Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy (74 page)
Read Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy Online
Authors: Nick Barratt
Transportation arose in the seventeenth century as a humane alternative to capital punishment. It has already been touched upon in
Chapter 23
. Although the majority of records relating to transportation to North America and the West Indies were discussed, information for Australia concentrated on records for the physical transportation of convicts rather then actual criminal documents. The majority of these records are held in The National Archives. In the first instance it may be worthwhile consulting published works such as David T. Hawkings's
Criminal Ancestors
or
Bound for Australia
(Chichester, 1987), as they give transcriptions of many of the original sources containing information for transportation. Additionally, the CD-ROM compiled by the Genealogical Society of Victoria (see
Chapter 23
) may be worth checking as it contains an index to all convicts arriving to New South Wales between 1788 and 1842 (including the name of ship they were transported on, and therefore details of trial can be obtained).
â¢Â  The transportation registers can be found in The National Archives series HO 11. They cover the entire period of transportation to Australia, from 1787 to 1868. This series is organized by name of ship and the date the ship left. If you have already found your ancestor in the trial records, details of the ship may also be included, allowing you to access these records. Otherwise, as there are no indexes to the name of the convict, the search may be unfeasible.
â¢Â  It would not be uncommon for wives to wish to travel with their convicted husbands and they could petition the government for the right to do so. These surviving petitions can be found in The National Archives series PC 1/67â92 (1819 to 1844) and from 1849 in series HO 12 (accessed by using the registers in HO 14).
â¢Â  Series TS 18 contains records of contracts made with agents who transported the convicts. The series provides full lists of the ships used and names of convicts (along with trial details). Registers for hulks specifically carrying convicts can be found in HO 9, TS 8, ADM 6/418â23 and PCOM 2/105 and 131â7.
â¢Â  Death sentences were often commuted to transportation, sometimes after petitions of clemency were received by the government from the convict's loved ones. Some of these petitions also survive and can be accessed at The National Archives. They are often more useful than trial records for the family historian as they provide a great deal more detail of the convict, the circumstances around his or her crime and details about his or her family and occupation. They can be accessed in series HO 17 (1819 to 1839) and HO 18 (1839 to 1854), indexed by the registers in HO 19. HO 19 refers to petitions from 1797 onwards, although the actual petitions only survive from 1819 onwards. Further petitions can be found in HO 48, HO 49, HO 54 and HO 56 but there are no indexes available for easy access to these. Please note that these petitions were not solely for convicts but for all prisoners in general.
â¢Â  Another useful group of documents relating to criminal records is the judges' reports. They often contain unofficial summaries of evidence provided in cases, comments on the case and witnesses made by the judges, and petitions compiled by the accused's loved ones. They are also in The National Archives, in series HO 47 (1784 to 1829) and HO 6 (1816 to 1840).
The above is a brief summary of some collections held at The National Archives. A more thorough list can be found by consulting David T. Hawkings,
Criminal Ancestors: A guide to historical criminal records in England and Wales
(Alan Sutton, revised edn 1996).
Execution by various means was used as a punishment in the UK until its abolition in 1965. It was commonly used for many minor offences (forgery, pickpocketing, poaching and other forms of theft). Indeed, at its zenith over 200 crimes were punishable by death. Often juries would be unwilling to find defendants guilty as the punishment was so severe, which was the reason why transportation was seen as the âhumane' alternative.
The extensive use of capital punishment was reformed during the nineteenth century and by 1861 the Criminal Law Consolidations Act ensured that only five crimes would be punishable by death: murder, treason, espionage, arson in royal dockyards and piracy with violence. In 1868 the Prisons Act made public hangings illegal, and hanging itself was finally abolished in 1965.
Most records for capital punishment lie within the usual sets of criminal records. As people were often sentenced to death for murdering someone these trials would often attract the attention of the press and it is important to search local and national newspapers. Another published source that might be of use is an examination of people hanged for minor crimes in the eighteenth century in London â Peter Linebaugh's
The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century
. The book has accounts of many individuals hanged at Tyburn for committing minor crimes.
Another way of saving convicted prisoners from death was known as the âbenefit of the clergy' and was originally a privilege for clergy members not to be tried in civil courts but in ecclesiastical courts (where sentences were less severe). This privilege gradually extended to anyone who could recite Psalm 51, although âbenefit of the clergy' did not extend to many capital crimes. In 1827 it was abolished in its entirety
.
There are also some records specific to capital punishment at The National Archives.
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General records for those hanged in the nineteenth and twentieth century can be found in HO 163, MEPO 3 and PCOM 9.
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There is a small sample of files for those hanged in the twentieth century in HO 336 to display the type of information collated for such individuals.
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Details of how capital punishment was conducted can be viewed in PCOM 8, HO 42 and HO 45.
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HO 324 contains the records of prison graves, including a register of those buried after being hanged in HO 324/1 (1834 to 1969).
Scotland has always had its own legal system for both criminal and civil cases. Most surviving records can now be found at the National Archives of Scotland. The records have been listed in detail by Sinclair in
Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors: A guide to ancestry research in the Scottish Record Office
, and a summary is provided below.
The least serious crimes, such as drunkenness, debt and other minor offences, were usually tried in burgh or franchise courts or, after 1609, by Justices of the Peace. Sheriff courts were responsible for administering justice in offences such as theft or assault. Surviving records can be found in the National Archives of Scotland, under series SC (sheriff
court) and JP (Justice of the Peace). They begin in the eighteenth century but are not indexed and tracking a case may prove time consuming.
The highest court in the land was the High Court of Justiciary, established in 1672, which sat in Edinburgh and also travelled the country on circuit. The court dealt with the most serious offences (rape, robbery, murder) and also served as an appeal court with the authority to overrule the decisions of the minor courts. The surviving records include minute books, lists of cases and various indexes. There are also published guides which may be useful, such as
Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland, Compiled from the original records and mss; with historical illus
by Robert Pitcairn (1833), and
Records of the Proceedings of the Justiciary Court, Edinburgh, 1661â1678
, 2 vols, ed. W.G. Scott-Moncrieff (Scottish History Society, 1905).
Other sources that may prove useful include:
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Statements made to the Lord Advocate (known as âprecognitions') when deciding if an alleged crime should be tried. These are found in the National Archives of Scotland under reference AD.
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Registers of prisoners, mainly for the nineteenth century, are also at the National Archives of Scotland.
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All those who were executed in Scotland between 1750 and 1963 have been listed in a book by Alex Young,
The Encyclopaedia of Scottish Executions
. The illustrated book has biographies of all of the 464 individuals executed in Scotland during that period.
Suggestions for further reading:
â¢Â  Criminal Ancestors: A Guide to Historical Criminal Records in England and Wales
by David T. Hawkings (Alan Sutton, 1992, revised edn 1996)
â¢Â  Family Skeletons: Exploring the Lives of Our Disreputable Ancestors
by Ruth Paley and Simon Fowler (The National Archives, 2005)
â¢Â  Quarter Sessions Records for Family Historians
by Jeremy Gibson (1995)
â¢Â  A Guide to the Records of the Great Sessions in Wales
by Glynn Parry (Aberystwyth, 1995)
â¢Â  Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors: A guide to ancestry research in the Scottish Record Office
by Cecil Sinclair
â¢Â  Records of the General Eyre
by David Crook (Public Record Office Handbook No. 20, 1982)
Many legal records for Ireland were lost during the fire in the General Register Office in 1922. What little does survive can be found in the National Archives of Ireland. It has the surviving records for the Grand Jury Presentment sessions and the General Prison Board Collection (1836 to 1928). The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) has a significant collection of court records for Ulster.
As the survival of original records is limited, it is recommended that you consult published sources such as local and national newspapers. Another useful source is
The Irish Reports
by Butterworth Ireland Ltd, containing hundreds of volumes of reports of legal cases, starting in 1838. The National Library of Ireland has copies of the
Hue and Cry
(later renamed the
Police Gazette
), a weekly publication from 1822 listing all wanted criminals and escaped prisoners.
Social History: Working Further Back in Time
The majority of this book has shown you how to research aspects of your ancestors' lives generally through the nineteenth century, or at a stretch the late eighteenth â simply because this is the period of history when you can trace most of your ancestors with the greatest degree of success. However, it is possible to research further back in time, particularly if you have ancestors of a higher social status.
There are several good reasons for covering topics and associated record collections from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. First, the world we see around us is a product of the Industrial Revolution that grew in momentum as the century progressed, completely altering Britain's landscape, economy and way of life for most of its citizens in the process. Cities such as Manchester and Birmingham simply didn't exist in their current size and form prior to the mid-eighteenth century, when mechanized industry first saw the rise of factories, mass employment and urban expansion. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, port cities such as London and Bristol were the dominant centres of commerce, whilst even further back in time, when agriculture and the wool trade dominated the medieval economy, provincial centres and market towns were the prosperous places to be. For most of the time prior to the seventeenth century, Norwich was England's second city, drawing upon the fantastic wealth generated by the East Anglian wool trade. This is why there are so many large stone-built
churches in Norfolk and Suffolk serving tiny parishes; the riches of local merchants funded their construction.
â
There is a compelling desire to explore family histories further back in time
.'
Second, the population was far smaller prior to the massive expansion witnessed throughout the nineteenth century. Today, we live in a country of 60 million souls, with 49 million in England. In 1801, there were only 8.5 million people in England. Within a hundred years, however, this had increased to 30.5 million, rising on average by 2 million each decade. By way of contrast, the population on the eve of the Black Death in 1348 was 3.75 million. It had risen at the end of the Tudor period in 1603 to 5.8 million, a figure that didn't expand greatly over the next century or so. The population began to increase in the mid-eighteenth century, when the Empire brought trade, wealth and opportunity to Britain and fuelled the growth of provincial towns, particularly along the coast. The nineteenth-century expansion was due to new towns and cities rapidly growing, providing accommodation for families leaving the countryside to find regular work, with infant mortality gradually lessening over time to keep the population rising. Even more people arrived through some of the immigration patterns outlined in
Chapter 22
.
Closely linked to the Industrial Revolution and population expansion is the accompanying interest by the State in these events, which in turn generated a need to register, regulate and record. The main products of the Victorian obsession with statistics and paperwork have been described in Chapters 5 and 6 â civil registration and census returns â and these now form the bedrock of most people's family trees. Prior to these innovations, no central set of records exists that covers the entire population. Parish records provide a record of ecclesiastical events, but are not systematically kept, and the further back in time you go the sparser the information becomes. Furthermore, there are no complementary records for most sections of society that can be used to corroborate or flesh out details. Wills, as detailed in
Chapter 8
, were the preserve of the wealthier classes who had goods and possessions to pass on; the majority of the population were not of sufficient status to bother with or need wills.
People often assume that they can trace their ancestors back to the Norman Conquest, and their Holy Grail is to find a relative in the Domesday Book. Whilst there are a few families that have a legitimate claim, borne out by proof, that they came over to this country with William the Conqueror, most of the time there are large gaps in the family tree. For the majority of us, it simply isn't going to be possible to collect enough evidence, even though we clearly have a link to
someone
who was alive at that time, otherwise we wouldn't be here! The moral of the story is that you'll need to have some fairly realistic expectations before you start; it can be tricky enough proving a link between generations in the early to mid-nineteenth century, when census records stop being useful and civil registration was a new innovation that many people treated suspiciously. Furthermore, you'll encounter problems with the evidence that you do collect. To help you navigate further back in time, here are some useful research tips and pointers:
