Old Bailey Online

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A review by Valérie Martin, written for HIST 5V71 in Fall 2011

Contents

[edit] Review

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online: An Online Research Tool for Historians and Humanists

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online, launched in 2003, compiles London’s Old Bailey documents in an easily searchable database. The original Proceedings formed a valuable set of primary documents for historians, and other researchers, interested in London’s social and criminal history. Upon their digitization, researchers used the Proceedings to analyze a variety of trends, crimes, and norms among London’s varied social classes using methods made possible by the database itself. In fact, the Old Bailey Online has led to a wealth of research produced by academics. Despite a few shortcomings, including the somewhat restrictive search capabilities of the database, The Old Bailey Online advances research not only for those interested in British social history, but also among those interested in the humanities as a whole. The wide reach and potential of such an approach marks an important and vital shift in humanities research methodology and has certainly advanced the types of research questions scholars can and should be asking.

In an essay on the reliability of the Old Bailey documents, historian Robert Shoemaker describes how court scribes recorded criminal trials from London’s Old Bailey courthouse in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, a journal containing first-hand accounts of witness reports, testimonies, and sentences, first published in seventeenth century.[1] According to historians Clive Emsley, Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, the accounts of the ordinaries of Newgate, London’s main prison, often accompanied the publication of the Proceedings. In their overview of these documents, Emsley, Hitchcock and Shoemaker explain that ordinaries compiled in these accounts information about sentenced prisoners, including their crimes, biographies, and final sentiments before execution.[2] The Proceedings, along with the ordinaries’ accounts, offer historians rich primary documentation about the social life, beliefs, and attitudes of Londoners in periods of vast social change.

While the Proceedings present critical source material for researchers interested in London’s social history, the vast number of trials recorded makes analysis of the entire collection difficult to accomplish. In response to such limitations, Emsely, Hitchcock, and Shoemaker developed an online digitized collection combining the Old Bailey Proceedings with the Newgate prison publications. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online, they assert, contains close to 200,000 documents from the Proceedings and from the complementary Newgate accounts.[3] Digitized images of the original documents accompany the searchable texts.[4] The Old Bailey allows researchers to create statistical charts and tables from the information contained within the Proceedings, and thus offers researchers, as Hitchcock, Shoemaker, and Sharon Howard call attention to, the opportunity to combine qualitative research with quantitative analysis.[5] Part of a larger trend aimed at improving document accessibility and analysis—and thus historical research— through digitization, the Old Bailey Online has significantly influenced historical understanding of British society in particular, and of humanities research in general.

According to Hitchcock, Howard, and Shoemaker, numerous studies already cite sources found within the Old Bailey Online.[6] The database has proved particularly useful for historians of gender and sexuality. Using the database to trace the criminalization and decriminalization of alternative sexual and gender identities overtime, historians can outline changing attitudes towards sexuality and gender. Using these sources, historians have identified the development of distinct sexual identities in early modern London society. Historian H.G. Cocks, for instance, explored the testimonies of convicted sodomites using the online Proceedings and located a distinct sodomite “voice” in London’s public discursive realm beginning in the early nineteenth century.[7] The Old Bailey Online continues to support research on a number of often overlooked crime-related topics including prostitution, bigamy, and rape. The database may improve knowledge of London society as it compels historians to explore larger social forces in Britain’s early modern period contributing to the decriminalization of certain behaviours and the criminalization of others.

Judging from the number of studies produced as a result of the Old Bailey Online, it seems accurate to state that the database has successfully increased access to the Proceedings and to the accounts of the ordinaries. The documents can now be accessed by both amateur and seasoned researchers, and by both professional historians and historical enthusiasts outside of academia. More importantly, a wider audience also means a wider breadth of research questions to be asked and to be explored. The Old Bailey Online promises to expand historical knowledge of early modern London society by allowing a vast number of people to ask a series of different questions. In addition, the Old Bailey’s statistics tool enables researchers to view larger historical trends contained within the documents. Such an approach to humanities research, combining qualitative and quantitative analysis, can be useful for scholars looking to analyze particular social characteristics over long periods of time.

For his research, Magnus Huber used the Old Bailey Online to determine the “linguistic reliability” of the Proceedings by assessing their “internal linguistic consistency through a quantitative analysis of negative contraction.”[8] While Huber admitted to the limited use of the Old Bailey Online for the purposes of linguistic analysis, Huber nonetheless used the database’s statistics tool to determine the “socio-biographical characteristics” of trial participants.[9] Huber highlighted the failure of Old Bailey scribes to represent complete proceedings. His approach led historians like Shoemaker to examine the inclusions and exclusions of scribes recording the trials and to analyze gaps found in the Proceedings.[10]

Huber and Shoemaker remind researchers of the Old Bailey Online’s limitations. While Shoemaker points to the internal deficiencies of the Proceedings themselves—not the database—Huber suggests that the Old Bailey Online limits research, particularly for those interested in linguistic analysis, because of the method used to return search queries.[11] Thus, while the Old Bailey Online improves access to the Proceedings, it also limits the types of research one may perform. In other words, the database may favour historical research over linguistic research as Huber suggests, or more simply, it may lead to inaccurate conclusions because of the limitations of the Old Bailey’s search engine. For those more reluctant to approve of the virtues of technology for research purposes, the inability to perform different types of queries, compounded with the lack of authentic feeling gained when working with original non-digitized texts, may lead them to avoid the database altogether. That being said, the number of studies currently making use of the Old Bailey’s holdings and research tools seems to imply that many scholars are prepared to overlook such limitations.

Despite a small number of shortcomings, the Old Bailey Online continues to contribute to the advancement of humanities research. While the digitization of primary texts may negatively impact the ability of researchers to work directly with documents, the accessibility such digitization provides certainly means that a wider readership will be able to produce a wider range of knowledge. The Old Bailey has already led to a varied number of studies on London’s social history previously lacking from the historiography. More broadly however, the database contributes to a larger, and much needed escape from traditional research approaches, particularly in the humanities. New research tools like The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online allow scholars, and other researchers, to ask original questions, and perhaps to find innovative answers.


[edit] Notes and References

  1. Robert B. Shoemaker, “The Old Bailey Proceedings and the Representation of Crime and Criminal Justice in Eighteenth-Century London,” Journal of British Studies 47:3 (July 2008): 559.
  2. Clive Emsley, Tim Hitchcock, and Robert Shoemaker, “The Proceedings - Ordinary of Newgate’s Accounts,” Old Bailey Proceedings Online, accessed October 2, 2011. www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 02 October 2011.
  3. Clive Emsley, Tim Hitchcock, and Robert Shoemaker, “Old Bailey Online - About This Project,” Old Bailey Proceedings Online, accessed October 2, 2011, www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 02 October 2011.
  4. Emsley, Hitchcock, and Shoemaker, “About this Project.”
  5. Tim Hitchcock, Sharon Howard, and Robert Shoemaker, “Research and Study Guides - Doing Statistics,” Old Bailey Proceedings Online, accessed October 4, 2011, www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 02 October 2011.
  6. Tim Hitchcock, Sharon Howard and Robert Shoemaker, “Research and Study Guides - Publications that Cite the Old Bailey Proceedings Online,” Old Bailey Proceedings Online, accessed October 2, 2011, www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 03 October 2011.
  7. H.G. Cocks, “Making the Sodomite Speak: Voices of the Accused in English Sodomy Trials, c.1800–98,” Gender and History 18:1 (April, 2006): 87-107.
  8. Magnus Huber, “The Old Bailey Proceedings, 1674-1834 Evaluating and annotating a corpus of 18th- and 19th-century spoken English,” in Annotating Variation and Change, eds. Anneli Meurman-Solin and Arja Nurmi, (2007), accessed October 3, 2011, http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/journal/volumes/01/huber/#section3.3.
  9. Huber, “The Old Bailey Proceedings.”
  10. Shoemaker, “The Old Bailey Proceedings,” 560.
  11. Huber, “The Old Bailey Proceedings.”

[edit] Bibliography

Cocks, H.G. “Making the Sodomite Speak: The Voices of the Accused in English Sodomy Trials, c. 1800-98.” Gender and History 18:1 (April, 2006): 87-107.

Emsley, Clive, Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker. “Old Bailey Online - About This Project.” Old Bailey Proceedings Online. Accessed October 2, 2011. www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 02 October 2011.

Emsley Clive, Tim Hitchcock, and Robert Shoemaker. “The Proceedings - Ordinary of Newgate’s Accounts.” Old Bailey Proceedings Online. Accessed October 2, 2011. www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 02 October 2011.

Hitchcock, Tim, Sharon Howard, and Robert Shoemaker. “Research and Study Guides - Doing Statistics.” Old Bailey Proceedings Online. Accessed October 4, 2011. www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 02 October 2011.

Hitchcock, Tim, Sharon Howard and Robert Shoemaker. “Research and Study Guides – Publications that Cite the Old Bailey Proceedings Online.” Old Bailey Proceedings Online. Accessed October 2, 2011. www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0, 03 October 2011.

Huber, Magnus, “The Old Bailey Proceedings, 1674-1834 Evaluating and annotating a corpus of 18th- and 19th-century spoken English.” In Annotating Variation and Change, edited by Anneli Meurman-Solin and Arja Nurmi. 2007. Accessed October 3, 2011 http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/journal/volumes/01/huber/#section3.3.

Shoemaker, Robert B. “The Old Bailey Proceedings and the Representation of Crime and Criminal Justice in Eighteenth-Century London.” Journal of British Studies 47:3 (July 2008): 559-580.

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