Proceedings of the Central Criminal Court 1834 to 1913, Online

The Central Criminal Court Online has digitised and posted in a searchable form 70 million words of transcripts of trials held at the Old Bailey between 1834 and 1913. It forms an extension to the NOF and AHRB funded project 'The Old Bailey Online', and forms a seamless body of text detailing all trials held between 1674 and 1834. In total approximately 125 million words of text is available. By tagging the rekeyed and OCRd text in XML for names, offences, trial outcomes, punsihments, etc., the site allows comprehensive statistical information to be generated.

This site makes available the largest body of printed text detailing the lives of non-elite people ever created, and in the process contributes substantially to two distinct forms of historical enquiry. The tagged information detailing trials and their outcomes provides the basis for a new and uniquely detailed history of crime and punishment. And the full keyword searchable transcripts also provide access to uniquely detailed descriptions of everyday life, and in doing so make a major contribution to a broader social history. By dint of the sheer volume of text, the site also contributes to a range of further disciplines such as literary studies, historical geography, economic history etc.