The Newgate Calendar also known as the Malefactor’s Bloody Register was published between 1700 – 1850 it provides details of criminals and trials. I think the idea was that it should be used as an example of what happens if you broke the law, bet the criminals never read it!

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/completenewgate.htm

The National Library of Wales website offers the Crime and Punishment database comprises data about crimes, criminals and punishments included in the gaol files of the Court of Great Sessions in Wales from 1730 until its abolition in 1830. The Court could try all types of crimes, from petty thefts to high treason. In practice, most of the petty crimes were heard at the Courts of Quarter Sessions, whose records are held by the Welsh county record offices. Details about these records can be searched at Archives Network Wales. The records of the Court of Great Sessions do not include cases tried in Monmouthshire since that county formed part of the Oxford Assize circuit, whose records are held by the National Archives. There are, however, a number of cases of Monmouthshire interest on this database.

http://www.llgc.org.uk/sesiwn_fawr/index_s.htm

Records of prisoners incarcerated in Wandsworth Prison 1872 – 1873  including photographs, date of birth, crime, sentence, place of conviction and last address. Not all of our ancestors were upright and honest!!

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/prison.asp

Ancestry has put online the Criminal Registers 1791 – 1892. The originals are held at National Archives, Kew, London. The registers contain over a million names (many of whom seem to be ancestors of mine !!). This is the first major UK section of Ancestry’s World Archive Project. Start searching for your criminal ancestors now!

 www.ancestry.co.uk

Found this announcement on the Oxfordshire Record Office site…………………

Quarter Sessions, School Records, and Electoral Registers

Significant groups of these records have been microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, and negotiations are being finalized for the microfilms to be digitized and placed on the FamilySearch site, with a link from the Record Office website. GSU hope to be able to tackle this once the Wills Project has been established.

http://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk//Oxfordshire+Record+Office/

Ancestry latest offering online is the England & Wales Criminal Records 1791 – 1892. A valuable collection for those of us with criminal ancestors and that would probably include all of us. This data set is a great help in identifying family who were transported to Australia and settled there once their term of imprisonment was completed.

The Press release from Ancestry states…………………..

The England & Wales Criminal Registers, 1791-1892– taken from 279 original paper volumes held at The National Archivesin Kew – document trials and sentences for crimes ranging from petty theft and fraud to the use of bad language and scrumping (stealing apples from orchards).

Each register includes details of the crime, the full name and date of birth of the accused, the location of the trial and the judgment passed. During this period, almost two in three tried for their crimes received sentences of imprisonment and almost one in 10 were either transported overseas or sentenced to death.

In total, the England & Wales Criminal Registers, 1791-1892 documents:

     900,000 sentences of imprisonment – 65% of those who went to trial during this time ended up serving a prison sentence

     97,000 transportations – many criminals who received death sentences had their sentence commuted to transportation as judges became increasingly ‘lenient’

     10,300 executions – including a boy aged just 14.

The collection also documents the brutal period of English history infamously known as the ‘Bloody Code’ – so called due to the large number of crimes made punishable by death as the authorities sought to deter potential offenders.  Famous names in the collection include Jack the Ripper suspect Dr Neill Cream, the inept highwayman George Lyon and Queen Victoria’s ‘would be’ assassin Roderick McLean.

 www.ancestry.co.uk

A great website giving lots of background information about York Castle Prison and of interest to genealogists is the database of criminals who had spent time there. I understand that further databases are to be added in due course, amongst them will be insolvent debtors.

Worth a look even if you don’t have anyone who might have been an inmate.

 http://www.yorkcastleprison.org.uk/home.html