Author Topic: Police Court records?  (Read 240 times)

Offline melba_schmelba

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Police Court records?
« on: Monday 17 January 22 18:16 GMT (UK) »
I have seen many references to Police Courts hearings and judgements etc. in the newspapers on findmypast or the British Newspaper Archive, but I don't think I have seen any sign of indexes or digitisations of them being made, as has happened with Quarter Sessions records, Old Bailey records etc. I realise there must have been a huge number of such courts across the country, and perhaps not all the records survive. Does anyone have any experience of looking into Police Court records and success or not in doing so?

Offline melba_schmelba

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Re: Police Court records?
« Reply #1 on: Tuesday 18 January 22 16:23 GMT (UK) »
I found this dataset on Ancestry

Registers of Habitual Criminals and Police Gazettes, 1834-1934
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/61812/

but that doesn't seem to necessarily index all Police Court hearings. The Police Gazette presumably only did what the 1871 act stipulated to record those:

"convicted of a crime and sent to prison for one month or more"

So people who were fined or branded, not convicted, or sent to prison for less than a month presumably were not recorded. I did find this other thread that indicates you might find local Police Court minute books in local studies or archives centres relating to that area or perhaps county in some cases?
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=853080.0

Offline melba_schmelba

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Re: Police Court records?
« Reply #2 on: Tuesday 18 January 22 16:33 GMT (UK) »
It seems Police Courts were really another name for what were formerly called Petty Sessions and are now called Magistrates Courts

http://catalogue.hullhistorycentre.org.uk/catalogue/C-DPM?tab=description

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magistrates%27_court_(England_and_Wales)#History

the next section indicates magistrates courts were only known as Police Courts in London, but from the Hull archives entry, that seems it may not be the case and it was a terminology perhaps used in many cities and large towns.