Victorian Court of Petty Sessions Records

A new record collection available on Ancestry includes images of the original records from the proceedings of Australian Courts of Petty Sessions between 1854 and 1922. 

The court registers in this collection typically have criminal, civil, and licensing cases mixed together, but the busiest courts may have recorded each type of case in separate registers. Entries in the court registers were typically organized chronologically and were handwritten, making some information difficult to read.

Records may include the following information:

• Name
• Court date
• Court city
• Names of children
• Place of residence
• Reason for appearance
• Result of appearance
  

The records were created by officials working for Courts of Petty Sessions in Victoria, Australia. The original documents are primary historical sources, and the information in them may not be available in other records. The original register books are housed at the Public Record Office Victoria in Melbourne.

The powers and jurisdiction of the Courts of Petty Sessions were established by a parliamentary act in 1832. These local courts were conducted by two or more justices hearing cases together and commonly making decisions without the input of a jury. The most common criminal cases heard in Petty Sessions were for theft, drunkenness, and disorderly or dishonest conduct. People also were charged with failure to show up for work or were accused of speaking to their employer in abusive language. Courts of Petty Sessions also handled civil cases and the issuance of licenses. However, in 1886, separate courts were established to process liquor licenses.

From minor criminal charges to cases of child neglect to accusations of drunk and disorderly conduct, this record set has been a gold mine of information about my ancestors.  Not only can these records be used to confirm that my ancestors appeared before a Court of Petty Sessions at a specific time and place, they also confirm where these people lived at the time of their court appearance gives me a location to search for land, church and government records. 

Don't forget that you can search the Ancestry database for free at any branch of Campaspe Libraries using our public access PCs or wifi through our subscription to Ancestry Library Edition.

Ironclad Sisterhood

The Ironclad Sisterhood has recently been launched by the Society of Australian Genealogists, based on the original research into the lives of convict women by society member Jess Hill. 

Jess Hill was a member and volunteer of the Society of Australian Genealogists from 1964 until her death in 1995. During her time at the Society, Miss Hill worked as a Honorary Library Research Assistant, helping others find ancestors, solve long-held mysteries, and uncover lost details about individuals across the ages. In 1970, she began to collect biographies of women convicts transported to Australia from 1788 to 1818.

She began this work in 1970 – an unusually early time to begin investigating convict ancestors, particularly women convicts. Miss Hill joined a small coterie of passionate Australian historians who demanded that women’s history be taken seriously, and women be understood as historical agents in their own right.

In 2021 Miss Hill’s work was rediscovered and the Ironclad Sisterhood project was launched with hopes to further Miss Hill’s research agenda and build a searchable database of convict women filled with biographical details pulled from multiple different sources.

So if you have female convicts in your family history, or simply want to know more about the lives of the women convicts who helped build the colony of Australia, check out the website and see what it has to offer.

New Record Set on FamilySearch

For those of you with Irish ancestors, you may be interested in a new collection of  prison records for Ireland from the 18th to 20th centuries which has been added to the FamilySearch website.

The new collection, which comprises 3,127,924 records, is a compilation of prison records from collections held in the National Archives of Ireland. It includes most surviving prison records from the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland. 

The records can contain the following information about individuals:

• Name
• Age
• Birthplace
• Name of prison
• Dates of admission and release
• Physical description
• Next of kin
• Details of crime and name of victim

Remember FamilySearch is a free resource for family history researchers.  To access you need to register with the website, then you have access to all their wonderful records.  To take a look and see what you can find.

British Court Records

During the course of our research there would be very few of us who have not found at least a couple of ancestors who ran afoul of the law and found themselves before the courts.   Many laws in England (and elsewhere) were set by the rich and landed in order to control and suppress the poor, to keep the rights and protect property of the wealthy and powerful.  By the 1800s over 200 crimes were punishable by death, usually by gallows.  Hanging crimes included things like murder, treason and piracy, but also crimes such as robbing a rabbit warren, cutting down trees, associating with gypsies and a number of other more petty crimes.

There was little understanding of, or sympathy for, the desperate social conditions which all but forced many of the poor to resort to crime in order to survive.  Criminality was seem as the result of bad blood or bad character, and punishment was set harshly as a deterrent to others.

The English justice system divided crimes into categories to be dealt with by a three-tiered criminal justice system. 

The Court of Petty Sessions 

This court was established around the 1730s because the more historic Quarter Sessions Courts were getting too busy and were meeting too infrequently.  They tried minor offences or misdemeanours such as minor theft and larceny, poaching, assault, drunkenness, vagrancy, bastardy examinations, and civil actions such as arbitration.
Courts of Petty Sessions were held when needed before a stipendiary magistrate or two or more justices of the peace who could summarily decide a case without needing to empanel a jury. Thus the cases themselves were known as summary offences.
Punishments meted out by these courts did not include death or transportation.

The Court of Quarter Sessions
These courts were called Quarter Sessions because they were held each quarter: around Epiphany (6 January - winter session); Lent/Easter (spring session); Midsummer (24 June – summer session); Michaelmas (29 September – autumn session).
They were held in each county before a 'bench' that consisted of at least two Justices of the Peace who were presided over by a chairman who sat with the empanelled jury.
Quarter Sessions Courts heard the more serious offences which required a jury and could not be disposed of 'summarily' by a magistrate. Offences that were punishable by death were usually sent to the higher Assize Courts.  The Prosecutor at the Quarter Sessions was often the victim of the crime, and if the victim didn’t have the time or money to pursue the case the perpetrator frequently got off.
The distinction between the Assize courts and the Quarter Session courts were blurry until 1842 when an Act consigned all death penalty and life imprisonment cases to the Assize Courts. 

The Court of Assizes
The Assize Courts tried more serious offences: felonies such as homicide, infanticide, serious theft, highway robbery, rape, forgery, counterfeiting, witchcraft.  Judges from the High Court travelled to the Assize Circuit Courts two or three times a year to hear the cases.
The Old Bailey, renamed the Central Criminal Court in 1834, was the trial court for most London crimes and was similar to an Assize Court.

Legislation and the Death Penalty

1823 - the Judgement of Death Act allowed judges to commute the death penalty except for the crimes of murder and treason.
1832 - the Punishment of Death Act eliminated execution as the punishment for two-thirds of what were once capital crimes including theft, forgery and counterfeiting.
1861 - the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts eliminated the death penalty for all crimes but murder, high treason, piracy with violence, and arson in the Royal Dockyards, although effectively “murder” became the only capital crime.
1868 saw the last public execution, as distaste for this 'spectator sport' grew.
1964 saw the last execution in England.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 11 - At The Courthouse

Thanks to the Corona virus outbreak I am a bit behind in my posts - I think everyone will forgive me.  For so many of us normal life has disappeared, and social distancing has suddenly become an essential part of my vocabulary.

So - the courthouse.  Records from the courts can be an extremely interesting and informative addition to your family history records.  Thefts, bankruptcies, divorces, and other charges - your ancestor may have been involved as defendant, witness or juror.  These records are supplemented by the newspaper reports as well.  Many newspapers reported local court proceedings, and in some cases your can find reports of the same case in different papers, sometimes with quite different slants on the events reported.

The newspaper excerpt below, reporting the divorce of my great grandfather James Nicholas Clark, appeared in court reports in the Brighton Southern Cross, the Oakleigh Leader and the Caulfield and Elsternwick Leader.  All three papers carried the exact same report - down to the last word.

Several databases now carry various court records, and some have even been digitised.  The Public Records Office of Victoria has in their online collection the Melbourne Supreme Court civil case records from 1841 to 1852, along with the Beechworth Court of Petty Sessions record books 1875-1878, cause list books 1875-1888 and Magistrates Court Registers 1888-1988.  They are also in the process of digitising inquests into deaths in the coronial records and have some prison registers available online.  Other court records can be accessed via their reading rooms.  Check your local state archive website to see what they have available from the courthouse.

Criminal Characters

Criminal Characters is a research project investigating the criminal careers and life histories of Australian offenders from the end of the convict period through to the Second World War, specifically from the 1850s through to 1940.

This site offers a number of resources for learning about the history of crime in Australia. You can also get hands-on experience of Australia’s criminal past by transcribing historical crime records, thereby helping to create a permanent and invaluable resource for future generations.

The project aims to bridge gaps between historical knowledge of crime and contemporary criminological research by providing insights into the contexts and patterns of offending across a period that saw significant legal and social developments, including mass migrations, changing technologies, war, economic depressions, the emergence of the narcotics traffic, and the evolution of new forms of punishment. 

If you are interested in the criminal history of Australia, in who committed crimes and why, and you have some time available to assist in transcribing records then this is a project that may interest you.

This project has been supported by a grant from the University of Technology Sydney through its Chancellors Postdoctoral Research Fellowship scheme and is being hosted by the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS.  The images for transcription have kindly been supplied by the Public Records Office Victoria.

1828 Census of New South Wales

Great news for those researching their early Australian family history.  The New South Wales State Archives have just announced they are in the process of digitising the 1828 Census of New South Wales, which will also be included in the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register.  Below is the statement put out by the Archives.

"We are thrilled that records of the 1828 Census of NSW which we hold as part of the State Archives Collection are to be inscribed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register. This is wonderful national and international recognition of the State Archives Collection and our work in preserving and making accessible the State’s archives.

The 1828 Census was the first official census undertaken by NSW after it was found the Governor had no authority to compel free men to come to a muster – the previous means of counting the colony’s population.

The Census covers some 36,500 inhabitants, both convict and free, and captures a social and economic picture of the Colony of NSW in November 1828, 40 years after the Colony’s establishment. It covers all settlements within the jurisdiction of the then colony of NSW including Moreton Bay and Norfolk Island.

It records such detailed information for each person (including children) as name, age, if free or convict, if born in the colony or ship and year of arrival, sentence if arrived as a convict, religion, employment, residence, district, total number of acres, acres cleared, acres cultivated, horses, horned cattle, sheep, and remarks.

The records to be inscribed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register include:

• Alphabetical Return, 1828 (NRS 1272)
• Householders’ Returns (NRS 1273)
• District Abstracts (NRS 1274)
• Working Papers (NRS 1275)
• Colonial Secretary’s Special Bundles: 1828 Census (NRS 906)

We are in the process of digitising this material which will be made available on our website in the coming weeks.

We will also be announcing some exciting plans for the 1828 Census that will allow more people than ever before to view the documents – stay tuned!"

Like many others, I'll be keeping an eye on the Archives website and looking forward to delving into the records as they become available.

The Old Bailey Online

The Old Bailey, also known as Justice Hall, the Sessions House, and the Central Criminal Court, was named after the street in which it was located, just off Newgate Street and next to Newgate Prison, in the western part of the City of London. Over the centuries the building has been periodically remodelled and rebuilt in ways which both reflected and influenced the changing ways trials were carried out and reported.

As the central criminal court for the City of London and the County of Middlesex, the Old Bailey was where all trials took place for serious crimes occurring in the London area north of the Thames. This includes all trials for felony (crimes which were, or had been at one time, punishable by death), and some of the most serious misdemeanours.

The general categories of crime type used in this project are modern ones, and were created in order to facilitate statistical analysis. Nonetheless, the specific categories follow, as much as possible, the precise descriptions of offences used in the original Proceedings, which in turn tend to repeat the language of the actual indictment on which the defendant was tried.

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online cover the period 1674-1913 and is a fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.

New Records Online at NSW State Archives

The New South Wales State Archives have uploaded another trache of records searchable free online.  The Index to Convicts Applications to Marry has added 2,686 additional names covering May 1833 to Dec 1837. This is the 4th volume in the series.

These registers record key details about the parties applying for permission to marry including: their names; their ages; the date of permission or refusal; ship of arrival; sentence (for the party who was the convict); whether free or bond and the name of the clergyman.

There are seven registers in the series, some of which have overlapping dates.  Four registers have been indexed, covering December 1825 to March 1841.  A further three registers, covering January 1831 to 26 February 1851, are still in the process of being indexed.

While the basic information listed above is free to view, a full copy of the record can also be ordered at a small cost.

Our Criminal Ancestors

Our Criminal Ancestors encourages people to explore the criminal past of their own families, communities, towns and regions.  The project not only focuses on those who committed crimes but includes the accused, victims, witnesses, prisoners, police, prison officers, solicitors and magistrates and others who worked in the criminal justice system.  The website aims to provide a useful starting point for anyone looking to explore their criminal ancestry, providing handy tips, advice and insights on the history of crime, policing and punishment as well as case studies and blogs to help in your research.
Our criminal ancestors were often ordinary people - most were minor offenders whose contact with the criminal justice system was a brief moment in their lives, and only a small minority were what we might term today ‘serious offenders’.  The project hopes to share a greater understanding of the sometimes difficult situations and context for understanding how or why individuals, and sometimes groups of people, encountering the criminal justice system.
The website looks for stories and events from between roughly 1700 and 1939 (lots of records are subject to closure of between 75-100 years).  The Our Criminal Ancestors project is led by principal investigator Dr Helen Johnston of the University of Hull and co-investigator Dr Heather Shore of Leeds Beckett University and launched its website in April.  The website organisers are also encouraging members of the public to get involved by sharing stories of their criminal ancestors via Historypin.

Ireland Police Gazettes, 1861-1893

Ancestry has added thousands of Irish police gazettes to its database.

The Irish Police Gazettes collection contains printed publications used for communication among members of the police force in Ireland between 1861 and 1893. It contains information on wanted criminals, crimes committed, criminals who had been apprehended, and missing persons.

The collection can be searched by:

• Name
• Birth year
• Publication year
• Event year
• Event location
• Event Type
• Role in Crime
• Conviction Place

You can also browse the collection by year and read the various articles and descriptions.

Gloucestershire Prison Records on Ancestry

Prison registers and mugshots from Gloucestershire has been made available online for the first time.
Released by Ancestry on Monday 20th June, the new Gloucestershire Prison Records provides details about individuals who found themselves in prison between 1728 and 1914 and comprises over 235,000 records.
Searchable by name, age, type, date and location of crime, the digitised prison registers cover several different gaols across the county, with many of the records from 1870 onwards accompanied by photographs.
Below is the record of seven-year-old Edgar Kilminster, complete with mugshot, who was arrested along with his brother for stealing sweetmeats.  As a result of his crime, Edgar – who was only 3ft 10in tall – was sentenced to seven days’ hard labour and given “12 strokes with the birch”.

Dublin Prisoner Records

Four volumes of historic Irish police records have been made available online for the first time. Digitised by University College Dublin, the Dublin Metropolitan Police Prisoners Books provide the names of people in the city who found themselves on the wrong side of the law between 1905-08 and 1911-18. The browsable records list the names, ages, addresses and occupations of those who were arrested, plus details of their alleged offence. In most cases, the handwritten entries also provide information about the outcome of the subsequent trial and punishment.

According to the University website, the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) Prisoners Books for 1905-1908 and 1911-1918 are amongst the most valuable new documents to come to light on the revolutionary decade. They include important information on social and political life in the capital during the last years of the Union, from the period of widespread anticipation of Home Rule, to the advent of the 1913 Lockout, the outbreak of the First World War, the Easter Rising and its aftermath, including the conscription crisis of 1918.

Tasmanian Records

FamilySearch.org has added a new collection of some 96,000 images of various Tasmanian genealogy records. This collection spans the years 1829 to 1961 and includes land records, school records, court records and occupation/guild records. Details on Australian convicts can be found buried in the court records. There are four types of convict records (tickets of leave, certificates of freedom, pardon and convict indents). The records are organized by location. Access to the collection is free.

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey 1674 to 1913

The Old Bailey was the central criminal court for England and Wales, located in central London. This court heard the most serious criminal cases for London and much of the rest of the country. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey website contains a great collection of detailed records from some 200,000 criminal cases spanning roughly 240 years. This collection has been slowly increasing over time. It is a great website to check if you want to know if you had any really interesting characters in your family tree - only the most hardened criminals ended up at the Old Bailey. Access is free.

Black Sheep Ancestors

The links on this site help you search for your criminal ancestors in free genealogical prison and convict records, historical court records, executions, insane asylum records and biographies of famous outlaws, criminals & pirates in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.  Go to their site at http://www.blacksheepancestors.com/

Prison Search

PrisonSearch contains links to searchable prisons sites in Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  Check out their site at
http://www.ancestorhunt.com/international-genealogy-prison-records.htm