The Ancestry.co.uk website has published 4,400 parole records with 500 photographs of some of the prisoners sentenced in the mid-19th century. All the records are from The National Archives of the UK.
The database includes images of the records themselves, which make up a file on the convict. Their contents varies but can include next of kin, religion, literacy, physical description, a medical history, marital status, number of children, age, occupation, crime, sentence, dates and places of confinement, reports on behavior while in prison, letters or notes from the convict, and (from 1871 forward) a photograph.
Photo: A prison photograph of Mary Richards, who was jailed for five years in 1880 at the age 59 for stealing 130 oysters. Photograph: Ancestry.co.uk/PA
Comments