Victorian criminal records go online

Thousands of criminal records detailing the harsh punishments handed our to female convicts in Victorian times will be published online for the first time today. Family history website, Ancestry.co.uk is publishing more than 4,400 criminal records and 500 mugshots in its collection, which included one woman who received a five year sentence for stealing an umbrella.

They provide an astonishing insight into the way justice was done at the time, and indicted that gender and the offence committed was no barrier to the full force of the law. Women and young girls featured in the records include Mary Richards, who was jailed for five years in 1880 at the age 59 for stealing 130 oysters valued at eight shillings.

Another tells of Dorcas Mary Snell, 45, who was sentenced to five years of imprisonment with hard labour in 1883 for the theft of a single piece of bacon, although she was paroled two years later.

Elizabeth Murphy, who stole the umbrella, received a five years of hard labour in 1884 and seven years of police supervision. She served three years of her sentence before receiving parole in 1887.

Continue Reading Here

Hitler wanted to steal the Turin Shroud - 'but was thwarted by the Vatican'

Scholars try to rescue reputation of royal wizard John Dee

MI5 guide to tricks of Cold War