![from Andrew Knapp and William Baldwin, Criminal Chronology; or, The New Newgate Calendar; Being Interesting Memoirs of Notorious Characters, Who Have Been Convicted of Outrages on the Laws of England, during the Seventeenth Century, and Brought Down to the Present Time, Chronologically Arranged …, 5 vols (London: [J. and J. Cunder;] Nutall, Fisher, and Dixon, Liverpool, 1810), vol. 4, pp. 182–9.](https://images.tandf.co.uk/common/jackets/crclarge/978135122/9781351221429.jpg "from Andrew Knapp and William Baldwin, Criminal Chronology; or, The New Newgate Calendar; Being Interesting Memoirs of Notorious Characters, Who Have Been Convicted of Outrages on the Laws of England, during the Seventeenth Century, and Brought Down to the Present Time, Chronologically Arranged …, 5 vols (London: [J. and J. Cunder;] Nutall, Fisher, and Dixon, Liverpool, 1810), vol. 4, pp. 182–9.")
ABSTRACT
This chapter represents the vast body of criminal biographies known under the general title 'the Newgate Calendar' and collected in a succession of editions with that or similar or different titles. Related to these biographies and in many cases the source of them is that body of criminal biography known as 'last dying words and confessions', probably going back to the beginnings of printing, at least. These were sold individually as broadsheets or chapbooks and aimed to capitalize on the crowds gathered to witness public hangings, or were hawked about the streets as a form of news. The unfortunate George Foster, whose conviction was put upon his trial, on the horrid charge, at the Old Bailey, January 14, 1803. Sir Richard Ford produced the examination which the prisoner signed at Bow-street Office, after being questioned as to its being the truth, and cautioned as to the consequences it might produce.
