One of our favourite parts of any visit to the UK is a trip out to Kew to The National Archives UK and this last month we have seen examples why it’s always such a rewarding visit. With the release online of the National Archives early Colonial Office photos in Australasia and now a collection of The National Archives‘ historical criminal records from England and Wales as part of a licensing partnership with findmypast.
The first set of documents, comprising 518,000 records from 1817-1931, are now online and the remaining records will be published on findmypast in the coming months. Don’t miss out of the findmypast 20 FREE credits offer associated with the release of the collection – click here for more detail!
Once complete, more than 2.5 million records spanning over 150 years from 1770 to 1934 will be searchable online, providing family and social historians with an invaluable new resource. The records range from petitions for clemency to entry books, judges’ reports, prison registers, transfer papers and gaolers’ reports and chronicle the fate of criminals such as fraudsters, counterfeiters, thieves and murderers as well as their victims.
Records include:
- Among the records which will be available online today are:
- Admiralty registers of convicts in prison hulks between 1818-1831 (ADM 6)
- After trial calendars of prisoners from the Central criminal court between 1855-1931 (CRIM 9)
- Calendar of Prisoners in Home Office records 1868-1929 (HO 140)
- Criminal petitions 1817-1858 (HO 17)
- Metropolitan Police records of habitual drunkards for the period 1903-1914 (MEPO 6)
- Prison Commission records for 1880-1885 (PCOM 2)
Source: from the National Archives UK and findmypast blogs.