22 Jun 2018
The Caird Library has a new display featuring archive and library items connected with crimes and criminals at sea.
By Mike Bevan, Archivist and Stawell Heard, Librarian, Acquistions and Cataloguing
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The sea can appear to be beyond the reach of law and order. Criminals can use it as a place to commit crimes, as a means of escape, or as a way of illegally entering a country. Ships can become traps for the intended victims or traps for the criminals themselves.
For pirates like Edward Teach (or Thatch) alias Blackbeard, the sea was a lawless place where he could rob ships in the Atlantic and make good his escape. For smugglers who secretly brought goods into a country in order to evade tax, remote stretches of coast provided an entry point for their contraband, whilst for the murderer Dr Crippen, the sea offered a means of escape away from Britain, where he was a wanted man, across the Atlantic to Canada.
Among the items on display are the extra-master’s certificate of Henry George Kendall (the ship’s captain who recognized Crippen amongst his passengers) and the logbook kept by Lieutenant Robert Maynard which records the post-mortem decapitation of Blackbeard.Although all the items relate to crimes committed over a century ago, the issues they raise continue to be relevant today. Piracy and smuggling still pose a problem for law enforcement, and some criminals still use our seas as a means to avoid capture.