Old Bailey Online

It's here!

If you're seeing these right now... sorry. Developer is looking into it.

Under headlines "Mr. Justice Ridley Dons the Fateful Black Cap" and "SENTENCED TO DEATH" in larger print, black/white photograph inside courtroom, showing Judge in long wig wearing black cap on top of his long wig, looking at papers. Clerks/court officials on either side of judge, other officials sitting at table below, more men on the left of photo with papers in front of them - possibly the jury.

Remarkable photo taken inside the Old Bailey in 1907 - Mr Justice Ridley wearing the black cap as he sentences to death J.E. Wyatt for murder of Florence Wakeling. (Penny Illustrated Newspaper, 9 March 1907, via British Newspaper Archive)

I've also been busy exploring the @oldbaileyonline.bsky.social API, which changed a LOT when the site was relaunched 18 months ago and I've been meaning to write up some guidance for that. So here is a new little website.

sharonhoward.github.io/obo/

Good news for @oldbaileyonline.bsky.social fans who are Zotero users... the OBO Zotero translator is working again. Except the multi functionality for search results (a bit much for my JS skills; maybe later), but I added bookmarking a session, and tidied it all up a bit.

Didn't realize that the John Johnson Crime ephemera collection is free to access in the UK:

johnjohnson.chadwyck.co.uk/geoLocSubscr...

hat tip to @oldbaileyonline.bsky.social where I discovered this.

#History #DigitalHistory 🗃️

Family History in the Digital Age In the second article of our feature on the radical potential of family history, family historian Mark Crail reflects on the power of collaboration in the history of working-class movements.

OTD in 1848, some 150,000 Chartists met on Kennington Common to present their third petition to Parliament.

Mark Crail on how tracing Chartists, a working-class movement for political and economic reform, became a point of connection between family and academic historians:
http://www.historywo...

Last is the online adaptation of my beloved "Crime and Punishment in England, 1500-1900," which draws on the glories of the Old Bailey Online for the second half of study and projects. www.oldbaileyonline.org

A formal certificate headed ASLH, with details of the Mary L. Dudziak Digital History Prize. It is signed in the bottom left, and dated October 25, 2024 in the right hand corner

Please excuse the self-promotion, but www.Oldbaileyonline.org was recently awarded the Mary L.Dudziak Digital History Prize by ASLH, and Bob Shoemaker and I just received the certificate. We were really honoured, but having no wall space to speak of, I thought it could usefully go here.

History: History of the Old Bailey | WEA History: History of the Old Bailey

On Saturday 7 December, I will be running a short afternoon session on the history of the Old Bailey for the WEA Petts Wood and Orpington Branch. If anyone down that way wishes to come along, you are very welcome.
Details are below www.wea.org.uk/courses/huma...

Legal history: sources and approaches - YouTube A workshop for lawyers interested in history and historians interested in law. It includes sessions on Sources: (1) local archives; (2) national archives and...

Delighted that the workshop Law and History: Sources and Approaches is now available as an online resource.
If you are a lawyer interested in history or a historian interested in law, this is for you. Enjoy watching!

#LegalHistory

💃 🕺

The home page of the Locating London's Past website, including a map illustrating thefts 1674-1819, and a panel on the right with information about the site and links.

Really pleased to announce the launch of a thoroughly updated version of Locating London's Past: locatinglondon.org - new functionality, better mapping, cleaner data. @ihr.bsky.social @long18thsem.bsky.social @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social

Screen shot of webpage with message: "Error: Request failed with status code 500". Above the message is a drawing of a bug. What the screen shot doesn't show is that the bug is animated and slowly revolves.

Nobody likes it when the server flakes out, but at least we give you cute bugs to look at till it comes back.

And modest. 😉

Putting together a list of digital archives for my research methods students to consult as they consider what topics to write their research papers on, but it's heavily US focused. Can fellow historians help me add some variety? 🗃️

you know that I LOVE @oldbaileyonline.bsky.social so much that my students make fun of me about it

The Old Bailey Online at 20 Published in The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present (Ahead of Print, 2024)

I have 'reviewed' the recently updated Old Bailey Online after 20 years in the public domain for the London Journal. Link works 50 times for those who would like to read what I had to say. Everybody knows about this iconic resource, but as it moves into its third decade new challenges will emerge.

A multi-line graph with a key listing types of theft on the right.

We also think the Old Bailey statistical search pages are much improved, with more visualisation options, and links below to all the trials that contribute to a particular graph or table. This is a multi-line chart of all subcategories of theft, by year. www.oldbaileyonline.org/search/stati...

As part of the latest update, the OBO bibliography, which is maintained as a Zotero library, has been substantially updated. Browse on the site from here www.oldbaileyonline.org/about/biblio... or more searchably on Zotero www.zotero.org/groups/34674... (the latter might have a few newer items too)

Miaow. 😹

Usually I'm crabby about updates to beloved, oft-used online history resources, but the Old Bailey team seems to have made it genuinely better!

The initial scatterplot visualisation when you search for anything is very snazzy and actually really helpful. www.oldbaileyonline.org/about/whats-...

What's proximity searching and why is it great that we've got it back? Thanks to the Internet Archive, you can find out here web.archive.org/web/20061029...

A startling scatter graph via the new version of the Old Bailey Online: there were a lot of coining offences in c19th London, and surprisingly few in the c18th:

www.oldbaileyonline.org/search/keywo...

#History #DigitalHistory #MonetaryCrime

We discovered the earliest ever professional tattooer in England in this database. ♥️

For Zoterophiles: the OBO translator is not working and will need significant rewriting. I'm looking at it but it'll take me a little while to get my head round it. (If you have the expertise I lack, do feel free to take it on...)

A note for #DigitalHumanities people. The API has also been totally overhauled; if you're using it for anything it'll be borked. New documentation here: www.oldbaileyonline.org/about/api

Oh yeah baby 💃🕺

Hello Bluesky! I’m new on here and looking forward to chatting (mostly!) about historical murder cases, Victorian detectives and the history of forensic science. Do let me know if you’re interested in these topics and I will follow you 🔎

How do we know what eggs cost in the 18th century?

People stole them, and Courts would list the prices of stolen goods.

Here are some examples from @oldbaileyonline.bsky.social

From these, we can see that 60 eggs are about 4 shillings.