History of Crime and Punishment in London

What to Expect

• We will talk about the Roman times and gladiator fights, where captive warriors fought not for life, but for death.
• We will visit the site of a public execution in the 13th century, the former meat market of Smithfield, where the national hero of Scotland William Wallace, known as Braveheart, was subjected to a dreadful execution.
• I will tell you about the persecution and executions of Jews during the reign of Edward I, and how these persecutions are linked to the founding of the first English Masonic lodge in 1717, located near the first London coffeehouse.
• The first part of the tour will conclude at the main place of nobles' execution in London, Tower Hill and the Tower of London.

Then I will offer two options for the continuation of the program:

1. We can discuss the theme of crime and punishment on the south bank of the River Thames and visit the torture museum of the former prison of the Clink, the most famous in the Middle Ages and the oldest in Britain.

2. Or immerse ourselves in the atmosphere of the once poorest district of London, Whitechapel, where the world's first serial killer Jack the Ripper operated. I can conduct this part of the tour in two keys: soft (I will tell more about the fates of the victims) and harsh (with descriptions of the maniac's atrocities). We will discuss who Jack the Ripper could have been and why Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never mentioned him in his saga about Holmes and Watson, although he wrote his works at the same time that Jack was committing crimes.