To coincide with Australian Family History Week at the beginning of August, Ancestry.com.au launched the England & Wales Criminal Registers, 1791-1892. This collection is made up of the trial registers of more than 97,000 convicts, representing 60 per cent of all estimated 165,000 convicts transported to Australia.
Each register includes details of the crime, the full name and age of the accused, the location of the trial and the judgement passed.
In total, the registers include:
- 900,000 sentences of imprisonment – 65% of those who went to trial during this time ended up serving a prison sentence
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97,000 transportations to Australia – many criminals who received death sentences had their sentence commuted to transportation as judges became increasingly 'lenient'
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10,300 executions, including one of a boy aged just 14.
Although the trial registers are primarily for British and Welsh criminals, the collection also includes Irish and Scottish criminals tried within England and Wales during this time. Of the 97,000 sentenced to transportation, approximately 40,000 were Irish and 8,000 were Scottish.
A number of notorious criminals appear in the collection, including:
- Isaac 'Ikey' Solomon - is widely considered to be the inspiration for the Dickens' character Fagan. He gained notoriety for his crimes, escape from arrest and high-profile recapture and trial – finally being tried and sentenced at the Old Bailey in 1830 to 14-years transportation to New South Wales.
- Francis Greenway (pictured) - the renowned architect sentenced to death for having forged a financial document. Greenway's sentence was commuted to transportation to Australia. Following the success of several of his designs locally, he was emancipated and went on to design many significant buildings in the new colony, including the Hyde Park Barracks and Government House.
- Mary Bryant - the infamous petty thief from Cornwall who, having arrived in Australia with the First Fleet, stole a boat with her husband and a seven-man crew, in 1791 and reached Timor 5,000 kilometres away before being captured by the Dutch and returned to England. Miraculously for the times, she was later pardoned.
Click here to search the England & Wales Criminal Registers, 1791-1892.
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