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The Old Bailey Proceedings and the Representation of Crime and Criminal Justice in Eighteenth-Century London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Robert B. Shoemaker
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 559 - 580
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2008

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References

1 Both because “Proceedings” is a short title of the actual publication and to avoid confusion with the manuscript sessions papers (depositions, examinations, etc.), this article uses the term “Proceedings” instead of “Sessions Papers,” except when quoting from other sources. George, M. Dorothy, London Life in the Eighteenth Century (1925; 2nd ed., London, 1966)Google Scholar. In addition to the works cited below, some of the more recent studies that make substantial use of the Proceedings include Henderson, Tony, Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London: Prostitution and Control in the Metropolis, 1730–1830 (London, 1999)Google Scholar; Voth, Hans-Joachim, Time and Work in England, 1750–1830 (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar; and Rabin, Dana, Identity, Crime and Legal Responsibility in Eighteenth-Century England (Houndmills, 2004)Google Scholar.

2 The literature on this subject is now enormous, but the most important works in this context are Beattie, J. M., Crime and the Courts in England, 1660–1800 (Princeton, NJ, 1986)Google Scholar, and Policing and Punishment in London, 1660–1750: Urban Crime and the Limits of Terror (Oxford, 2001); Linebaugh, Peter, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1991)Google Scholar; Reynolds, Elaine A., Before the Bobbies: The Night Watch and Police Reform in Metropolitan London, 1720–1830 (Stanford, CA, 1998)Google Scholar; and Langbein, John H., The Origins of Adversary Criminal Trial (Oxford, 2003)Google Scholar.

3 For a recent study adopting this approach, see Palk, Deirdre, Gender, Crime and Judicial Discretion, 1780–1830 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2006)Google Scholar.

4 The Old Bailey Proceedings Online (hereafter OBP); http://www.oldbaileyonline.org. First launched in 2003 with the trials from 1714 to 1759, this Web site now includes the full run of published trials from 1674 to 1913.

5 Langbein, Adversary Criminal Trial, 185.

6 Johnson, Samuel, An Account of the Life of Mr Richard Savage (London, 1744), 41Google Scholar; OBP (http://www.oldbaileyonline.org, consulted 27 October 2006), December 1717, Richard Savage, James Gregory, and William Merchant (t17271206-24).

7 Langbein, Adversary Criminal Trial, 185, and “Shaping the Eighteenth-Century Criminal Trial: A View from the Ryder Sources,” University of Chicago Law Review 50, no. 1 (Winter 1983): 1–136, 25.

8 Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, “The Value of the Proceedings as a Historical Source,” OBP; Magnus Huber, “The Old Bailey Proceedings, 1674–1834: Evaluating and Annotating a Corpus of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Spoken English,” in Annotating Variation and Change, ed. Anneli Meurman-Solin and Arja Nurmi, eVARIENG: Studies in Variation, Contact and Change in English, vol. 1 (Helsinki, 2007), http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/journal/volumes/01.

9 Bell, Ian, Literature and Crime in Augustan England (London, 1991), 73Google Scholar.

10 Middlesex Journal, and Evening Advertiser, 16–18 November 1775.

11 Journal of the Court of Common Council, vol. 66, fol., 271v (17 November 1775), London Metropolitan Archives (LMA).

12 Journal of the Committee for City Lands, vol. 70, fol., 142v (13 November 1778), LMA; Simon Devereaux, “The Fall of the Sessions Paper: The Criminal Trial and the Popular Press in Late Eighteenth-Century London,” Criminal Justice History 18 (2002): 58, and “The City and the Sessions Paper: 'Public Justice' in London, 1770–1800,” Journal of British Studies 35, no. 4 (October 1996): 467–68; Langbein, Adversary Criminal Trial, 188.

13 Andrew, Donna and McGowen, Randall, The Perreaus and Mrs Rudd: Forgery and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century London (Berkeley, 2001), chap. 7Google Scholar; Devereaux, “The City and the Sessions Paper,” 485–88.

14 Devereaux, “The City and the Sessions Paper.”

15 A list of separately printed trial accounts is provided in British Trials, 1660–1900: The Guide to the Microfiche Edition (Cambridge, 1998). The OBP also provides evidence of “associated records” linked to the trials. All available additional trial accounts have been consulted.

16 As James Oldham has demonstrated, newspapers also provide detailed accounts of some trials. However, it was only after 1775 that they stopped relying primarily on the Proceedings as the source of their reports (James Oldham, “Law Reporting in the London Newspapers, 1756–86,” American Journal of Legal History 31, no. 3 [July 1987]: 177–206; Devereaux, Simon, “From Sessions to Newspaper? Criminal Trial Reporting, the Nature of Crime, and the London Press, 1770–1800,” London Journal 32, no. 1 [March 2007]: 3–6)Google Scholar.

17 Harris, Michael, “Trials and Criminal Biographies: A Case Study in Distribution,” in Sale and Distribution of Books from 1700, ed. Robin Myers and Michael Harris (Oxford, 1982), 10Google Scholar.

18 The printers included Benjamin Motte, J. Humphreys, George James, J. Read, John Wilford, Thomas Cooper and his widow Mary, George Kearsley, John Wilkie, and Joseph Gurney. For information on all these printers, see Plomer, Henry R., A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers Who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1688 to 1725 (Oxford, 1922)Google Scholar; and Plomer, Henry R., Bushnell, George H., and Dix, E. R. McC., A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers Who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1726 to 1775 (Oxford, 1932)Google Scholar.

19 OBP, July 1749, advertisement (a17490705-1).

20 Harris, “Trials and Criminal Biographies,” 11–12.

21 Beattie, Policing and Punishment, 374; Andrea McKenzie, “Lives of the Most Notorious Criminals: Popular Literature of Crime in England, 1675–1775” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1999), 236ff.

22 Guthrie, James, The Ordinary of Newgate, his Account of the Behaviour, Confession, and Dying Words of the Malefactors, who were Executed at Tyburn (London, March 1732), 17Google Scholar.

23 OBP, June 1778, advertisement (a17780603-1); The Whole Proceedings of the King's Commission of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery for the City of London … on Wednesday the 9th of December, 1778 (London, 1778), 40.

24 OBP, July 1727, John Hutton (t17270705-14).

25 OBP, December 1729, publisher's announcement (f17291203-1); April 1742, Robert Rhodes (t17420428-33).

26 OBP, June 1728, Francis Clifton (t17280605-57); Repertories of the Court of Aldermen, vol. 171, 10 February 1767, LMA.

27 OBP, April 1725, Susan Grimes (t17250407-66); Repertories, vol. 129, 368, 376–77 (29 September and 7 October 1725), LMA; Harris, “Trials and Criminal Biographies,” 10.

28 This conclusion is based on a comparison of trials reported in the Select Trials with accounts of the same trials in the Proceedings, where some of the more lurid details were omitted (Select Trials for Murder, Robbery, &c. at the Sessions House in the Old-Bailey from 1720, 4 vols. [London, 1742], vol. 2).

29 Langbein, “Shaping the Eighteenth-Century Criminal Trial,” 17–18; Devereaux, “The City and the Sessions Paper,” 471ff.

30 McKenzie, “Lives of the Most Notorious Criminals,” 242–48.

31 OBP, December 1729, advertisements (a17291203-1).

32 OBP, July 1727, Hutton.

33 Select Trials, preface, i.

34 OBP, July 1742, publisher's note (o17420714-2).

35 The Trial of Elizabeth Canning, Spinster, for Wilful and Corrupt Perjury (London, 1754), preface, 20, 104 (emphasis added). See also Gurney's testimony about his note-taking methods in OBP, January 1758, Moses Henericus (t17580113-30), and May 1756, Charles Frederick Wirsanthall (t17560528-45).

36 OBP, September 1742, Thomas Griffiths (t17420909-10).

37 Compare OBP, December 1750, William Baker (t17501205-75) with The Trial of William Baker, Sugar Baker, 2nd ed. (London, 1751).

38 The Life of William Hawke, the Celebrated Highwayman, 2nd ed. (London, 1774), 19; A Genuine Account of the Life, Robberies, Trial and Execution of William Hawke (London, 1774), 24–25.

39 OBP, January sessions of 1720, 1730, 1740, 1750, 1760, and 1770. Acquittals owing to the fact that the prosecutor was not present or no evidence was given and trials where the defendant pleaded guilty are not included in these calculations.

40 Langbein, “Shaping the Eighteenth-Century Criminal Trial,” 24.

41 OBP, April 1726, Katharine Hays [Catherine Hayes] (t17260420-42); Select Trials, 3:14.

42 OBP, August 1723, Humphrey Anger [Angier] (t17230828-69); Select Trials, 2:1–4.

43 OBP, January 1725, Benjamin Goddard, Richard Rustead (t17250115-65); Select Trials, 2:181.

44 Broderick, Isaac, An Appeal to the Public ([London], 1731), 29–31, 40; OBP, May 1730, Isaac Broderick (t17300513-27)Google Scholar.

45 Lawyers’ notes (written on the back of the brief they prepared for the trials) concerning the testimony of defence witnesses Thomas Riley and Dennis Donovan, The National Archives: Public Record Office (TNA: PRO), TS 11/818/2696; OBP, October 1769, John D’Oyle [sic] and John Valline (t17691018-22).

46 OBP, February 1750, Ordinary's Account (oa17500207), and December 1749, Edward Dempsey and Patrick Dempsey (t17491209-21); McKenzie, Andrea, “From True Confessions to True Reporting? The Decline and Fall of the Ordinary's Account,” London Journal 30, no. 1 (2005): 58–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Langbein, Adversary Criminal Trial, 52. I am grateful to David Miers of the University of Cardiff for the point about defendant testimony.

48 OBP, April 1726, Thomas Wright (t17260420-67); Select Trials, 2:367.

49 OBP, December 1750, Baker; Trial of William Baker, 15–16.

50 Purney, Thomas, The Ordinary of Newgate, His Account (London, May 1722), 3–4Google Scholar.

51 The Life, Trial, etc. of William Hawke, the Notorious Highwayman (London, 1774), 23–24.

52 Langbein, Adversary Criminal Trial; Beattie, J. M., “Scales of Justice: Defence Counsel and the English Criminal Trial in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” Law and History Review 9, no. 2 (Autumn 1991): 221–67Google Scholar; Landsman, Stephen, “The Rise of the Contentious Spirit: Adversary Procedure in Eighteenth-Century England,” Cornell Law Review 75, no. 3 (March 1990): 498–609Google Scholar.

53 Langbein, Adversary Criminal Trial, 185–87, and “Shaping the Eighteenth-Century Criminal Trial,” 21–26.

54 Trial of Capt. Edward Clark (London, 1750), 18.

55 See also OBP, July 1759, Samuel Scrimshaw and John Ross (t17590717-1).

56 Select Trials, 3:13; OBP, April 1726, Hays [Hayes].

57 The Trial of William Baker, 13; OBP, December 1750, Baker.

58 See also Langbein, “Shaping the Eighteenth-Century Criminal Trial,” 21–23.

59 Langbein, Adversary Criminal Trial, 187.

60 Langbein, Adversary Criminal Trial, 323–24; Green, Thomas A., Verdict according to Conscience: Perspectives on the English Criminal Jury, 1200–1800 (Chicago, 1985), 236–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Some Observations on the Trial of Mr Thomas Carr (London, 1737), 5–6; OBP, October 1737, Thomas Car [Carr] and Elizabeth Adams (t17371012-3).

62 Langbein, Adversary Criminal Trial, 188.

63 A Full and Circumstantial Account of the Trial of the Rev. Doctor Dodd (London, [1777]), 32–41, 55; OBP, February 1777, William Dodd (t17770219-1).

64 Tyburn's Worthies, or the Robberies and Enterprizes of John Hawkins and George Simpson (London, [1722]), 23; The Malefactor's Register, 5 vols. (London, [1779]), 1:293; OBP, May 1722, John Hawkins and George Simpson (t17220510-3).

65 OBP, October 1725, Foster Snow (t17251013-25), and December 1725 (o17251208-1).

66 Langbein, Adversary Criminal Trial, 143–44, 190–96. For an example of this practice, see the footnotes to the testimony of Gilbert Campbell and Julian Brown in OBP, July 1735, Thomas Gray alias MacCray alias MacCreagh (t17350702-22).

67 Moore, Joseph, The Ordinary of Newgate's Account of the Behaviour, Confession and Dying Words of Elizabeth Brownrigg (London, 1767), 6Google Scholar; OBP, September 1767, James Brownrigg, Elizabeth his wife, and John their son (t17670909-1).

68 Raven, James, “New Reading Histories, Print Culture and the Identification of Change: The Case of Eighteenth-Century England,” Social History 23, no. 3 (October 1998): 268–87Google Scholar; Jackson, Ian, “Approaches to the History of Readers and Reading in Eighteenth-Century Britain,” Historical Journal 47, no. 4 (December 2004): 1041–54Google Scholar. For an analysis of the readers of erotica, see Harvey, Karen, Reading Sex in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 2004)Google Scholar, chap. 1. For the varied reading practices adopted by individual readers, see Brewer, John, “Reconstructing the Reader: Prescriptions, Texts, and Strategies in Anna Larpent's Reading,” in The Practice and Representation of Reading in England, ed. James Raven, Helen Small, and Naomi Tadmor (Cambridge, 1996), 226–45Google Scholar; and DeMaria, Robert Jr., Samuel Johnson and the Life of Reading (Baltimore, 1997)Google Scholar.

69 Select Trials for Murders, Robberies, Rapes … at the Sessions-House in the Old-Bailey, 2 vols. (London, 1734–35), 1:341.

70 OBP, January 1759, Sarah Young alias Cayton (t17590117-10).

71 OBP, September 1774, William Norbury and John Viner (t17740907-1).

72 OBP, September 1742, Mary Crosby (t17420909-17).

73 Alfred Spencer, ed., Memoirs of William Hickey, 4 vols. (London, 1913–25), 1:313–14; OBP, July 1772, Robert Jones (t17720715-22).

74 Moore, Judith, The Appearance of Truth: The Story of Elizabeth Canning and Eighteenth-Century Narrative (Newark, 1994), chap. 4Google Scholar.

75 See, e.g., The Arguments on Both Sides the Question in the Intricate Affair of Elizabeth Canning ([London], 1753).

76 A Collection of Several Papers Relating to Elizabeth Canning (London, 1754), 3; OBP, April 1754, Elizabeth Canning (t17540424-60); Trial of Elizabeth Canning.

77 The Life of Mr John Stanley (London, 1723), vi.

78 OBP, October 1738, Thomas Crosswhite (o17381011-1). See also the note to OBP, February 1742, Robert Rhodes (t17420428-33).

79 Broderick, Appeal to the Public, 30.

80 A Short View of the Defence, etc. Relative to the Supposed Murder of Miss Bell at Haddock's Bagnio [London, 1761], 2.

81 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 35 (1765), 475; vol. 36 (1766), 82; vol. 37 (1767), 515.

82 OBP, July 1771, Henry Stroud, Robert Cambell, Anstis Horsford (t17710703-59).

83 Gentleman's Magazine, 45 (1775), 605. For similar complaints, see also Public Advertiser, 21 January 1778, 2.

84 [de Muralt, Béat-Louis], Letters Describing the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations … Translated from the French (London, 1726), 72Google Scholar.

85 Jackson, “Approaches to the History of Readers and Reading,” 1053.

86 [Richardson, Samuel], The Apprentice's Vade Mecum: Or, Young Man's Pocket-Companion, ed. Alan D. McKillop (London, 1734; Augustan Reprint Society, vols. 169–70, Los Angeles, 1975), 9, 33Google Scholar.

87 A Genuine Account of the Life, Robberies, Trial and Execution of William Cox (London, 1773), 22; The Genuine Life of William Cox (London, 1773), 2.

88 Devereaux, “The City and the Sessions Paper,” 490–93.

89 Gladfelder, Hal, Criminality and Narrative in Eighteenth-Century England (Baltimore, 2001), 71Google Scholar.

90 McKenzie, Andrea, “Making Crime Pay: Motives, Marketing Strategies, and the Printed Literature of Crime in England, 1670–1770,” in Criminal Justice in the Old World and the New: Essays in Honour of J.M. Beattie, ed. Greg T. Smith, Allyson N. May, and Simon Devereaux (Toronto, 1998), 267Google Scholar.

91 Uglow, Jennifer, Hogarth: A Life and a World (London, 1997)Google Scholar; Hallett, Mark, The Spectacle of Difference: Graphic Satire in the Age of Hogarth (London, 1999)Google Scholar.

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93 Faller, Lincoln B., Turned to Account: The Forms and Functions of Criminal Biography in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar; McKenzie, “Making Crime Pay,” 266; Andrea McKenzie, “Martyrs in Low Life? Dying ‘Game’ in Augustan England,” Journal of British Studies 42, no. 2 (April 2003): 167–205. See also Peter Linebaugh, “The Ordinary of Newgate and His Account,” in Crime in England, 1550–1800, ed. J. S. Cockburn (London, 1977), 246–69; Rawlings, Philip, Drunks, Whores and Idle Apprentices: Criminal Biographies of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1992)Google Scholar; McKenzie, Andrea, “God's Tribunal: Guilt, Innocence and Execution in England, 1675–1775,” Cultural and Social History 3, no. 2 (April 2006): 1–24Google Scholar, and Tyburn's Martyrs: Execution in England, 1675–1775 (London, 2007); Shoemaker, Robert B., “The Street Robber and the Gentleman Highwayman: Changing Representations and Perceptions of Robbery in London, 1690–1800,” Cultural and Social History 3, no. 4 (October 2006): 381–405Google Scholar.

94 Devereaux, “The Fall of the Sessions Paper”; McKenzie, “The Decline and Fall of the Ordinary's Account”; Shoemaker, “The Street Robber and the Gentleman Highwayman,” 402–3; Devereaux, “From Sessions to Newspaper?” 11–12.

95 Faller, Lincoln B., Crime and Defoe: A New Kind of Writing (Cambridge, 1993), 26–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

96 Bell, Literature and Crime in Augustan England, 73.