Eugene Aram, an English scholar, born at Ramsgill, Yorkshire, in 1704, executed at York for murder, Aug. 6, 1759. Aram enjoyed a remarkable reputation for extensive scholarship acquired under the greatest difficulties, his father having been a poor gardener. After his marriage he established himself as a schoolmaster in his native district of Netherdale. In 1734 he removed his school to Knaresborough, where in 1745 he became implicated in a robbery committed by Daniel Clark, a shoemaker of Knaresborough; and being discharged for want of evidence, he went to London. Clark disappeared mysteriously at the same time. Aram, while employed as school usher in various towns, and in an academy at Lynn in Norfolk, pursued his favorite studies, and was engaged in compiling a comparative lexicon of the English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Celtic languages, when he was arrested on the charge of murder. Aram's wife had frequently intimated that he and a man named Houseman were privy to the mystery of Clark's disappearance. Houseman, on being pressed by the coroner, testified that Aram and a man named Ferry were the murderers, and that the body had been buried in a particular part of St. Robert's cave, a well known spot near Knaresborough. A skeleton was discovered in the exact place indicated, and Houseman's evidence led to Aram's conviction.

Aram refused the services of counsel, and conducted his own defence in an elaborate and scholarly manner, making an ingenious plea of the general fallibility of circumstantial evidence, especially that connected with the discovery of human bones. After condemnation he acknowledged his guilt. On the night before the execution he attempted suicide, but was discovered before he had bled to death, and his sentence was carried into effect three days after it was pronounced. Before he attempted suicide he wrote an essay on the subject, and also a sketch of his life. Of his " Comparative Lexicon" only passages from the preface are extant. He left a widow and six children. A veil of poetry has been thrown over his fate by Thomas Hood's ballad of "The Dream of Eugene Aram," and Bulwer's romance of "Eugene Aram."