Court records, circa 1871

[Richard A Smith]

The 1871 census lists a man with the initials JS – full name not given – in the County Gaol in Cambridge, which was where the Shire Hall now is.  JS was a 26-year-old tailor and born in Berlin.  I think there's an outside possibility that this might be my great great grandfather, John (or presumably Johann) Scheu and would like to find out a bit more about this JS.  Can anyone suggest how I might do this?  Would JS necessarily have been tried at the local quarter sessions or assizes?  Or is it possible he just spent a night in the cells for drunkenness of vagrancy without being formally charged?

[CaroleW]

Criminal registers for that period are available on Ancestry.  Using location as Cambridgeshire 1867-1871 does not show any entry for that name but there are 15 entries where initial were J S - Smith mainly but also other surnames beginning with S

Possibly not tried in Cambridge

[Richard A Smith]

Criminal registers for that period are available on Ancestry.  Using location as Cambridgeshire 1867-1871 does not show any entry for that name but there are 15 entries where initial were J S - Smith mainly but also other surnames beginning with S

Possibly not tried in Cambridge

Oh, I didn't know it was possible to do a wildcard search in Ancestry to find people with the initials JS. That's very useful to know.  Thank you.

I've just done a search of the criminal registers on Ancestry for Cambridgeshire, 1867–71, and got 18 hits, none with a German-looking name.  However they all seem to be records from the quarter sessions.  I can't see anything from either the assizes or the petty sessions.  I imagine cases at the assizes were rare enough that they're unlikely to be relevant here, but what about the petty sessions?  I assume justices of the peace had the power to imprison someone, as magistrates do today.  Are there likely to be any surviving records for the petty sessions?