Oxford LibGuides: Legal history: England & common law tradition: Crime

History of criminal law & crime in England

An excellent starting point are chapters 29 & 30 of Baker's book below:

Introduction to English Legal History by John Baker
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this online via title link
ISBN: 9780198812616
Publication Date: 5th edn 2019
Print copy is available at Legal Hist B167a5 if preferred
Sources of English Legal History : Public Law to 1750 by John Baker
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this online via title link
ISBN: 9780199546794
Publication Date: 2024
A History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales by John Hostettler
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this book online via title link
ISBN: 9781904380511
Publication Date: 2009
The Oxford Handbook of the History of Crime and Criminal Justice by Paul Knepper (Editor); Anja Johansen (Editor)
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this online via title link
ISBN: 9780199352333
Publication Date: 2016
Print copy is at Crim 590 K68.5b on Level 3
Victims and Criminal Justice: A History by Pamela Cox; Robert Shoemaker; Heather Shore
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this via title link
ISBN: 9780192846488
Publication Date: 2023
Remote access requires Oxford SSO
Crime and Civilization: The Birth of Criminology in the Early Nineteenth Century by Janne Kivivuori
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this via title link
ISBN: 9780198909798
Publication Date: 2024

To find other books on SOLO try the subject searches

Corrections -- England -- History --
Criminal law -- England -- History --
Criminology -- England -- History --
Criminal justice, Administration of -- England -- History --

You can refine all of these by adding a period eg to 1500, or 16th century, 17th century, 18th century, 19th century, or 20th century.

Expect to find that the Bodleian History Faculty Library has books in this area of research too!

Hierarchy of criminal courts from 1200s to 1971

petty sessions / magistrates' courts heard the most minor if offences
quarter sessions (because held 4 times a year) were local county courts
judges from the higher central courts of Westminster travelled out on circuits twice a year to hear the most serious criminal cases at the assizes held in the main county towns

Justice of the Peace Reports 1837 -
Requires Oxford SSO. LexisLibrary has some as full text.
Cox 's Reports of Cases in Criminal Law Argued and Determined in the Courts of England 1846-1948 Remote access requires Oxford SSO

vLex Justis
State Trials has "Over seven centuries of higher criminal jurisprudence covering English trials relating to offences against the State or trials illustrative of the law relating to State Officers, e.g. Ministers or Governors of Colonies. A wide variety of cases is covered, predominantly high treason but also bigamy, sedition, seditious libel, murder involving high-ranking officials or peers, riot, piracy, witchcraft, bribery and corruption. It comprises two of the most authoritative series of State Trials, Howell’s/Cobbett’s State Trials (1163–1822) and the New Series (Macdonell’s) (1822–1858), as well as additional material sourced from National Collections and the English (Nominate) Reports."
vLex Justis offers access to a range of law reports, transcripts and legislation from the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the Caribbean, and the EU. For UK case research it has extensive information relating to where cases have been cited, etc including a precedent map.

In addition it includes the full text of the following: Aspinall's Maritime Law Cases, English Reports, State Trials, CCH Tax Cases, Immigration Appeal Reports, Inquest Law Reports, Mental Health Reports, Session Cases Archive, Irish Reports & Digest, Jersey Law Reports, Bermuda Law Reports, Cayman Islands Law Reports, The Singapore Law Reports, and the International Law Reports. Also included in the service is Justis Human Rights.

To access personalisation features please set up an individual profile on the platform using a unique id and password.

Please note that apart from the titles listed above, vLex Justis includes some abstracted materials for which you will need to refer to other online services or hard copy to obtain the full text.

vLex Justis includes content formerly available via JustisOne.
Making of Modern Law, The: Legal Treatises 1800-1926
Alternative names: MOML ; The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises 1800-1926

The Making of Modern Law comprises over 21,000 works from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on British Commonwealth and American law. It covers nearly every aspect of law, encompassing a range of analytical, theoretical, and practical literature, some very rare. The monographs and materials in Legal Treatises include casebooks, local practice manuals, books on legal form, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, and speeches. The collection covers domestic and international law, legal history, business and economics, politics and government, national defence, criminology, religion, education, labour and social welfare, and military justice.

Criminal procedure in English common law
Requires Oxford SSO for remote access Sub entry in Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History. Available in the Library at Ref 103
Stephens: History of the criminal law (3vs 1883)
Requires Oxford SSO for remote access. Classic work available via MOML Print copy is at Legal Hist S828a3 if preferred

Crime, Law and Society in the Later Middle Ages by Simon Maclean (Series edited by); Anthony Musson (Translator); Edward Powell (As told to); Rosemary Horrox (Series edited by)
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this book online via title link
ISBN: 9780719038013
Publication Date: 2009
Print copies eg BHFL Upper Gladstone Link K5032 CRI 2009
Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England by Malcolm Gaskill; Anthony Fletcher (Contribution by); John Guy (Contribution by); John Morrill (Contribution by)
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this online via title link
ISBN: 0521531187
Publication Date: 2003
Print copy available at Legal Hist G248.5a. Considers "... how the thinking of ordinary people was transformed between 1550 and 1750."
Crime and the courts in England : 1660-1800 by J.M. Beattie.
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this online via title link.
ISBN: 9780198200574
Publication Date: ©1986, reprint 2002
Print copy available at Crim 500 B369a if preferred
The Origins of Adversary Criminal Trial by John H. Langbein
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this online via title link.
ISBN: 0199287236
Publication Date: 2005
Print copy is available at Legal Hist L271c if preferred

Online resources available to all

Proceedings of the Old Bailey, The: London's Central Criminal Court, 1674 to 1913
The Proceedings contain accounts of trials which took place at the Old Bailey. The crimes tried were mostly felonies (predominantly theft), but also include some of the most serious misdemeanours. The first published collection of trials at the Old Bailey dates from 1674, and from 1678 accounts of the trials at each session (meeting of the Court) at the Old Bailey were regularly published. Inexpensive, and targeted initially at a popular rather than a legal audience, the Proceedings were produced shortly after the conclusion of each sessions and were a commercial success. With few exceptions, this periodical was regularly published each time the sessions met (eight times a year) for 160 years. In 1834 it changed its name, but publication continued until 1913.

British Executions
"This site details most criminal executions carried out in Britain between 1100 and 1964.
Most executions are referenced but not all have a full description."
British Transportation Registers 1787-1867
Compiled by researchers at the State Library of Queensland as part of the Australian Joint Copying Project (AJCP). The registers, constituting an index to the British Home Office Convict Criminal Transportation Registers, cover the entire period of convict transportation to Australia, from 1787 to 1867.
Crime and Punishment ; Transportation
Part of the National Archives Learning Curve
Transportation was used as a form of punishment from 1717 - with convicts first transported to America. After US independence in 1776, Australia became the destination. From 1787 to 1857, 162,000 British convicts were transported to Australia.
The Digital Panopticon: Tracing London Convicts in Britain & Australia, 1780-1925
Open Access This website allows you to search millions of records from around fifty datasets, relating to the lives of 90,000 convicts from the Old Bailey. AHRC funded project
London Lives 1690 to 1800: crime, poverty, and social policy in the metropolis
Open access."London Lives makes available, in a fully digitised and searchable form, a wide range of primary sources about eighteenth-century London, with a particular focus on plebeian Londoners."
English Crime and Execution Broadsides
Open access. Harvard UniversityLibrary has made available This collection of nearly 600 broadsides highlights crime and capital punishment, primarily in England, as seen through the popular press in the 18th and 19th century.
International Centre for the History of Crime, Policing and Justice
Based at the Open University. Useful for links and bibliographies.
History of Crime and Punishment in Britain 1790-1870 [Archive]
Open Access Selection of broadsides and chapbooks form Glasgow University Library Special Collections.
Making Sense of English Law Enforcement in the 18th Century
Open Access. By Prof David H Friedman. The University of Chicago Law School Roundtable (Spring/Summer 1995).
SOLON: promoting interdisciplinary studies in law, crime, and history
SOLON is a consortium of academics and professionals/practitioners based in a partnership between the Universities of Nottingham Trent, Oxford Brookes, Plymouth, Liverpool John Moores, the West of England and Liverpool Hope (listed in order of joining).
Law, Crime & History (SOLON online journal)
Open Access journal of SOLON (previous title Crimes and Misdemeanours 2007-2010).
Law Courts and Courtrooms 1: The Buildings of the Criminal Law
Free guide. Part of Historic England's
Introductions to Heritage Assets By Allan Brodie, Mary Brodie (authors) (2016) Criminal courts have been a key part of English life since the Middle Ages, and range from small historic, local magistrates courts to huge modern combined court centres.
This document tells the story of how buildings have been adapted initially and subsequently constructed to meet the needs of England’s complex criminal legal system. It also explains how the courtroom has evolved from a gathering of professionals around a table in the medieval hall to the specialised, purpose-built, modern courtroom.

Witches

Witchcraft & the law in early modern Europe & USA
by Elizabeth Wells Last Updated Dec 20, 2024 1826 views this year

Archives & statistics

Reading the records even when in English requires understanding of the contemporary legal terminology: for example, the phrase "Death recorded" (from 1823) was not a synonym for execution having been carried out.

Criminal trials in the assize courts 1559-1971
TNA's own guide to the records it holds
How to Look for Trials in the Old Bailey and the Central Criminal Court 1674-
TNA's own guide to records. The Old Bailey officially became the Central Criminal Court in 1834 - but the "popular" old name lingered/lingers still...
How to look for Criminals and convicts
TNA's own guide about how to how best to use the sources available
Crime and the law in England
Free resource. Online guide by The National Archives to the unpublished sources noted in the National Register of Archives (NRA), the Manorial Documents Register (MDR), the principal relevant repositories with strong collections relating to criminal and legal history, and general works of reference.