This page will tell you where to find resources for tracking down your ancestors who may have turned to crime to support their families or were caught and tried for more serious offences.
For information about the English legal system, please see the FTF Guide: The English Legal System and English Law
For information about your convict ancestors, please see the FTF Guide: Emigration and Immigration
For information about your policemen ancestors, please see the FTF Guide: The Police
FTF Online Magazine: February 2008 - Crime and Punishment
Trials and Court Records
- Famous Trials ~ Worldwide
- A Guide to Searching Assize Court Records
- Early 18th Century Crime Reports- Newspaper Extracts
- Some Early Law Reports for Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Sussex and Yorkshire
- Medieval Year Books 1290-1535
- Henry III Fine Rolls, 1216-1272
- Abstracts of Feet of Fines 1360-1509
- Calendars of Patent Rolls 1492-1547
- Important English Trials 1649-1895
- A True and Perfect Relation of the Proceedings at the Severall Arraignments of the Late Most Barbarous Traitors (1606)
London
- The Proceedings of The Old Bailey, London 1674 to 1913
- London Assize of Nuisance Records 1301-1431
- London Possessory Assizes 1340-1451
- The London Eyre of 1244
- The London Eyre of 1276
- 18th Century Hackney Petty Sessions Records
- The Court of Chivalry
- The Newgate Calendar
Regional
- Pleas at Bedford in the Fourth Year of the Reign of King John
- Chester - Quarter Sessions Records and Other Records of The Justices of The Peace Abstracts of Selected Documents 1528 - 1760
- Persons Tried at The Derbyshire Petty Sessions and Quarter Sessions 1770-1828.
- Devon Quarter Sesssion Records, Easter 1830
- A History of Crime and Punishment in Dundee
- Crime During The Reign of James I
- Kent Quarter Sessions Indices
- Feet of Fines - Lancashire, Lincoln and Sussex
- Prisoners Sentenced to Transportation from Lewes Assizes Between c1790 and c1850
- Lincolnshire Eyre 1202
- Middlesex Quarter Sessions 1550-1709
- The New Forest Verderers' Court
- Northamptonshire Eyre 1202
- Convicts Tried at Nottingham Borough Quarter Sessions Assizes -Details of Prisoners who were subsequently deported to Australia
- Pie Powder Courts in Southampton
- Southampton's Court Leet
- Staffordshire Eyre, 1203
- Shropshire Eyre 1203
- History of Crime and Detection in Shropshire
- Court Cases from the Swindon Advertiser 1844 & 1845- A CD to buy - a few extracts are on line
- Calendar of Wigan Borough Court Leet Rolls from 1686
- An index of Prisoners - York Assizes Between 1785 and 1851
- Court of Great Sessions in Wales from 1730 until 1830.
- Crime and Punishment in Powys
- Caernarfonshire Quarter Sessions Records 1546-1795
- History of the Courts in the Isle of Man
- English Witch Trials
- The Trial of the Lowestoft Witches
- Essex Witch Trials
- The Dunmow Flitch Trials Includes Successful Claimants from 1445
- Tracing London Convicts in Britain and Australia 1780-1925
Gaols and Prisons
- Black Sheep Ancestors
- Bedford Gaol in the 19th Century
- Chester Gaol, 1808-1816
- Executed Prisoners Derby Gaol 1756-1825
- A History of Durham Gaol
- Prisoners in Gloucestershire Gaols, 1850 & 1851
- Prisons in Herefordshire
- Convicts Held at Lancaster Castle
- A History of London Prisons
- Life Inside Newgate Prison, London
- HMP Parkhurst in 19th Century
- History of Ruthin Gaol
- Inmates of Dundee Jail in 1819
- Walton Gaol- Inmates and Staff, 1881
- Inmates of Warwick County Prison 1800 - 1900
Murder
Executions and Executioners
- The English Hangmen from 1850 to 1964
- Capital Punishments Executed at Strangeways, Manchester
- List Of Executions - England 1606 Onward
- Capital Punishment in the 18th & 19th Centuries
- Capital Punishment in the Commonwealth
- The Abolition of Hanging in Britain
- Timeline of Capital Punishment in Britain
- The History of Judicial Hanging in Britain.
- The Guillotine Headquarters
- Executions in Derbyshire 1556-1905
- The Halifax Gibbet
- 1800-1827 Public executions
- British Executions. This site details most criminal executions carried out in Britain between 1100 and 1964.
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