the condemned or his potential attempts to escape.

List of Ordinaries from 1676 to 1799
Hereunder is a list of the Ordinaries who regularly published the Accounts during the 17th and 18th centuries.
 * Samuel Smith, Ordinary from 15 June 1676 until 24 August 1698. He is the first Ordinary to publish regular accounts of confessions, behaviour and last speeches of the condemned in Newgate Prison. His son officiated between Smith's death and the appointment of his successor.
 * John Allen, Ordinary from 10 October 1698 until 30 May 1699. He was dismissed for corruption, extortion and 'undue practises'.
 * Roger Wykes, Ordinary from June 1700, officiated only for a few months until his death in October of the same year.
 * Paul Lorrain, Ordinary from 7 November 1700 until his death on the 10th of October 1719. He converted the Accounts in a profitable publication through the addition of advertisements, which under him became a periodical and semi-official publication. He printed his sermons and biographies of famous malefactors as well, and translated comprendia and funeral rites. Ordinary during the incarceration of Daniel Defoe in 1703, he's probably the object of Defoe's "A Hymn to the Funeral Sermon". Thomas Browne acted as temporary replacement between his death and the appointment of his successor.
 * Thomas Purney, Ordinary from 17 November 1719 until he ceased to act as Ordinary due to ill health in September 1725 and died on the 14th of November 1727. Born in Kent in 1695, he took the Holy Orders in 1718 and acquired the position in Newgate Prison through the intervention of the Bishop of Peterborough. Besides the Accounts he published volumes of pastoral poetry and was frequently object of satire, presumably because during his office many famous criminals were executed, such as Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild. During his leaves of absence for illness in the summer of 1724 and in the winter of 1724 and 1725, James Wagstaff officiated in his stead.
 * James Guthrie, was officially instated as Ordinary on the 19th of February 1733/1734 but officiated from 29 September 1725 to 1746 since Purney left the care of Newgate Prison to him while he was in the country. Formerly he held curacy of Coleman Street and had been a schoolteacher of Latin. In 1746 the Court found him rendered incapable by his age and other infirmities and he was dismissed with an annual pension of £40.
 * Samuel Rossel, Ordinary from 17 June 1746 until he died on 12th of March 1747. Formerly curate of St Giles, Cripplegate for twenty years. James Paterson officiated between his death and the appointment of the new Ordinary.
 * John Taylor, Ordinary from 12 July 1747 until 28 June 1757. He presented his resignation pleading his great debts.
 * Stephen Roe, Ordinary from 12 July 1757 until his death on the 22nd of October 1764.
 * Joseph Moore, Ordinary from 20 November 1764 until his death on the 20th of June 1769. There are few of his Accounts after 1765, maybe suggesting that it was briefly discontinued in this period.
 * John Wood, Ordinary from 18 July 1769 until he took a leave of absence in May 1774 and officially resigned in January 1774 due to ill health. During his office the Accounts are published sporadically. Silas Told, Methodist minister, officiated in Wood's absence.
 * John Villette, Ordinary from 8 February 1774 until 25 April 1799. He did not resume the regular publication the Accounts, but compiled the "Annals of Newgate" in 1776, a few pamphlets on the executions of famous malefactors and early in his office, between 1774 and 1775 provided accounts of confessions and speeches of the condemned to several newspapers.

Decline of the Accounts
The reasons for the declining success of the Accounts are several and of different nature.

1.    The Ordinary's morality was often perceived as dubious, because of the profit that the Accounts provided him and because of suspected corruption: he was often accused of bribing the condemned to have their confessions.

2.    Another cause was the competition represented not only by other authors of accounts but by ministers of others denominations too (Catholic, Jewish and Methodist), who from 1735 could counsel the condemned in Newgate Prison.

3.     At the same time, in the 1760s there was a decline of popular demand for the confessional genre. This can be connected to the crisis of the notion of 'Everyman' criminal.

- The rise of effective religious toleration at Newgate and effective end of the Ordinary monopoly over confessions of the condemned.

- Gradual relegation of the notion of the criminal as 'Everyman', a view increasingly identified as Methodist.

- The decline of the Gallows as a sacralized place in which words and actions of the condemned were invested with metaphysical and political consequence.

By the middle of 18th century, there was a new growing tendency to make explicit distinction between the criminal and the readers: the condemned was increasingly relegated to his social sphere; he was not seen as a sinner, someone to whom the audience could relate to, but someone who came from an intellectually and morally inferior class. By the 1760s it was common to put emphasis on grammatical and orthographic errors of the condemned and for the Ordinary to apologise for having as subjects mean individuals. He made frequent claims that condemned were creatures deserving of pity, suggesting that common criminals lacked the moral and intellectual faculties of the readers and so emphasizing the distance between the reader and the condemned. The notion of the criminal as 'Everyman', morally no different from his audience, was then totally abandoned; the reader could comfort himself with the knowledge that he at least, unlike the criminal, was saved. (R)