A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court. If you are new to this site, you may find the Getting Started and Guide to Searching videos and tutorials helpful.

This site uses cookies. See our privacy policy.

February 2018 Update

Several bugs have been fixed and tagging errors corrected. In addition, the following new features have been added: '

• Links have been added from individual trial accounts to relevant 'Life Archives' of convicts in the Digital Panopticon. See below for more information.
• An Access to Old Bailey Online Data page lists current options for obtaining our text data, in order to encourage re-use. We have also clarified in our Copyright and Citation Guide the terms under which our data is made available for non-commercial use.

For more information, see What's New (February 2018). The What's New Archive contains details of previous updates.

The Digital Panopticon: The Global Impact of London Punishments, 1780-1925

This new AHRC funded website traces the lives of 90,000 convicts sentenced at the Old Bailey between 1780 and 1875, linking Old Bailey trials to relevant entries in fifty databases of criminal justice and civil records, including the census. The 'Life Archives' allow users to discover both the pre- and post-trial histories of Old Bailey convicts. They allow users to see differences between the punishment sentences handed down by the court and the punishments convicts actually experienced, and make it possible to compare the impact of the punishments of imprisonment and transportation on convicts' lives.

About this Project

A collaboration between the Universities of Hertfordshire and Sheffield and the Open University, this project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Big Lottery Fund. Project Directors are Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker; the project manager is Sharon Howard and the chief technical officer is Jamie McLaughlin. This website is published by HRI Online Publications, and technical services are provided by the Digital Humanities Institute at the University of Sheffield. See About this Project.