The Procedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913, is now online and fully searchable. A quick inquiry yielded over 400 cases in which Litchfields and all sorts of potential ancestors were involved in such crimes as highway robbery. Litchfield-street in Soho (also given as Seven Dials) also seemed to be a site of much skullduggery.
I am delighted- it’s the kind of resource that makes the incurably historically-minded faint dead away. Now I’m waiting for similar resources, for, say, qadi court rulings from Ottoman Egypt… searchable in Arabic, of course.
“No pirate band will take its stand at the Central Criminal Court!”
