The Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street on which it stands, is a court in London and one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court. Part of the present building stands on the site of the medieval Newgate gaol, on a road named Old Bailey that follows the line of the City of London's fortified wall (or bailey), which runs from Ludgate Hill to the junction of Newgate Street and Holborn Viaduct. The Old Bailey has been housed in several structures near this location since the 16th century, and its present building dates from 1902.
The Crown Court sitting at the Central Criminal Court deals with major criminal cases from within Greater London and in exceptional cases, from other parts of England and Wales. Trials at the Old Bailey, as at other courts, are open to the public; however, they are subject to stringent security procedures.
The court originated as the sessions house of the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of the City of London and of Middlesex. The original medieval court was first mentioned in 1585; it was next to the older Newgate gaol, and seems to have grown out of the endowment to improve the gaol and rooms for the Sheriffs, made possible by a gift from Richard Whittington. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and rebuilt in 1674, with the court open to the weather to prevent the spread of disease.
In 1734 it was refronted, enclosing the court and reducing the influence of spectators: this led to outbreaks of typhus, notably in 1750 when 60 people died, including the Lord Mayor and two judges. It was rebuilt again in 1774 and a second courtroom was added in 1824. Over 100,000 criminal trials were carried out at the Old Bailey between 1674 and 1834.
In 1834, it was renamed as the Central Criminal Court and its jurisdiction extended beyond that of London and Middlesex to the whole of the English jurisdiction for trials of major cases. Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service manages the courts and administers the trials but the building itself is owned by the City of London Corporation, which finances the building, the running of it, the staff and the maintenance out of their own resources.
The court was originally intended as the site where only criminals accused of crimes committed in the City and Middlesex were tried. However, in 1856, there was public revulsion at the accusations against the doctor William Palmer that he was a poisoner and murderer. This led to fears that he could not receive a fair trial in his native Staffordshire. The Central Criminal Court Act 1856 was passed to enable his trial to be held at the Old Bailey.
In the 19th century, the Old Bailey was a courtroom adjacent to Newgate gaol. Hangings were a public spectacle in the street outside until May 1868. The condemned would be led along Dead Man's Walk between the prison and the court, and many were buried in the walk itself. Large, riotous crowds would gather and pelt the condemned with rotten fruit and vegetables and stones. In 1807, 28 people were crushed to death after a pie-seller's stall overturned. A secret tunnel was subsequently created between the prison and St Sepulchre's church opposite, to allow the chaplain to minister to the condemned man without having to force his way through the crowds.
The present Old Bailey building dates from 1902 but it was officially opened on 27 February 1907. It was designed by E. W. Mountford and built on the site of the infamous Newgate gaol, which was demolished to allow the court buildings to be constructed. Above the main entrance is inscribed the admonition: "Defend the Children of the Poor & Punish the Wrongdoer". King Edward VII opened the courthouse.
On the dome above the court stands a bronze statue of Lady Justice, executed by the British sculptor F. W. Pomeroy. She holds a sword in her right hand and the scales of justice in her left. The statue is popularly supposed to show blind Justice, however, the figure is not blindfolded: the courthouse brochures explain that this is because Lady Justice was originally not blindfolded, and because her "maidenly form" is supposed to guarantee her impartiality which renders the blindfold redundant.
During the Blitz of World War II, the Old Bailey was bombed and severely damaged, but subsequent reconstruction work restored most of it in the early 1950s. In 1952, the restored interior of the Grand Hall of the Central Criminal Court was once again open. The interior of the Great Hall (underneath the dome) is decorated with paintings commemorating the Blitz, as well as quasi-historical scenes of St Paul's Cathedral with nobles outside. Running around the entire hall are a series of axioms, some of biblical reference. They read:
"The law of the wise is a fountain of life"
"The welfare of the people is supreme"
"Right lives by law and law subsists by power"
"Poise the cause in justice's equal scales"
"Moses gave unto the people the laws of God"
"London shall have all its ancient rights"
The Great Hall, and the floor beneath it, are also decorated with many busts and statues, chiefly of British monarchs, but also of legal figures, and those who achieved renown by campaigning for improvement in prison conditions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This part of the building also houses the shorthand-writers' offices.
The lower level also hosts a minor exhibition on the history of the Old Bailey and Newgate featuring historical prison artefacts. In 1973, the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA exploded a car bomb in the street outside the courts, killing one and injuring 200 people. A shard of glass is preserved as a reminder, embedded in the wall at the top of the main stairs.
Between 1968 and 1972, a new South Block, designed by the architects Donald McMorran and George Whitby, was built to accommodate more modern courts. There are presently 18 courts in use. Court 19 is now used variously as a press overflow facility, as a registration room for first-day jurors or as a holding area for serving jurors.
The original ceremonial gates to the 1907 part of the building are only used by the Lord Mayor and visiting royalty. The general entrance to the building is a few yards down the road in the South Block and is often featured as a backdrop in television news reports. There is also a separate rear entrance, not open to the public, which permits more discreet access. In Warwick Square, on the western side of the complex, is the "Lord Mayor's Entrance". A remnant of the city wall is preserved in the basement beneath the cells. The court manager is known by the title of the Secondary of the City of London. As of 2012, the Secondary is Charles Henty.
All judges sitting in the Old Bailey are addressed as "My Lord" or "My Lady" whether they are High Court, Circuit Judges or Recorders. The Lord Mayor and aldermen of the City of London are entitled to sit on the judges' bench during a hearing but do not participate in hearings. By tradition the judge sits slightly off-centre in case the Lord Mayor decides to come in, if he did he would take the center chair.
The most senior permanent judge of the Central Criminal Court has the title of Recorder of London, and his deputy has the title of Common Serjeant of London. The position of "Recorder of London" is distinct from that of a recorder, which is a part-time judicial office, holders of which sit part-time as judges of the Crown or county courts. Some of the most senior criminal lawyers in the country sit as recorders in the Central Criminal Court.
As of 2015 the Recorder of London is Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, MA, who took over as the Recorder of London on the retirement of Judge Brian Barker who took over on the retirement of Judge Peter Beaumont CBE QC, appointed in December 2004 following the death of his predecessor, Judge Michael Hyam. From 1975 to 1990 the very outspoken Sir James Miskin served as the Recorder of London with a number of controversial cases coming before him.
The court house originated as part of the City of London's borough judicial system, and it remains so. The Recorder and the Common Serjeant are both City officers, and the Recorder is a member of the Common Council because he is also a member of the Court of Aldermen. The City's Sheriffs and the Lord Mayor are justices there, but their jurisdiction is now nominal. The Sheriffs are resident with the senior judges in the complex. In Court Number 1, there are several benches set aside for the committee of the Bridge House Estates, which is the actual owner of the building.
Throughout the period 1674 to 1829 many victims of crime were able to identify and apprehend the culprits before contacting a constable or a justice of the peace to secure their arrest. Those who witnessed a felony were legally obliged to apprehend those responsible for the crime, and to notify a constable or justice of the peace if they heard that a crime had taken place. Moreover, if summoned by a constable to join the "hue and cry", inhabitants were required to join in the pursuit of any suspected felon.
Although these legal obligations were rarely enforced, Londoners continued to help apprehend suspected criminals. As the Proceedings frequently illustrate, cries of "stop thief!" or "murder!" from victims often successfully elicited the assistance of passers-by. This sense of individual responsibility for law enforcement was eroded over the eighteenth century, however, as increasing numbers of men were paid to carry out this task. For example, victims frequently paid thief-takers to locate and apprehend suspects. Moreover, the difficulties the authorities had in identifying and apprehending criminals led them to offer rewards to those whose arrests led to the conviction of serious criminals, and pardons to accomplices who were willing to turn in their confederates. Increasingly, ordinary Londoners left the task of securing criminals to people who were motivated to do so by the prospect of financial or other rewards.
Constables were required to apprehend anyone accused of a felony, and bring them before a justice of the peace. They also had a general responsibility to keep the peace, but there was no expectation that they should investigate or prosecute crimes. Night watchmen patrolled the streets between 9 or 10 pm until sunrise, and were expected to examine all suspicious characters. In the City of London, daytime patrols were conducted by the City Marshall and the beadles. Like the night watch, their primary responsibilities were to apprehend minor offenders and to act as a deterrent against more serious offences. Over the course of the eighteenth century, however, the arrangements by which men served as constables and watchmen changed significantly, in ways which altered how felons were detected and apprehended.
Traditionally, householders served in the office of constable by appointment or rotation. During their year of office they performed their duties part-time alongside their normal employment. Similarly, householders were expected to serve by rotation on the nightly watch. From the late seventeenth century, however, many householders avoided these obligations by hiring deputies to serve in their place. As this practice increased, some men were able to make a living out of acting as deputy constables or as paid night watchmen. In the case of the watch, this procedure was formalised in many parts of London by the passage of "Watch Acts", which replaced householders' duty of service by a tax levied specifically for the purpose of hiring full-time watchmen. Some voluntary prosecution societies also hired men to patrol their areas.
The advent of salaried constables and watchmen meant that several characteristics of a modern police force were already present in eighteenth-century London. The streets were regularly patrolled by men whose job it was to prevent crime and arrest suspects. These men walked regular beats, and some wore uniforms. The evidence from the Proceedings suggests that men employed in these roles increasingly spoke self-consciously in terms of their “duty”. While they were more experienced than the part-time householders they replaced, because they were low paid and the job was of a low status, they were not necessarily more respected or more effective. Indeed, there were concerns that some paid watchmen and constables developed too close a relationship with the underworld they were supposed to police, and many believed that such officers were corrupt. This was especially true of those officers who became, or were linked to, the practice of thief-taking.
Concern about high levels of crime in London in the late seventeenth century led the government to adopt the practice of offering substantial rewards for apprehending and convicting those guilty of specific serious crimes, such as highway robbery and coining. This practice expanded in the eighteenth century, and was supplemented by individual victims of crime who offered rewards for the return of their stolen goods. Both practices were facilitated by the development of daily newspapers in the early eighteenth century, which allowed information about such rewards to be widely advertised. The introduction of these financial rewards fundamentally altered the character of criminal justice in the metropolis.
Thief-takers used their knowledge of the criminal underworld to profit from both types of rewards. They negotiated between thieves and the victims of thefts to return stolen goods in exchange for a fee. They also occasionally used their insider knowledge to inform on criminals and prosecute them at the Old Bailey in order to collect the substantial rewards offered by the state. This second activity arguably facilitated the administration of criminal justice, but the more corrupt thief-takers went further: they blackmailed criminals with threats of prosecution if they failed to pay protection money. Some even became "thief-makers" by encouraging gullible men to commit crimes, and then apprehending and prosecuting them in order to collect the reward. Such practices illustrate the point that not all "crimes" prosecuted at the Old Bailey had actually taken place; some prosecutions were malicious.
The man who most thoroughly developed all aspects of the thief-taker's trade was Jonathan Wild, the self-styled "Thief-taker General of England and Ireland", who dominated London's criminal underworld in the early 1720s. Wild was eventually tried and convicted at the Old Bailey for receiving stolen goods and hanged in 1725. Many other prosecutors and witnesses in the Proceedings were also thief-takers, though they were rarely identified as such, except by defendants trying to discredit the case being made against them.
Despite the bad publicity surrounding Wild's activities, and those of the McDaniel gang at mid-century, the authorities continued to offer rewards and encourage the legitimate side of thief-taking. Without such rewards and the activities of the thief-takers apprehending criminals would have been much more difficult.
In order to encourage victims to report crimes, magistrates in both the City of London and Middlesex established "rotation offices" in the 1730s where Londoners could be certain of finding a magistrate at fixed hours. One of these rotation offices was set up in Bow Street, near Covent Garden, by Sir Thomas De Veil in 1739. This was taken over by Henry and John Fielding in 1748 shortly after De Veil’s death. The Fieldings introduced a new practice by hiring thief-takers on a retainer who, when a crime was reported, were sent out by the magistrates to detect and apprehend the culprit. They became known as the “Bow Street Runners”, though the men themselves preferred their official title of “Principal Officer” of Bow Street. These men, such as John Sayer and John Townsend, acquired considerable reputations. They also made a comfortable living out of the fees they charged for their services, the rewards they received from victims for identifying suspects, and the rewards from the state for successful convictions.
The aim of this new system was to deter criminals by increasing the certainty that they would be detected and prosecuted. By supervising their activities, the Fieldings hoped to improve the reputation of thief-takers, who they believed were essential in the fight against crime. In order to improve the detection rate the Fieldings introduced other innovations: they collected and disseminated information about crimes and suspected criminals, making their Bow Street office the centre of a criminal intelligence network; and they organised horse and foot patrols of major roads by part-time paid constables in order to prevent robberies and other serious crimes.
The Fieldings' approach to thief-taking proved influential, and their runners frequently appear in the Proceedings. More rotation offices were set up in Middlesex and Westminster. In 1792 the Middlesex Justices Act created seven police offices in the metropolis, each with three stipendiary magistrates and six constables charged with detecting and arresting criminals. In 1800 concern about thefts from the docks and shipping led to the opening of a Thames Police Office at Wapping, which eventually employed three stipendiary magistrates and one hundred constables to police the dockside parishes and the river.
By the end of the eighteenth century London already had both a substantial body of watchmen who were employed to prevent crime, and a system of detective policing designed to play a major role in apprehending suspected criminals. The first response of victims of crime was now as likely to be to report the crime to a rotation office as it was to try and locate the offender themselves. In contrast to the start of the century, many of the defendants who appeared at the Old Bailey had been detected and apprehended by salaried officers or quasi-official thief-takers, and the testimony of such people formed a significant part of the Proceedings. This altered the character of the criminal trial. Lawyers for the defence (when defendants were able to afford them) frequently questioned the honesty of such witnesses since they stood to receive a financial reward if the defendant was convicted.
In the first decades of the nineteenth century attempts to combat crime focused on the prevention of crime, as opposed to the detection of criminals. New horse and foot patrols were introduced both at night and during the day, with the men involved frequently referred to as "police". Efforts to rationalise and further extend London's system of policing culminated with the passage in 1829 of Robert Peel's Metropolitan Police Act. This set up a centralised police force of 3,000 men under the control of the Home Secretary, with responsibility for policing the entire metropolitan area, except the City of London. Uniformed and carrying only wooden batons, the new "Bobbies" (referring to Robert Peel’s Christian name, and the most polite of the many nicknames the officers received) patrolled the streets on prescribed beats. It was expected that the frequency of their patrols would significantly reduce the opportunities to commit crime.
In many respects the only really novel aspect of the Metropolitan Police was its centralised control by the Home Secretary. Nevertheless, the new arrangements placed much greater weight on the prevention of crime (with detection left to the constables who continued to be employed by the stipendiary magistrates). The impact of the new police on the Proceedings should have been to reduce the number of trials coming to court. There was, however, no such reduction, which suggests that the advent of the Metropolitan Police was not as momentous a development as has sometimes been claimed. Furthermore, in some of the wealthier parishes the number of police officers patrolling the streets immediately after the Metropolitan Police Act was in fact lower than the number of watchman patrolling those same streets before 1829.
Even after the creation of the Metropolitan Police the role of the individual victim remained central in identifying offenders to the authorities and prosecuting them. It was only very gradually that the police assumed full responsibility for prosecuting offenders. Nevertheless the state invested enormous faith in its new police. In 1839 a second Metropolitan Police Act confirmed the institution’s continuing existence, extended its jurisdiction from ten to fifteen miles from Charing Cross and increased its establishment to 4300 men. The Act also abolished the post of constable in the employment of the old magistrates’ offices. At the same time another Act created a similar police organisation for the square mile of the City of London. The preventive policies of the New Police probably had a significant impact reducing minor public offences such as drunkenness and street fighting – the kinds of offences that were heard before magistrates rather than at the Old Bailey. But it soon became apparent that a detective force was needed to work in conjunction with the uniformed, beat patrol officers. Authority was given for the creation of a distinct detective force within the Metropolitan Police in 1842. The new detectives were lionised by writers such as Charles Dickens, who thrilled at the experience of going on patrol with Inspector Field.
But, as the Proceedings demonstrate, it was not Dickens’s Inspector Charles Frederick Field who gave evidence time and again at the Central Criminal Court in the 1830s and 1840s, but John Field, Inspector of Coins at the Royal Mint, who appeared regularly, contributing to the prosecution of coiners. Moreover in 1877, the Metropolitan Police Detective Department acquired the unenviable distinction of having several of its leading figures appear as the accused in what was, at the time, the longest trial ever heard at the Central Criminal Court. The Turf Fraud Scandal resulted in a complete reorganisation of the Metropolitan Police Detectives and the formation of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), initially comprising around 250 men out of a force of just under 10,000.
By the turn of the twentieth century the CID could claim to be modern and scientific in its pursuit of offenders. The Proceedings contain the cases of the first use of fingerprints in a successful prosecution (Harry Jackson for burglary in 1902) and the first use of fingerprints to secure a murder conviction (Albert and Alfred Stratton in 1905). But on the eve of the First World War, when the Proceedings ceased publication, the overwhelming majority of police officers were still uniformed men, patrolling specified beats. Moreover a high percentage of the crimes brought before the Central Criminal Court continued to depend not on careful police detection or even on the vigilance of the beat officer, but upon victims reporting crimes to the police and upon victims and witnesses making positive identifications. What had changed most dramatically since 1674 was the introduction of uniformed, salaried officials, controlled by the Home Office, with the responsibility for tracking down suspects and making arrests.
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. Specific offences were defined either by common or statute law. In the 240 years covered by the Proceedings, numerous statutes defined new offences. Many more statutes were passed specifying new punishments for offences which already existed. Often what appear to be minor differences between similar offences resulted in significantly different punishments. Below is a summary of the categories of Crime contained in the official record - The Proceedings
With the exception of certain types of riot and assault, most offences in this category were misdemeanours, and not punishable by death. Trials for these offences were, therefore, most often heard at an inferior court, the Sessions of the Peace. Only the most serious cases were tried at the Old Bailey.
Assault forms a broad category which includes both physical attacks on others (whether or not the victim was seriously injured) and cases in which the victim was terrified by gestures or shouting. This includes mayhem (violently inflicting bodily injury on a person) and maliciously shooting at someone.
In the nineteenth century, as society became less tolerant of violence, two statutes turned the most serious offences of this sort into felonies, punishable by death. In 1803 Lord Ellenborough's Act extended the death penalty to attempts to kill, disable, or commit grievous bodily harm with firearms or other lethal instruments, such as knives. The vast majority of assault charges tried at the Old Bailey were cases of serious assault where wounding or maiming was involved. In 1828 the Offences Against the Person Act removed the requirement of the use of an offensive weapon and for some years after any seriously threatening assault could be punishable by death. Changes in the definition and punishment of attempted murder in 1837 saw assault become a non-capital crime.
Barratry. The offence of frequently stirring up quarrels by spreading false rumours and prosecuting malicious lawsuits.
Libel. Libel signifies the malicious defamation of any person in print, writing, signs, or pictures designed to expose that person to public hatred, or to provoke wrath in the victim. Oral insults could not be prosecuted at the Old Bailey. Libels which undermined the authority of the King or Queen were normally prosecuted as seditious libel. The 1881 Newspaper Libel and Registration Act made newspaper proprietors directly accountable for the content of their publications. This Act forms the first legal acknowledgement of the influence that the popular press could have on public reputation.
Riot. A riot was held to have taken place if 3 or more people assembled to do an unlawful act, usually commit a breach of the peace, and then performed it. Also included in the category of rioter are those who only assembled with the intention of committing such a breach, whether or not it was performed. Unlawful Assembly was the normal charge in this instance. If individuals assembled unlawfully and then moved towards committing a riot but did not actually achieve their purpose, they were charged with a Rout. Normally only the most serious riots were prosecuted at the Old Bailey. Included among those riotous offences which were subject to trial at this court were two felonies punishable by death: violation of the 1715 Riot Act, which required members of groups of 12 or more rioters to disperse within an hour of the reading of the proclamation; and riotously demolishing a house.
Threatening Behaviour. Includes any kind of physical or verbal behaviour embodying a serious threat, including sending a threatening letter.
Vagabonding. Includes people calling themselves "Egyptians" (Gypsies), those labelled as "vagabonds" for begging under false pretences, and those offending as rogues and vagabonds who had been convicted twice before. Most people accused of vagrancy and related offences were tried and punished using summary judicial procedures and did not appear at the Old Bailey.
Miscellaneous Breaking the Peace. Includes throwing squibs (firecrackers); affrays (two or more people fighting in a public place); trespass on the property of another (where this was a criminal and not a civil offence); and appearing in armed groups with blackened faces (an offence under the 1723 Black Act).
This category of offence includes types of malicious damage to private property that were considered crimes against the public (as opposed to personal wrongs, which were civil offences). Some of these offences became capital under the Black Act (1723, repealed in 1823), so called because it was passed in response to an outbreak of poaching committed by men who disguised themselves by "blacking" their faces.
Arson was defined by William Blackstone as "the malicious and wilful burning of a house or outhouse of another man". This was an offence designed first and foremost to assure the security of people's homes, and all arson charges tried at the Old Bailey involved the malicious burning of dwelling houses.
Miscellaneous Damage: malicious burning of non-dwelling buildings or other items such as hayricks or stalks of corn; killing or maiming domestic (farm) animals; cutting down, destroying and removing trees, roots, or plants; cutting down a riverbank; destroying a fish pond; cutting or defacing a piece of clothing while it was worn; cutting and destroying silk in a loom, or damaging the tools used for silk weaving (a statutory offence from 1766); demolishing or attempting to demolish a house (when not part of a riot);◾breaking and entering a building (not a dwelling house) with intent to steal.
A category of offences defined by the dishonest acquisition of property, money, or other benefits.
Bankruptcy. Bankruptcy itself was not a crime, but it became one if the bankrupt broke the law by failing to surrender himself to the Commissioners of Bankruptcy in order to make a disclosure of his possessions, or by concealing possessions and/or books of accounts from the Commissioners. While the definition of bankruptcy remained markedly consistent across the period 1674 - 1913, its punishment became gradually less severe as time progressed. Following trends already underway, the Bankrupt Consolidation Act of 1849 made conspiring to defraud creditors in a bankruptcy punishable by transportation or by imprisonment with or without hard labour for up to seven years.
Forgery. The fraudulent making or altering of a written document to the detriment of another man's right. Includes fraudulently copying or counterfeiting documents other than money, such as stamps or bonds. Because the financial system depended on paper credit, this was seen as a particularly serious offence. For counterfeiting of money (including possession of forged banknotes), see coining.
Fraud. Fraud includes any criminal deceit or false representation. Impersonating someone else, obtaining goods under false pretences, using and selling counterfeit stamps, and bribery all fall within this category of offence. Examples include using marked cards in a card game in which wagers were laid; or pretending to be a servant sent to collect goods from a shop in order to obtain goods without payment.
Perjury. Wilfully testifying falsely under oath in a judicial proceeding. This offence also encompasses subornation of perjury, the offence of procuring someone else to commit perjury.
Miscellaneous Deception. This category includes charges for unlawfully inserting names into register books, making false declarations and illegally procuring documents such as marriage licenses.
Infanticide. The killing of a new born child. Most cases of infanticide involved unmarried mothers, and were prosecuted under a 1624 statute which dictated that if the death of the baby was concealed, the mother was presumed guilty of infanticide unless she could prove that the baby was born dead. The requirement placed on the defendant to prove her innocence was a reversal of the normal practice of requiring the prosecution to prove guilt. For most of the eighteenth century, however, women were acquitted of this charge if they could demonstrate that they had prepared for the birth of the baby, by, for example, acquiring some kind of clothing for the child. This statute was repealed in 1803, when proof of the murder became a requirement for conviction. This statute also empowered juries to return a lesser-verdict of concealment of birth, punishable by a maximum of two years imprisonment.
Manslaughter. An unlawful killing without premeditation or malice. Deaths which occurred in the course of fights, or during legitimate activities such as physically disciplining one's wife or servant, or driving, were typically tried as manslaughter. Many people initially charged with murder were actually convicted of manslaughter, on the grounds that the killing was not premeditated.
Murder. Premeditated, deliberate killing. Many people tried for this offence, notably duellists, were convicted of the lesser offence of manslaughter. Between 1752 and 1832 the Murder Act dictated that that the bodies of those executed as murderers should either be delivered to the surgeons to be "dissected and anatomised" or hung in chains.
Petty Treason. This is an aggravated form of murder defined by the Treason Act of 1351 as the killing of a master by a servant, a husband by his wife, or an ecclesiastical superior by his inferior. Because such crimes subverted normal hierarchies, the punishment was more severe: women convicted of this crime were (until 1790) sentenced to be burned at the stake, while men were to be drawn on a hurdle, hanged, and quartered. Petty treason was abolished in 1828 when it ceased to be an offence distinct from murder.
This is a broad category of offences where the victim was not a private citizen, but was either the King (Queen) himself or his subjects in general.
Coining offences. This category includes a number of offences in which coin or paper money (the King's currency) was counterfeited or interfered with, or in which individuals used or possessed forged or diminished currency. These offences include the following: coining (counterfeiting coins); possessing moulds for the manufacture of coins;◾manufacturing counterfeit paper money, banknotes or bills of exchange;◾filing, milling, colouring or "diminishing" coins (in order to use the filings to create more coins or to sell the metal);◾possessing counterfeit money or putting it in into circulation ("uttering"). Counterfeiting gold or silver coins was technically a form of treason.
Religious offences. Failure to practice the Protestant religion according to the rules of the Church of England, by for example: acting as a Catholic Priest, seducing the King's subjects into the Catholic Church, and refusing to attend Church of England services (recusancy) - these offences were abolished with the passage of the Catholic Relief Acts in the nineteenth century; pretending to have divine powers;◾speaking or publishing blasphemous words;◾witchcraft (this crime was abolished in 1736).
Seditious Libel. Publishing writings which subverted the authority of the King (Queen). The text of such material is sometimes included in the trial proceedings.
Seditious Words. Speaking scandalous, seditious, and traitorous words against the King, including cursing him. The offending words are normally included in the trial proceedings.
Seducing from Allegiance. Enlisting a subject in support of a foreign state or monarch, thereby forcing them to renounce their allegiance to the King. This offence usually involves support for the Jacobite Pretender to the British throne in opposition to the Hanoverian succession of 1714.
Tax Offences. Includes all dealing in "uncustomed" goods (those for which no import duty had been paid), particularly smuggling. This offence also includes rescuing goods from customs and excise officers who had seized them, and obstructing or shooting at customs officers when performing their duty. Many of these offences took place outside London and Middlesex, including some which took place at sea. This category also includes counterfeiting marks indicating that duties had been paid on goods such as playing cards, and selling falsely marked goods of this sort.
Treason. Betrayal of the King or conspiring to overthrow him. This category of offence includes aiding, receiving, or protecting a traitor. Until 1870 men found guilty of treason were sentenced to be drawn and quartered; until 1790 women were to be burned at the stake. Miscellaneous Offences Against the King includes soldiers deserting military service; refusing to take the Oaths of Allegiance (in the 1680s and 1690s); communicating with or assisting the enemies of the crown; revolt on the high seas; and attempting to shoot the monarch (a remarkably common offence, particularly in the nineteenth century).
This category includes the most serious forms of what was defined as inappropriate sexual activity. The most common forms of illicit sexuality, adultery and prostitution, were religious rather than criminal offences and were not prosecuted at the Old Bailey. Some early Proceedings do, however, include detailed testimony from trials for these offences, and were including in order to promote sales. Owing to changing sensibilities, from the last decades of the eighteenth century there was an increasing reluctance to discuss sexual details of any kind, and rape and sodomy trials came to be reported in only the baldest form.
Assault with Intent to Rape. This charge was levelled when an attempted rape was unsuccessful, and where it was therefore thought impossible to prove an actual rape, or else where the victim of a rape did not want the perpetrator to be sentenced to death. This offence was a misdemeanour. Rape ceased to be a capital offence in 1841 which may help to account for the substantial increases in the prosecution of both rape and assault with intent to rape evident from the 1840s onwards.
Bigamy. Marrying a second spouse while the first spouse was still living. The circumstances surrounding marriage throughout the period covered by the Proceedings ensured that many people were potentially guilty of this offence. Legal divorces were very difficult to obtain, while popular "divorces" were accepted by many. Spouses disappeared, losing contact for long periods, often on voyages at sea. One spouse frequently just could not always know if the other was still living. Up to Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753, the legal status of some marriages was also ambiguous, making it unclear whether a first, legal marriage had actually taken place.
Keeping a Brothel and Procuring. Keeping a house where prostitution or sodomy was encouraged to take place. As misdemeanours, these offences were for the most part tried in different courts, the Sessions of the Peace and Court of King's Bench. However, a few brothel house keepers were prosecuted at the Old Bailey in the late seventeenth century; and a few keepers of "molly houses" (for sodomy) in the eighteenth. In the 1830s a new offence of procuring a woman for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual activity was created.
Indecent Assault. This was an offence established in common law during the eighteenth century and codified in the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. This Act stated that any individual found guilty of an indecent assault upon a female would be imprisoned for a term not exceeding two years, while an indecent assault upon a male was punishable by penal servitude for a term not exceeding ten years. Given the lack of details provided, it is unclear precisely what the term "indecent assault" meant, but it is likely that it was an umbrella term used to describe crimes of a sexual nature which did not involve actual sexual intercourse.
Rape. Forced sexual intercourse with a woman against her will. In order to convict a man of this offence it was necessary to prove that penetration had occurred. Due to the difficulty of proving this offence, many men accused of sexual assaults were prosecuted for assault with intent to rape. Rape ceased to be a capital offence in 1841, and from this date the number of prosecutions and in particular, successful prosecutions, rises dramatically. In the eighteenth century the conviction rate for rape fell as low as 5% of all cases in some decades. From the 1840s onwards this rises to approximately 50%.
Sodomy. Anal or oral intercourse between a man and another man, woman, or beast. In order to obtain a conviction, it was necessary to prove that both penetration and ejaculation had occurred, and two witnesses were required to prove the crime. Both the "active" and "passive" partner could be found guilty of this offence. But due to the difficulty of proving this actual penetration and ejaculation many men were prosecuted with the reduced charge of assault with sodomitical intent. Details of sodomy prosecutions were censored from the Proceedings from the 1780s onwards. There were also indictments for indecent exposure, the sale of obscene prints, and offences described only as being of an "indelicate" or "indecent" nature.
This is by far the largest category of offences in the Proceedings, and includes all cases of theft except robbery. Theft was a common law offence, but there were a large number of statutes which mandated specific punishments for particular types of theft. All forms of theft were felonies, but the specific offences and associated punishments varied widely. Thefts were differentiated from one another according to the value of the goods stolen, and the location and manner of the theft.
Different types of theft prosecuted at the Old Bailey included Animal Theft; Burglary; Embezzlement; Extortion and Blackmail; Game Law Offences; Housebreaking; Larceny: Grand (1674 - 1827), Petty (1674 - 1827), Simple (1827 onwards); Pickpocketing; Receiving Stolen Goods; Shoplifting; Stealing from Master; Theft from Post; and Theft from a Specified Place
Animal theft includes theft of domestic animals, including sheep, cattle, horses, pigs, and fowl. Horse theft was considered the most serious of these offences and by statute was punishable by death. Similarly, statutes passed in 1741 and 1742 made sheep and cattle stealing capital offences. Burglary was defined as breaking into a dwelling house at night with intent to commit a felony (normally theft), or actually doing so. Offences of this sort committed during the day time were defined as housebreaking. "House" in this context could also include attached buildings, shops and warehouses. This offence was considered to be particularly serious because there were likely to be people sleeping in the house.
Embezzlement was theft committed by clerks, servants, or other employees of goods belonging to, or in the security of, their employers. During the eighteenth century increasing concern about thefts of this sort led to the passage of statutes which prescribed the death penalty for several types of embezzlement, including the theft of notes, deeds, bills, etc. by any officer or servant of a company (1742), of specifically the South Sea Company (1751) and the Bank of England (1795 and 1797). In 1800 another statute prescribed transportation for any servant or clerk who, having received money or property on their master's behalf, embezzled or secreted the same. The enactment of these and other statutes led to a rapid expansion of prosecution for embezzlement offences in the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, many such cases were prosecuted simply as petty, grand, or (after 1827) simple larceny, or as summary offences (adjudicated by magistrates acting outside the courts). See also stealing from master and theft from the post.
Extortion and Blackmail. Any case of obtaining payments or benefits from another by the use of threats. This category of offence includes cases where individuals were threatened with prosecution for a criminal, ecclesiastical, or civil offence. Extortion and blackmail are particularly associated with embarrassing crimes such as adultery or sodomy. In 1823 the offence of threatening with intent to extort was made punishable by transportation for life.
Game Law offences. Only persons who met specified property qualifications, essentially gentlemen and the aristocracy, could legally hunt game (such as deer, rabbits, or pheasants). Anyone else hunting these animals, whether using nets, guns, or other animals, were committing a crime, even if they owned land upon which the game was found. Prosecutions under these statutes frequently occurred outside the courts, under summary jurisdiction, but some offences were made punishable by death under the "Black Act" (1723) and in the process brought within the jurisdiction of the Old Bailey. This Act made it a capital offence to hunt, wound, or steal deer, conies, hares, and fish in the King's forests; break down the heads of fishponds; or simply go about armed and disguised anywhere game was kept. This act was repealed in 1823, but being armed and entering into enclosed land in order to remove game remained a crime throughout the period covered by the Proceedings.
Pickpocketing. Up until 1808, this crime involved "privately" stealing from the person of another, which meant without their knowledge, goods worth more than a shilling. The difficulty of proving that the victim had no knowledge of the crime made it difficult to convict defendants of this offence, though many were found guilty of lesser charges through use of partial verdicts. Many pickpocketing cases involved prostitutes stealing from their clients. From 1808 the definition of the offence was loosened to include any theft from the person. In other words, victims no longer needed to prove that the theft was committed without their knowledge. The same statute removed the death penalty for this offence.
Shoplifting. The offence of "privately stealing" 5 shillings or more worth of goods from a shop was defined separately as a capital offence in 1699. This reflects concern over the apparent increase in this offence, which was thought difficult to prevent, and reflects the rapid growth in the number of shops in London. Theft of this sort taking place before 1699 is also included in this category. In 1823 shoplifting ceased to be a capital offence.
Stealing from Master. This offence was created in 1823 following the passage of an Act "for the further and more adequate punishment of servants convicted of robbing their masters". While theft by servants was indirectly legislated against in 1713, this was the first Act to deal explicitly with theft by employees (not just domestic servants) and arose in response to industrialisation and the corresponding increase in concern about workers' behaviour. In 1767 it became a felony, without benefit of clergy, to rob mail or steal letters from the Post. According to the Blackstone, the "great malice and mischief" involved in such a crime meant that it should be punished more severely than most other types of theft.
The combination violence and theft made these offences some of the most serious tried by the court.
Highway Robbery. A robbery (an open and violent assault, resulting in the forcible removal of property of any value from the victim, and putting him or her in fear) which took place on or near the King's Highway. Although these crimes frequently took place on the outskirts of London, street robberies within London are also included because the streets of London were designated as highways by one of the Transportation Acts. Because such crimes interfered with the freedom to travel, they were viewed as particularly serious. Many highway robbers travelled on horseback, but the tradition of the "polite" gentleman highway robber was not always realised in practice. Following improvements in policing, road transport, banking and credit, the mounted robber disappeared from English roads in the late 1820s. The last series of prosecutions for highway robbery were heard at the Old Bailey were in 1830. In the next eighty years only three more cases were tried; one in 1832, one in 1877, and a final case in 1897.
Concealment of Birth. In 1803 the law on infanticide was revised, and proof of murder became a requirement for a conviction. Where a murder charge was likely to be impossible to prove, the accused could be charged with "concealment of birth" instead, which was punishable by a maximum of two years' imprisonment. In addition, in cases where the defendant was charged with infanticide the jury were empowered to return "concealment of birth" as a lesser verdict.
Habitual Criminal. A product of increasing sophistication in the recording of criminal activity, increasing levels of policing, and concerns about the emergence of a "criminal class", the concept of the "habitual criminal" emerged in the late nineteenth century. In 1908 individuals who had been convicted of three or more offences and, being able to do so, had failed to make any efforts to obtain an honest living could be charged with the additional offence of being an "habitual criminal". If convicted they were sentenced to an open-ended period of preventive detention "for the protection of the public."
Kidnapping or Forced Abduction, including: taking a man, woman, or child from their own country; abducting an heiress in order to force her into marriage. This was a misdemeanour. However, in 1814 taking a child under the age of ten by force or fraud was made a felony. This category of offence also includes trading in slaves, which was outlawed in 1807. As a result, many detailed slave trade trials were prosecuted at Old Bailey during the first half of the nineteenth century and recorded in the Proceedings.
Piracy. Until 1834, Piracy on the high seas fell under the jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty. Although trials for this offence often took place in the Old Bailey, these were mostly reported separately from the normal Old Bailey Proceedings. With the passage of the Central Criminal Court Act in 1834, the offence came within the formal jurisdiction of this court.
Returning from transportation before the period of the sentence had elapsed was a felony punishable by death.
Unlawful Abortion. Before 1803, abortion was punished by a fine or a short term of imprisonment, and abortions which took place before "quickening" (i.e. when a woman could feel the movement of the foetus at around thirteen weeks) went entirely unpunished. The first prosecutions for this offence (for attempting to induce a miscarriage) at the Old Bailey occurred in 1823. Over the course of the nineteenth century the law regarding abortion was progressively tightened. In 1837 the concept of quickening was removed, but it was only after the passage of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act that the pregnant woman (as opposed to the abortionist) could be prosecuted.
Miscellaneous Other Offences Includes: enticing an artisan to live and practice in another country; practicing a trade without having served a full apprenticeship; engaging in activities which suggest the intent to commit a crime, such as unlawfully entering a house, or possessing picklock keys; neglecting to take care of children, causing unnecessary suffering and injury
For the above we would like to thank - Clive Emsley, Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, "Crime and Justice - Crimes Tried at the Old Bailey", Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 7.0, 24 October 2017 )
Judges could choose from a wide range of punishments in this period, though their options were often limited by choices made at an earlier stage in the judicial process. Felonies defined by common law were originally punishable by hanging. Increasingly from the middle of the eighteenth century, statute law curtailed the use of the death penalty. Misdemeanours were punishable by a range of non-capital punishments. Normally, offences defined by statute could only be punished as prescribed by the relevant legislation. The punishments available in any particular case were thus circumscribed by the legal status of the offence with which the defendant was charged (which in some cases was influenced in turn by the choices made by the victim or the grand jury). Juries frequently manipulated the punishment through the use of partial verdicts).
Many defendants were given more than one punishment. This was particularly common for those sentenced to the pillory, imprisonment, whipping, fines and providing sureties for good behaviour. Although this information was not consistently reported in the Proceedings, there are regular reports of pardons from 1739 until 1796 and of executions from 1743 until 1792. Additional evidence about whether (and how) punishments were carried out can be found within the Associated Records.
A large number of eighteenth-century statutes specified death as the penalty for minor property offences (the "bloody code"), meaning that the vast majority of the people tried at the Old Bailey could be sentenced to hang (one could be executed for stealing a handkerchief or a sheep). Nevertheless, judicial procedures prevented a blood bath by ensuring that sentences could be mitigated, or the charge redefined as a less serious offence.
Through partial verdicts, juries reduced the charges against many convicted defendants. Through the mechanisms of benefit of clergy and pardons many more defendants found guilty of a capital offence were spared the death penalty and sentenced instead to punishments such as branding, transportation, or imprisonment. Many received no punishment at all.
In making the decisions that determined whether a defendant was killed or released regardless of guilt, consideration was given to the defendant's character, the nature of the offence, the strength of the evidence against him or her, the state of crime at the time (a higher proportion were actually hanged if the court thought a ‘crime wave’ was in process), and, occasionally, the status of those who petitioned on the defendant’s behalf.
Those found guilty of misdemeanours could be punished with a fine, whipping, the pillory, imprisonment, or be asked to provide sureties for good behaviour.
New Forms of Punishment. A gradually growing reluctance to use the death penalty in the eighteenth century (except for the most serious cases), combined with an increasing concern that those who received benefit of clergy were let off too lightly encouraged the development of alternative forms of punishment. The criminal law reforms of the nineteenth century, abolishing, as they did, the death penalty for many crimes, led in the same direction. As a result new types of punishments for felons, notably transportation and imprisonment, were created and eventually came to take on an ever growing role in the sentencing of criminals.
These new punishments reflect two trends in the evolution of strategies for punishment. First, there was a shift from physical punishments such as whipping, branding, and hanging to attempts to reform the defendant through transportation and imprisonment. And second, punishments became less public, as the spectacle of public hangings at Tyburn, the pillory, and public whipping through the streets was replaced by hanging outside and then inside Newgate, private whipping, transportation to foreign lands, and imprisonment.
Through the mechanism of benefit of clergy, many defendants found guilty of certain felonies were spared the death penalty and given a lesser punishment. Dating back to the middle ages, benefit of clergy was originally a right accorded to the church, allowing it to punish its own members should they be convicted of a crime. In this instance the court did not prescribe any punishment for the defendant and instead handed him over to church officials. Since it was difficult to prove who was affiliated with the church, convicts who claimed benefit of clergy were required to read a passage from the Bible. Judges usually chose verses from the 51st Psalm, which was termed the "neck verse", since it saved many people from hanging.
As literacy became more common outside the church, the practice gradually developed of permitting all men convicted of allowable felonies to be permitted benefit of clergy if they could read the "neck verse". This test was a flexible one, and judges could be lenient or strict in their choice of text and level of literacy required, depending on whether they wished to impose the death penalty in a specific case, or not. In 1623 women found guilty of the theft of goods less than ten shillings in value were also allowed benefit of clergy, and in 1691 women were granted the privilege on the same terms as men.
In 1706 the reading test was abolished and benefit of clergy became automatic for any offence which had not been excluded from this privilege. Until 1779 the recipients of benefit of clergy were branded on the thumb in order to ensure that the benefit could not be claimed more than once. Between 1706 and 1718 some defendants allowed benefit of clergy were sentenced to up to two years hard labour in a house of correction. The 1718 Transportation Act allowed the courts to sentence those allowed benefit of clergy to be punished with the more onerous sentence of transportation.
Concern that serious offenders were getting off too lightly, however, led to the passage of several statutes in which specific offences were removed from benefit of clergy. In the sixteenth century murder, rape, highway robbery, burglary, horse-stealing, pickpocketing, and theft from churches, were deemed non-clergyable.
During the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries concern over levels of property theft led to several other forms of theft being added to this list. These included housebreaking, the theft of goods worth more than 40 shillings from a dwelling house, shoplifting of goods worth more than 5 shillings, and sheep and cattle stealing. A death sentence in such cases therefore became automatic, which explains why juries so often reduced the value of stolen goods through the mechanism of the partial verdict. Benefit of clergy remained for some offences, however, until the reforms of the criminal laws (and dramatic reduction in the number of capital statutes) in the 1820s. It was abolished in 1827.
Branding. Convicts who successfully pleaded benefit of clergy, and those found guilty of manslaughter instead of murder, were branded on the thumb (with a "T" for theft, "F" for felon, or "M" for murder), so that they would be unable to receive this benefit more than once. The branding took place in the courtroom at the end of the sessions in front of spectators. It is alleged that sometimes criminals convicted of petty theft, or who were able to bribe the executioner, had the branding iron applied when it was cold. For a short time, between 1699 and January 1707, convicted thieves were branded on the cheek in order to increase the deterrent effect of the punishment, but this rendered convicts unemployable and in 1707 the practice reverted to branding on the thumb. Branding as a punishment for those receiving benefit of clergy ended in 1779. The last convict sentenced to branding at the Old Bailey received the sentence in 1789.
Types of Death. Many, in fact most, death sentences were not carried out. Through benefit of clergy, use of pardons, and respited sentences due to pregnancy, or in order to perform military or naval duty, many of those sentenced to death were not in fact executed. Since these mitigations often took place after the Proceedings were published, this information is usually not included in the trial texts, though it sometimes can be found in the texts for subsequent sessions. Names of those executed are regularly reported in the summaries of punishments provided at the end of each sessions between 1743 and 1792. Prior to 1772 the Ordinary of Newgate’s Account provides an essentially comprehensive list of those who were actually executed.
Over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries use of the death penalty was increasingly restricted to the most serious offences. It was removed from pickpocketing in 1808, and from many more offences in the 1820s and 1830s. By the 1840s only those found guilty of the most serious offences (murder, wounding, violent theft, arson, sodomy) were sentenced to death (though only murderers were actually executed), and the 1861 Offences Against the Persons Act abolished the death penalty for all offences except for murder and High Treason.
Death Respited for Pregnancy. Women who claimed they were pregnant at the time they were sentenced to death could "plead their belly". Such women (and there were many) were then examined by a jury of matrons (chosen from women present in the courtroom), and, if found to be "quick with child" (if movement could be detected, signalling the beginning of life), their punishment was respited until after the baby was born. In principle, the punishment could then be carried out, but in practice sympathy for the newborn child (or concern for the cost of caring for it) meant that the mother was often pardoned. From 1848, reprieves granted to pregnant women were always permanent.
The verdicts of the juries of matrons were recorded in the punishment summaries. Just over half of the over 1100 women who made this plea were successful. Over the course of the eighteenth century the number of successful pleas declined, and they are found infrequently in the Proceedings after 1760. After 1800 there are few recorded cases of women even making this plea, and in those cases medical authorities were often summoned to advise the matrons. The plea last appears in the Proceedings in the trial of Emma Pleasance in 1880.
Hanging. Until 1783 most defendants actually executed were hanged at Tyburn (where Marble Arch stands today). Execution was a public spectacle, meant to act as a deterrent to crime. Convicts were drawn in a cart through the streets from Newgate, and, after they were given a chance to speak to the crowd (and, it was hoped, confess their sins), they were hanged. Huge crowds were attracted to these events, as reflected in plate 11 of William Hogarth's Industry and Idleness.
The convict was placed in a horse drawn cart and blindfolded. The noose was then placed around his/her neck, and the cart pulled away. Until the introduction of a sharp drop in 1783, this resulted in a long and painful death by strangulation (friends of the convicts often helped put them out of their misery by pulling on their legs). Some of the most serious offenders were hanged near the place of their crime, as a lesson to the inhabitants of that area. Others were punished in even more brutal ways, as explained below.
After the execution there were sometimes struggles for possession of the corpse between assistants to the surgeons, who wanted it for teaching anatomy, and friends of the convict, who wanted to give the victim a proper burial. Concern at the disorder which occurred at such scenes contributed to the passage of the 1752 Murder Act.
In 1783 the procession to Tyburn was abolished and for the next eighty-five years hangings were staged outside Newgate Prison. Although these executions were expedited by the use of the sharp drop, they were still very public occasions. In 1868, concern about public disorder led to the abolition of public executions altogether, and subsequent hangings were transferred inside the prison.
Burned at the Stake. Women found guilty of either treason or petty treason were sentenced to be burned alive at the stake, though executioners usually strangled women with a cord before lighting the fire. Burning at the stake was abolished in 1790 and replaced by drawing and hanging.
Drawn and Quartered. Men found guilty of treason were sentenced to be drawn to the place of execution on a hurdle, hanged, cut down while still alive, and then disembowelled, castrated, beheaded and quartered. It was alleged that merciful executioners allowed men to die on the gallows before dismembering them. This punishment was rare during the period, but occasionally those convicted of coining and petty treason were sentenced to be drawn on a hurdle only, but not quartered. The last convicts to be sentenced at the Old Bailey to be drawn and quartered were the Cato Street conspirators in 1820, but in the event decapitation was the only part of the grisly ceremony that was actually carried out.
Death with Dissection and Hanging in Chains. Judges occasionally ordered that the bodies of those convicted of egregious crimes and hanged should be hung in chains near the scene of their offence. This practice was supplemented by an act of 1752, "for better preventing the horrid crime of murder", which dictated that the bodies of those found guilty of murder and hanged should either be delivered to the surgeons to be "dissected and anatomised" or hung in chains. By increasing the terror and the shame of the death penalty, these practices were meant to increase the deterrent effect of capital punishment. They were abolished in 1832 (dissection) and 1834 (hanging in chains).
Early modern prisons were typically used for holding defendants awaiting trial and convicts awaiting punishment. Imprisonment was not perceived as a form of punishment in itself, and indeed the relatively open manner in which prisons were run was not conducive to their serving as a form of punishment. Occasionally, however, even in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, convicts were sentenced to a period of imprisonment, usually in addition to some other penalty, such as whipping.
In 1706 a statute was passed which allowed judges to sentence defendants given benefit of clergy to up to two years' hard labour in a house of correction. Until that date houses of correction had - in theory at least - been exclusively used only to punish the misdemeanours of the poor and vagrant. This punishment was used until 1718, when as a result of a further Act of Parliament most convicts allowed benefit of clergy were sentenced to transportation instead.
Imprisonment as Reform. From the 1770s new attitudes towards imprisonment developed. It was believed that if redesigned and reordered, prisons could be used to reform offenders, changing them from recalcitrant criminals to productive citizens in the very process of punishing their crimes. Use of imprisonment was further stimulated by the suspension of transportation following the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1776.
An Act of 1776, intended to address the problems resulting from the suspension of transportation, allowed judges to sentence male offenders to hard labour improving the navigation of the Thames by dredging it, as an alternative to transportation overseas. Although the Act did not specify where these men were to be incarcerated old ships anchored on the Thames, known as the hulks, were soon turned to the purpose. The work took place on shore. The Act also allowed the judges to sentence women, and men who were incapable of working on the river, to a term of hard labour in a house of correction.
In 1779 Parliament passed the Penitentiary Act, which authorised the building of one or more national penitentiaries characterised by strict discipline and hard labour. Although the penitentiaries were never built, the courts began to sentence large numbers of convicts to terms of imprisonment, and under the pressure of an ever growing prison population London’s prisons were gradually expanded and rebuilt over the ensuing decades.
In 1794 the new Coldbath Fields House of Correction used the controversial system of solitary confinement in an attempt to force convicts to reflect on their sins and to reform themselves. In 1816 conditions for women prisoners in Newgate were reformed. In 1821 Millbank Penitentiary opened on the banks of the Thames (where the Tate Britain museum stands today). A massive building, it contained separate cells for 860 prisoners. In 1842 Pentonville Prison in North London opened. It was built to hold 520 prisoners, intended initially to spend eighteenth months in solitary confinement. And eight years later, its near neighbour, Holloway Prison was opened.
Over the course of the nineteenth century prisons underwent several important changes, including centralisation of administration, the introduction of inspections and widespread use of solitary confinement. Perhaps inevitably, their growing use prompted dissatisfaction with prison conditions and doubts about the impact they had on prisoners. Alternative punishments were continually being sought. A parliamentary committee in 1895, however, concluded that imprisonment should continue as a central feature of penal policy, and its recommendations were embodied in the 1898 Prison Act.
Imprisonment: Hard Labour. Many convicts were sentenced to confinement with hard labour. Hard labour was meant to contribute to the reformation of offenders by teaching them to be industrious, but the punishment was also meant to deter others from committing crime. Those imprisoned sometimes worked a water pump, while men incarcerated in the hulks worked on dredging the Thames or in the naval dockyards. Others were sentenced to work on ballast lighters.
Imprisonment: House of Correction. The house of correction or "Bridewell" was a sixteenth-century innovation originally designed to provide work for the idle, training for the young, and punishment and reform for petty criminals by subjecting them to short periods of imprisonment at hard labour. As time progressed the training and work provisions fell aside, and these institutions came to be used to punish an ever wider range of crimes. The length of the sentences imposed also increased. Prisoners in houses of correction were typically set to beating hemp.
Imprisonment: Insanity. The 1800 "Act for the Safe Custody of Insane Persons Charged with Offences" empowered the courts to detain defendants who, due to a lack of reason and understanding, were deemed unable to understand the difference between right and wrong. Imprisonment on the grounds of insanity was therefore enforced not only on those people of "unsound mind" found guilty of their crimes, but also those found not guilty. Following the dissemination of the "M'Naughton Rules" for dealing with defendants who pleaded insanity in 1843, the number of defendants receiving this sentence increased considerably.
Imprisonment: Newgate. Newgate was London's chief prison and functioned both as a holding prison for convicts awaiting trial or execution and as a place of punishment. Those sentenced to be punished in Newgate tended to be young people serving a short stint of imprisonment in the prison followed by a more prolonged period of imprisonment in a reformatory. Newgate closed in 1902 and was demolished in 1904 to make way for the new Central Criminal Court building.
Imprisonment: Penal Servitude. Penal servitude was a term of imprisonment at hard labour first introduced by the 1853 and 1857 Penal Servitude Acts as a replacement for transportation. It gave judges the discretion to sentence anyone who might otherwise have been transported for less than 14 years to penal servitude. This normally meant labour in a convict prison.
Imprisonment: Preventive Detention. Under the 1908 Prevention of Crimes Act courts were empowered to pass the sentence of preventive detention in order to protect the public from individuals considered to be habitual criminals, i.e. those convicted of at least three crimes since the age of sixteen. Convicts who were sentenced to preventive detention were usually punished first with a stint of penal servitude followed by an open-ended period of imprisonment at hard labour "for the protection of the public". While this was draconian in concept, judges became increasingly reluctant to use the sentence after the first two or three years.
Imprisonment: Other Institution. Some convicts were sentenced to periods of imprisonment in more unusual institutions, including the Poultry Compter, New Prison, and Holloway Prison. Some youths between the ages of 11 and 21 who had been sentenced to transportation but were deemed not yet old enough to be sent overseas were sent specifically to "the penitentiary". Others were sent to reformatories or similar institutions including the London Refuge for the Destitute (founded in 1806).
The first major innovation in eighteenth-century penal practice was the substantial expansion of the use of transportation. Although it was believed that transportation might lead to the reformation of the offender, the primary motivations behind this punishment were a belief in its deterrent effect, and a desire to simply remove hardened criminals from society.
Although many convicts were transported in the seventeenth century, it was done at their own expense or at the expense of merchants or shipowners. In the early eighteenth century transportation came to be seen as a way of creating an effective alternative to the death penalty, that avoided the apparent leniency of the other main options: benefit of clergy and whipping. In 1718 the first Transportation Act allowed the courts to sentence felons guilty of offences subject to benefit of clergy to seven years transportation to America. In 1720 a further statute authorized payments by the state to the merchants who contracted to take the convicts to America.
The first Transportation Act also allowed those guilty of capital offences and pardoned by the King to be sentenced to transportation, and established returning from transportation as a capital offence. In 1776 transportation was halted by the outbreak of war with America. Although convicts continued to be sentenced to transportation, male convicts were confined to hard labour in hulks on the Thames, while women were imprisoned. Transportation resumed in 1787 with a new destination: Australia. This was seen as a more serious punishment than imprisonment, since it involved exile to a distant land.
In the early nineteenth century, as part of the revisions of the criminal law, transportation for life was substituted as the maximum punishment for several offences which had previously been punishable by death.
Opposition to transportation mounted in the 1830s, however, with complaints that it failed to deter crime, did not lead to the reformation of the convicts, and that conditions in the convict colonies were inhumane. The number of convicts sentenced to transportation began to decline in the 1840s. Transportation was theoretically abolished by the Penal Servitude Act of 1857, which substituted penal servitude for all transportation sentences.
Early-modern punishments including whipping and the pillory frequently used physical harm, often inflicted as a public spectacle, as a method of deterring crime. While convicts continued to be sentenced to these punishments into the nineteenth century, all but the private whipping of men had ceased by the end of the century.
Pillory. Defendants convicted of notorious crimes such as attempted sodomy, seditious words, extortion, fraud, and perjury in the eighteenth century were sometimes punished publicly in the pillory as a way of destroying their reputations and signalling public distaste for their crimes. Set up in busy streets or open spaces, such as Cheapside or Charing Cross, where crowds could easily gather, the culprit (most were men) was placed on a platform with his arms and head secured through holes in the wooden structure. He was normally required to stay there one hour.
The pillory turned so that crowds on all sides could get a good view, and could express their disapproval of the offence by pelting the offender with rotten eggs and vegetables, blood and guts from slaughterhouses, dead cats, mud and excrement, and even bricks and stones. Some died from the abuse, despite increasing efforts by constables to protect the convict, by forming a ring around the pillory.
In some cases of seditious words, however, the crowd applauded the convict, pelting him with flowers, and collected money to present to him after his release. Approximately five to ten people a year were punished in this way in London, but concerns about disorder and subversion of the purpose of the punishment meant that after 1775 few people were pilloried for riot, seditious words, or any felony. An 1816 statute restricted the pillory to perjury only and the punishment was abolished in 1837.
Whipping. Offenders (mostly those convicted of theft) were sentenced to be stripped to the waist and flogged "at a cart's tail" along a length of public street, usually near the scene of the crime, "until his [or her] back be bloody".
Publicity was traditionally an essential feature of this punishment, serving to shame the offender and deter others from committing the crime. Even in the late seventeenth century, however, the courts occasionally ordered that the punishment should be carried out in prison or a house of correction rather than on the streets. From the 1720s courts began explicitly to differentiate between private whipping, which took place inside or immediately outside Newgate Prison, a house of correction, or the Old Bailey; and public whipping, which was carried out in the traditional way.
Over the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the proportion of whippings carried out in public declined, but the number of private whippings increased after 1772 owing to a loss of faith in the alternative punishments of transportation and the death penalty. The public whipping of women was abolished in 1817 (after having been in decline since the 1770s) and that of men ended in the early 1830s, though it was not formally abolished under 1862.
Private whipping (in prison, with the press in attendance), from the 1850s virtually of men only, continued, however, beyond the end of this period. Following the passage of the Security from Violence Act (the "Garrotters Act") in 1863, which authorised up to 50 strokes, this punishment was frequently used for those convicted of theft with violence. This punishment was not abolished until 1948.
Fines. In the late seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century fines were used primarily for the punishment of misdemeanours. However, in 1779 a clause in the Penitentiary Act allowed a fine to be levied in lieu of branding. Thereafter fines were frequently used, often in conjunction with a term of imprisonment, for manslaughter, petty larceny, and simple grand larceny. Judges could vary the amount according to the severity of the offence and the status of both the victim and the convict. The amounts involved varied from less than a shilling to hundreds of pounds. Non-payment of fines led to incarceration in jail until the fine was paid.
Young offenders were sometimes fined and then sentenced to a period of imprisonment in the London Refuge for the Destitute which was, in effect, a juvenile reformatory. Interestingly, this was a covert procedure and thus was frequently not documented in the Proceedings.
Forfeiture of Lands and Goods. Technically all those found guilty of a felony were required to forfeit all their goods to the crown. In practice, juries routinely reported (fictitiously) that the convict had 'no goods' and thus nothing to forfeit. Very occasionally (only in two trials during the entire period), however, judges explicitly sentenced convicted felons to forfeit goods and lands to the King.
Military/Naval Duty. By sending convicts into their majesties' service, the court not only contributed to the armed forces, but also exiled undesirable characters. This sentence was most frequently used during the War of the Grand Alliance (1688-1697), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13), the War of American Independence (1775-83), and the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815). In some cases the prisoner was sentenced to a term of service in the army or navy. In others, the original sentence was withdrawn once the prisoner agreed to serve. Alternatively, many defendants sentenced to death were pardoned on condition of service (this was regularised by the Mutiny Act of 1705).
Provide Sureties for Good Behaviour. Convicts were sometimes required to find sureties. These were men of property who posted a bond to guarantee the convict's future good behaviour. The bond could be for a substantial sum of money, hundreds or thousands of pounds. If the condition of the defendants discharge was violated, the money was forfeited to the king. The text of the Proceedings often specifies the sum of money promised and the duration of the bond. In many cases, the convict remained under threat that an additional punishment might be imposed despite the bond. In this circumstance they were bound "to appear and receive judgement if [or when] called upon". The requirement to provide sureties was frequently combined with others punishements such as imprisonment, a fine, and the pillory. Defendants who were found not guilty were also sometimes given this sentence, if it was thought they had the potential to commit a crime in the future.
Other Miscellaneous. In the late nineteenth century courts began to order additional punishments, aimed at compensating victims and preventing further crimes. These included: paying restitution or compensation to the victim; paying the costs of prosecution; police supervision for a number of years; forfeit of and/or disqualification from holding public office; expulsion from the country under the Aliens Act.
Pardons. Not all punishments prescribed by the Old Bailey judges were actually carried out. Through the mechanism of a royal pardon, many death sentences, as well as some other sentences, were either not carried out (a free pardon), or commuted to lesser punishments (a conditional pardon), normally branding, transportation, hard labour, or penal servitude. All capital sentences from the Old Bailey were reviewed by the King and his cabinet following reports from the Recorder of London. Those convicts who were not pardoned could have their cases reviewed again if petitions for mercy were received from them or their family and friends.
In addition to pardons for specific crimes, periodically in the late seventeenth century defendants were able to claim the benefit of general royal pardons, proclaimed by the King or passed by Parliament for all offences committed before a certain date (though some offences, such as murder, were excluded).
Throughout most of the eighteenth century, approximately 50-60% of convicts sentenced to death were pardoned. Loss of faith in the merits of the death penalty in the early nineteenth century contributed to an increase in the proportion pardoned to around 90%, and as much as 97% in the 1830s.
Sentence Respited. The court sometimes decided to postpone or respite a sentence until a later sessions, either because of the convict's pregnancy (see also death sentences respited for pregnancy) or for reasons that were unrecorded. In 1848 judges were empowered to invite the jury to respite sentences in cases where the law was doubtful. In these instances, the case was passed on to the Twelve Judges at the newly established Court for Crown Cases Reserved (superseded in 1907 by the Court of Criminal Appeal).
Miscellaneous. In addition to benefit of clergy, pardons, respites and pardons on condition of military or naval duty, there are a number of other reasons why the Proceedings might not record a formal sentence: The convict died, fell ill, or was rescued from the court or prison by his friends before they could be sentenced; The court agreed that, in lieu of a formal punishment, the convict would perform some act, such as serving as a soldier for the East India Company, or agreeing to work for an employer. Young convicts were sometimes sent to the Marine Society (established in 1756) for training at sea. ◾Those recommended by the jury for mercy were sometimes simply discharged without punishment, or sent to the care of their master, relatives, or other figure of authority. In many late seventeenth-century editions of the Proceedings information about punishments was often simply not provided. The Proceedings simply report that the convict was "discharged".
Although the Old Bailey courthouse was rebuilt several times between 1674 and 1913, the basic design of the courtrooms remained the same. They were arranged so as to emphasise the contest between the accused and the rest of the court. The accused stood at “the bar” (or in “the dock”), directly facing the witness box (where prosecution and defence witnesses testified) and the judges seated on the other side of the room. Before the introduction of gas lighting in the early nineteenth century a mirrored reflector was placed above the bar, in order to reflect light from the windows onto the faces of the accused. This allowed the court to examine their facial expressions assess the validity of their testimony. In addition, a sounding board was placed over their heads in order to amplify their voices.
Early in the period the jurors sat on the sides of the courtroom to both the left and the right of the accused, but from 1737 they were brought together in stalls on the defendant's right, sufficiently close together to be able to consult each other and arrive at verdicts without leaving the room. Seated at a table below where the judges sat were clerks, lawyers, and the writers who took the shorthand notes which formed the basis of the Proceedings.
The medieval courthouse was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. In 1673 the Old Bailey was rebuilt as a three storey Italianate brick building, described by John Strype in 1720 as "a fair and stately building". In front of the courthouse was the Sessions House Yard, a place where litigants, witnesses, and court personnel could gather. The area inside the wall, where prisoners awaited trial, was called the bail dock. They were separated from the street by a brick wall with spikes on top to keep them from escaping.
A surprising feature was that the ground floor of the building, where the courtroom was located, was open on one side to the weather; the upper stories were held up by doric columns. A wall had been left out in order to increase the supply of fresh air to reduce the risk that prisoners suffering from gaol fever (typhus) would infect others in court.
On the first floor there was a "stately dining room" for the justices. Inside the courtroom there was a bench for judges at the far end, and, on both sides, partitioned spaces for jurors and balconies for court officers and privileged observers. Other spectators crowded into the yard. The trials attracted a mixed audience of London's more and less respectable inhabitants, and it was alleged that criminals attended in order to devise strategies for defending themselves should they find themselves on trial. The crowd's presence could influence or intimidate the jurors sitting inside.
In 1737 the building was remodelled, and enclosed. Although this was purportedly in order to keep out the weather, the City authorities may also have wanted to limit the influence of spectators. The ground floor of the exterior was refaced with large masonry blocks, and the windows and roofline altered to reflect prevailing architectural styles. A passageway was constructed linking the courthouse with Newgate Prison, to facilitate the transport of prisoners between the two. The interior was rearranged so that the trial jury could sit together, since they were now expected to give their verdicts after each trial, without leaving the courtroom.
With the courtroom now enclosed, the danger of infection increased, and at one sessions in 1750 an outbreak of gaol fever (typhus) led to the deaths of sixty people, including the Lord Mayor and two judges. Subsequently, the judges spread nosegays and aromatic herbs to keep down the stench and prevent infection, a practice commemorated in a ceremony which continues to this day.
Spectators frequently came to see the trials, and courthouse officials had the right to charge fees for entry to the galleries. The radical John Wilkes, when Sheriff of London in 1771, thought this practice undemocratic and prohibited it. Consequently at the October sessions of that year there was almost a riot due to the pressure of the crowds trying to get in, and those inside the galleries were accused of being "turbulent and unruly". Wilkes's order was rescinded, and spectators continued to pay to see trials until 1860.
In 1774 the court was rebuilt by George Dance at a cost of £15,000. As a way of further controlling public access, a semi-circular brick wall was built around the area immediately in front of the courthouse, the bail dock. This wall provided better security for the prisoners awaiting trial and was intended to prevent communication between prisoners and the public. Public view of the courtroom windows was thereby obstructed.
>The narrow entrance also prevented a sudden influx of spectators into the courtroom. In addition, the passage between Newgate Prison and the Old Bailey was enclosed with brick walls. It is possible that a desire to counteract the more fortress-like appearance of the Old Bailey is one of the reasons why the City, from 1775, went to greater efforts to ensure that the Proceedings provided full and fair reports of the trials.
The new courthouse still had only one courtroom, but it had new and often luxurious facilities for court personnel. There was a separate room for witnesses, so that they would not be obliged to wait their turn in a nearby pub. A grand jury room was appointed with eighteen leather seated chairs and three tables. There were also separate parlours for the Sheriff and Lord Mayor, a Lord Mayor's Clerk's Room, an Indictment Office, and a drawing room for the swordbearer and judges' clerks.
The lavish provision for the judges and their servants contrasted dramatically with the prisoners' quarters in the basement. The Lord Mayor's Dining Room, for example, included a fireplace with a mosaic on the front, mahogany dining tables, chairs, a pot cupboard, and a large Turkey carpet. Looking glasses (mirrors) were added in 1787. Elaborate dinners, cooked in the kitchen on the ground floor and served with drink from the wine vault, were provided at 3pm and 5pm. Outside in the yard there was a covered colonnade for carriages and 5 coach stands. Perhaps unsurprisingly, during the Gordon Riots of 1780 the courtroom was badly damaged, and the crowds carried away the furniture and burned it on bonfires in the streets. But the damage was soon repaired.
The courtroom now had four brass chandeliers and, reflecting the increased role of lawyers, a semi-circular mahogany table for council to plead from. Since some prisoners were still branded, there were two irons for confining convicts' hands while they were burnt. A large glass mirror continued to be positioned to reflect daylight onto the face of the accused (later replaced by gas lights). Behind the jurors, and seated above them, was a gallery for spectators (fees were still charged for admission). Although only a limited number of spectators could be accommodated, the increasingly detailed Proceedings published in these years allowed anyone who read them to keep informed of events in the courtroom.
In order to accommodate the growing number of trials, a second courtroom was added in 1824 by converting a neighbouring building. Reflecting the still increasing role of lawyers, the new courtroom had seating for attorneys, counsel, and law students. There were also seats for spectators, jurors in waiting, prosecutors and witnesses, and officers of the court.
In subsequent decades two additional courtrooms were added, but conditions were cramped: the fourth courtroom contained little more room than was necessary for the judge, jury, and prisoner’s dock, with counsel and the clerk forced to sit in a narrow row of seats. There was no seating for the public, which had to stand in the gangway.
As trials lengthened and the number of those seeking to watch increased in the late nineteenth century the courthouse building became increasingly inadequate. In 1877 a fire forced the City of London to act and proposals were drawn up for a new building. Owing to the dilapidation of Newgate Prison next door, which by the 1860s no longer held long-term prisoners, it was decided to pull down both buildings to make room for a larger building.
After many delays, the new building, designed in the neo-Baroque style by E. W. Mountford and built at a cost of £392,277, was finally opened by King Edward VII in 1907. It was lavishly fitted out and adorned with symbolic reminders to the public of its virtuous purpose. On top of the 67 foot high dome a 12 foot gold leaf statue was placed of a “lady of justice” holding a sword in one hand and the scales of justice in the other; she is not, as is conventional with such figures, blindfolded. Over the main entrance to the building figures were placed representing fortitude, the recording angel, and truth, along with the carved inscription, “defend the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer”.
The exterior was faced in Portland stone, while the interior lobbies and a monumental staircase had Sicilian marble floors, allegorical paintings representing Labour, Art, Wisdom, and Truth, and ornate mosaic arches. The four oak-pannelled courtrooms contained space for all those who needed to attend modern trials, including solicitors and barristers, court reporters, the press (who by now were the most important conduit to the public for information about trials), and spectators.
Each courtroom had a spacious dock, enclosed by low partitions, for the defendants, with a staircase leading directly below to the holding cells. There were now separate rooms for male and female witnesses, and another for witnesses of “the better class”. Lawyers also had their own room, as did barristers’ clerks; the latter included a glass wall to ensure they did not engage in malpractices such as touting for business among prisoners and their associates. As in the previous building, there was an opulently appointed dining room for the judges.
At the opening ceremonies, the Recorder of London addressed the King and Queen: 'We trust that this building, whilst well adapted for the transaction of legal business, also possesses architectural features at once dignified and beautiful, which will make it an ornament to the metropolis of your Empire and a fitting home for the first Criminal Court of Justice in your Majesty's dominions.'
The building was heavily damaged by bombing in 1941 and rebuilt. A modern extension was added in 1972. Nonetheless, the current building on the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey, which still holds trials of local and national significance and can be visited, remains at its core the building which was first opened in 1907.
The Proceedings are a detailed account of the trials enacted at the Old Bailey. They are totally searchable and are a fascinating reflection of society from 1673 to 1913. As such they are eminently readable in there own right. The Great Fire of London in 1666 destroyed a third of London's medieval fabric, taking with it endless small and claustrophobic courts and alleys, but leaving behind a familiar street pattern, and a penumbra of older buildings. The city that was recreated under the aegis of Acts of Parliament and a royal commission was perhaps the most beautiful and certainly in its central quarters, the most ordered city in Europe. The homes and shops created to replace those lost by fire were regular and light, reflecting the social standing of their inhabitants, and the social expectations of a new age. But London still retained innumerable tightly packed and poverty stricken communities, which rubbed shoulders with more fortunate neighbours. The Proceedings provide evidence of both the squalor and the wealth.
Note that the Court Building is open for enquiries (see below for details) and to allow ingress to visitors wishing to follow the various cases. As may be expected, there are a number of security precautions in place. If you have a disability and need help coming to a hearing, please contact the court or tribunal to make sure the facilities meet your specific needs or to discuss a reasonable adjustment you need. There is disabled access, toilet and parking facilities available with prior notification. There are ten rooms within the witness service area, however they are tv link rooms which are sometimes used as interview rooms. This court has hearing enhancement facilities. Refreshments are available to court users, no refreshment facilities to the public. There are Video conference and Prison Video Link facilities. This court has wireless internet access available within some parts of the building.
No admission for children under 14. No cameras, video equipment, mobile phones, bags, food or drink allowed in the building. Assistance dogs are allowed.
Location : Old Bailey, London, EC4M 7EH
Transport: City Thameslink (Thameslink) then 4 minutes OR St. Pauls (Central Line) then 9 minutes. London Buses routes 4, 8, 11, 15, 17, 26, 46, 76 and 521 stop nearby.
Opening Times: Court counter open: 10:00 to 17:00.
Opening: Court building open: 8am to 7pm Not public.
Tickets : Free
Tel: 020 7192 2739
