ABSTRACT
In his early sketch “A Visit to Newgate” Charles Dickens introduces the reader to ‘a portion of the prison set apart for boys under fourteen years of age’ and, in the condemned ward, a ‘handsome boy, not fourteen years old, and of singularly youthful appearance even for that age’, sentenced to death for burglary, awaiting the recorder’s report and the king’s pardon. The change of public opinion is to a certain extent mirrored in those eighteenth-century Newgate Calendars that began to appear since the 1770s, mostly compiled by barristers at the Inner Temple. These compilations are more factual, adding materials such as ballads and poems, trial reports and ordinaries’ accounts, letters and newspaper reports, as well as legal advice and political commentary. Later Newgate Calendars saw it as their mission not only to warn the young, but also to remind those in charge of their responsibilities towards children and juveniles.
