In order to create a Table, Bar Chart or Pie Chart you must first choose the category of information to be counted. For a table you would normally choose two categories of information, one for the rows and another for the columns. For a Bar Chart or Pie Chart, you should only make one selection. In the case of Pie and Bar Charts it does not matter if you make this selection as a row or a column.

If you leave either row or column as total, the information you choose will always be displayed in rows.

The categories available are:

• Year (1674-1913) Please note that this will break down the data into 240 separate categories unless you limit your search by date. This choice is only available on under rows.
• Decade (1670s - 1910s) This choice is only available on under rows.
• Offence Category (Breaking Peace, Damage to Propety, Deception, Killing, Miscellaneous, Royal Offences, Sexual Offences, Theft, Violent Theft)
• Offence Subcategory (there are 56 individual subcategories, but if you limit your search by specifying a category in the Offence box then only the subcategories within that category will be tabulated).
• Punishment Category (Corporal, Death, Imprisonment, Miscellaneous, No Punishment, Transportation)
• Punishment Subcategory (there are 38 subcategories of punishment, but if you limit your search by specifying a category in the Punishment box then only the subcategories within that category will be tabulated)
• Verdict Category (Guilty, Miscellaneous, Not Guilty, Special Verdict)
• Verdict Subcategory (there are 29 individual subcategories, but if you limit your search by specifying a category in the Verdict box then only the subcategories within that category will be tabulated)
• Defendant Gender (Male, Female, Indeterminate)
• Defendant Age (1-99)
• Victim Gender (Male, Female, Indeterminate)
• Victim Age (1-92)

Whether you count by Offence, Defendant, Verdict, Punishment, or Victim has an impact on the results you generate, since each trial could involve more than one of each of these categories of information. As a default, the statistics function will choose the most appropriate category, which will be identified at the top of the results page. You can override this default by using this drop-down menu to specify the category which will form the unit of analysis.

• Table
• Pie and Bar Charts

Table

A table is the default setting for generating statistics and would normally cross reference two types of information, with for example Decade in the rows and Offence Category in the columns. By selecting these elements from the row and column menus, a comprehensive table providing information about the numbers of offences tried in each decade will be generated. Each cell of the table will give you a whole number (the number of offences counted), which is also a link to the trials themselves; and gives percentages of the total number of both types of information tabulated. In this example the percentages given are of all offences in that offence category which were tried in that decade, and of all the trials in that decade which involved that offence category (ie. 3845 trials for theft occurred in the 1740s, which represents 2.55% of all trials for theft between 1674 and 1913, and 84.06% of all trials held in the 1740s). The percentages in the upper right hand corner of each cell tabulate to 100% in each column, while the percentages in the lower left hand corner tabulate to 100% for each row.

The provision of a link from each cell of the table to the actual trials allows you to check the accuracy of your statistics and conduct further research into the nature and significance of the tabulation.

Pie and Bar Charts

Pie and Bar Charts normally allow you to represent, and break down into its component parts, just one type of information. A Bar Chart is best used to illustrate change over time, and is suited to the representation of information such as the numbers of trials for a particular type of offence decade by decade. To generate this type of Bar Chart you would choose Year or Decade from the row menu, Bar Chart from the Display menu, and category such as Breaking the Peace from the Offence menu.

Pie Charts work well as a way of representing divisions within a single type of information. By choosing a category of information from the row menu, and selecting Pie Chart a meaningful chart will be created. For example, choosing Verdict Subcategory from the row menu, and Pie Chart from the Display menu, the relative frequency of the 24 varieties of verdict recorded in the Proceedings will be reflected.

For both types of chart the colour coding is explained below the chart, where the labels are given and the numbers (and percentages of the total) in each subcategory are listed. Once again, the provision of a link from each tabulated number to the actual trials allows you to check the accuracy of your statistics and conduct further research into the nature and significance of the tabulation.

Each charge in each trial in the Proceedings has been tagged with an offence type specifying both the broad category of offence, and the specific charge brought by the court. This tagging has been imposed by modern historians on the original text. While it has followed as accurately as possible the text of the original trial account, these offence types are necessarily approximations, both because the original reporting was inconsistent and, more importantly, because the law itself was inconsistently applied at any one time and was constantly changing over the course of the 240 year period covered by the Proceedings. If, for academic purposes you are seeking to use these categories please check that the trials you cite are correctly tagged.

The default setting for this search box is <All Offences>, which will ensure that all trials are searched when undertaking a keyword or surname search. From the pull-down menu you can also choose to restrict your search to any one of nine broad categories of offence. These categories include:

• Breaking Peace
• Damage to Property
• Deception
• Killing
• Miscellaneous
• Royal Offences
• Sexual Offences
• Theft
• Violent Theft

Under each of these broad categories there are between four and seventeen more specific options. In the case of a category such as Deception, for instance, you may narrow your search to any of the following specific offence categories:

• Deception> bankruptcy
• Deception> forgery
• Deception> fraud
• Deception> perjury
• Deception> other

For detailed descriptions of each of the offence categories listed please see Crime Types.

Each verdict in each trial in the Proceedings has been tagged with an verdict type specifying both the broad category of verdict and specific verdict for each individual charge.

The default setting for this search box is <All Verdicts>, which will ensure that all trials are searched when undertaking a keyword, surname or other search. From the pull-down menu you can also choose to narrow your search to any one of four broad categories of verdicts. These broad categories include:

• Guilty
• Miscellaneous
• Not Guilty
• Special Verdict

Under each of these headings are between one and fourteen sub-categories. Under the broad category of Not Guilty, for instance, all verdicts are tagged as belonging to one of the following sub-categories:

• Not Guilty > accidental death
• Not Guilty > directed
• Not Guilty > fault
• Not Guilty > no evidence
• Not Guilty > non compos mentis
• Not Guilty > no prosecutor
• Not Guilty > other
• Not Guilty > self defence

For a detailed description of verdict types see Trial Verdicts.

Each punishment sentenced in the Proceedings has been tagged with a punishment type, specifying both the broad category of punishment and the specific punishment sentenced by the court.

The default setting for this search box is <All Punishments>, which will ensure that all trials are searched when undertaking a keyword or surname search. From the pull-down menu you can also choose to restrict your search to any one of six broad categories of punishment. These categories include:

• Corporal
• Death
• Imprisonment
• Miscellaneous
• No Punishment
• Transportation

Within these broad categories are a range of sub-categories. Death, for instance, includes:

• Death > burning
• Death > death and dissection
• Death > drawn and quartered
• Death > executed
• Death > hanging in chains
• Death > other
• Death > respited
• Death > respited for pregnancy

It is important to note that the sentences passed were not always carried out.

For a detailed explanation of punishment types, see Punishments at the Old Bailey.

A gender has been ascribed to almost every defendant that appears in the Proceedings. Limiting your search to one sex or the other will substantially increase the accuracy of your results. There are cases, however, in which a gender could not ascribed. For given names where the gender is unclear an Indeterminate tag has been used. In cases where aliases mean that a single individual has two or more names, the gender tag has only been associated with the first.

The age of defendants found guilty is consistently recorded in the Proceedings from January 1789 onwards; and from the late 1830s is also occasionally but not consistently recorded for defendants found not guilty. Where the age is given as a number it has been tagged, and can be used to refine your searches. To limit your tabulation to a specific age select the same number from the list in both the From and To boxes.

It is important to remember that the ages involved are as they are given in the Proceedings and are often only rough estimates. Many younger and older defendants lied about their age to secure the sympathy of the court. The haphazard way in which age was recorded prior to 1789 means that this information needs to be treated with care. Descriptive words reflecting on age - infant, child, old man, youth, have not been tagged, but can be located by using the keyword search facility. Where a numerical age has not been given, it will appear as 0. To avoid this problem, it is often useful to specify a minimum age of 1 when compiling age statistics.

A gender has been ascribed to almost every victim whose name appears in the Proceedings. There are cases, however, in which a gender could not ascribed. For given names where the gender is unclear, and in cases where the victim of a crime was an institution such as the Bank of England, an Indeterminate tag has been used.

The age of victims is not consistently recorded in the Proceedings; and only 724 victims have been assigned an age; all of these tags relate to the period after 1834. It is also important to remember that the ages involved are as they are given in the Proceedings, and do not always represent more than a rough estimate of the precise age of the individual. Descriptive words reflecting on age - infant, child, old man, youth, have not been tagged, and can be most easily located by using the keyword search facility.

To limit your tabulation to a specific age select the same number from the list in both the From and To boxes.

Where a numerical age has not been given, it will appear as 0. To avoid this problem, it is often useful to specify a minimum age of 1 when compiling age statistics.

• Keyword Searching
• Using Keyword Radio Buttons
• Wild Cards

Keyword Searching

The Keyword search box allows you to search an index of every word in the Proceedings, to build complex phrase searches, and to use AND/OR operators to limit your search. One and two letter words and some short and common words have been excluded from these indexes in order to increase search speeds. These include:

Using Keyword Radio Buttons

Below the Keyword search box there are four radio buttons. These allow you to incorporate Boolean Operators (And, Or), and to define a Phrase. You can also opt for an Advanced setting that allows you to use the the full search syntax available through MySQL, the search engine used to implement these facilities. See the What's This help text for details about using the Advanced radio button.

The default setting for the Radio buttons is And, so a search including more than one word produces texts in which all words appear. This is particularly useful for limiting your searches.

In contrast, choosing the Or button below the search box allows you to widen your search to include variant spellings or a collection of related words. You might, for instance, search for Moorgate Mooregate Moregate, with the Or radio button selected, in order to capture different spellings.

You can also choose the Phrase radio button. With the Phrase radio button selected all the text in the search box is treated as a single precise phrase, including one and two letter words and words on the Stop List.

Finally, you can select the Advanced radio button, which allows you to use wild cards, boolean operators, and more complex syntax in combination. Please read the associated What's This help text for details on how to apply these functions.

Wild Cards

A limited Wild Card (*) function is available with the Advanced radio button.

By filling in the From and To date boxes you can specify the period you wish to search. The dates of all trials are recorded as the first day of each Sessions in which they were heard, although most meetings of the court lasted several days. The execution date as given in the Ordinary's Accounts is used in respect to these pamphlets.

Please note that up until 1753 England and Wales still used the Old Style, Julian calendar. As a result, prior to 1753 dates in the Proceedings and the Ordinary's Accounts were between 10 and 11 days out of kilter with the Gregorian calendar used on the continent and adopted at mid-century. In the material reproduced here, the start of the year has been taken to be 1 January throughout, rather than 25 March. Please note that many editions of the Proceedings prior to 1714, and of the Ordinary's Accounts throughout the period 1679-1772, were either never published, or do not survive. To see which editions are available, please consult the Proceedings by Date and Ordinary's Accounts by Date search pages.