Record #2339 (edit record; developers only)

Date: 1725

Event:

Charles Towers is executed in London, the first victim of the Black Act. Whether Towers had actually engaged in Blacking, or was just dirty as he claimed in his defence, is open to question.

Notes: E. P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act (New York: Pantheon, 1975), 247-9. Thompson comments, "It is a nice comment on eighteenth-century polite society that cropped unpowdered hair and the absence of a wig, and a jacket flying open to reveal [Towers's] bare breast, should be taken to constitute 'disguise'" (249). 
   

Record Created or Last Modified By:

Date Last Modified:

6/12/2002


Chronology:

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