History of Crime: Problems with Legal Sources for the Eighteenth Century

 

There is no authentic voice of the eighteenth century criminal trial as no verbatim records were made during this period; what does survive in newspapers and the few broadsides is edited and, by its nature, incomplete. Judicial sources are bureaucratic records created for specific administrative purposes and contain little, if any, commentary on social policy. Witness statements are likely to contain bias, when prosecutors overstated a case, defendants understated any part taken by them in a criminal activity, and third party witnesses provided hearsay evidence. As has always been the case, witness statements were susceptible to ‘false memories’, depending on the length of time between witnessing an event and making a statement.

As described in my previous blog, http://c18thgirl.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/locating-and-selecting-primary-sources.html, the clerk of assizes was expected to produce four minute books, each serving a different purpose. Discrepancies between the record books arise because of the different purposes each set of minutes served. The clerk of assize’s copy (Crown Minutes) was a record of attending judges, grand and petty jurors, accused and indictments heard by the petty jury; the judge’s copy allowed him, for instance, to comment on an appeal for mercy from a capital sentence; the sheriff’s copy allowed him to claim the revenues due from court fines and forfeited recognizances; while the gaoler’s copy was a record of prisoners delivered at the beginning of the assize sessions and returned at the end, with details of particular punishments to be inflicted. As a result, minute books for the Yorkshire assizes omit any detail of bills dismissed by the grand jury; fines imposed are more likely to be noted only in the sheriff’s records; while the length of a period of hard labour was most likely to be recorded in the gaoler’s copy.

TNA ASSI 41/3 March 1740, extract from the Crown Minute Books for the Northern Circuit - showing the verdict but not the sentence.

The absence of a recorded verdict or sentence in the surviving minute books does not necessarily mean the failure of a prosecution but should act as a prompt to consider alternative dispute resolution options within the entire judicial process. There were a number of procedures which would cause a trial to be adjourned and might explain the failure of a clerk to annotate the minute books with an outcome that was determined at a later date: a trial for a misdemeanour could be set aside to allow the parties to reach a private settlement; a hearing could be adjourned to a later date to allow a traverse (challenge) to an indictment to be separately determined; questions on legal process in a lower court were referred to the King’s Bench; while many victims failed to prosecute their complaints for a range of personal reasons.  

Magistrates were bound (in theory) to commit an accused felon to gaol pending trial and the length of time spent on remand depended on whether the complaint was referred to the following quarter sessions or the biannual assizes. In such circumstances, it is possible that many victims took advantage of the remand system to punish an accused man or woman with a short spell in gaol, without necessarily going to the lengths of pursuing the prosecution by appearing for the trial. Other victims may have been satisfied by the restitution of their property, or by a victim publicly begging the pardon of the accuser, while a man or woman bound by an order to keep the peace imposed by a single magistrate could be released from the court without further charge, if he or she had managed to keep out of trouble between the time of the order and the court sitting.

A successful challenge to an indictment meant that the claim did not return to the referring court for trial, while some matters referred to the King’s Bench were determined there and, similarly, did not return to the initiating court. However, matters referred to the King’s Bench were dependant on an  understanding of the judicial processes, plus access to independent financial means to pay for legal representation to put legal arguments; therefore, they are likely to account for only a small percentage of unknown outcomes.

To compound these problems, any collection of criminal records is bound to be flawed by the history of record keeping that precedes it and the evaluative judgements exercised in selecting data which, in the case of legal records, was itself selected by witnesses, legal clerks, justices of the peace and assize judges, the ministry of justice, local record offices and the Public Record Office (now The National Archives, TNA) , and by each subsequent researcher.
 

 

Locating and selecting primary sources on the History of Crime.

When I embarked on my PhD I was already aware that a substantial body of legal documents survive from the eighteenth century for Yorkshire which is held in The National Archives (TNA) in Kew. I selected the two sample periods (1735-1745 and 1765-1775) which shared similar experiences, each commencing with a period of peace, followed by a period of dearth, and ending with the country being involved in hostilities overseas. On a practical level, I consciously avoided potential difficulties with pre-1733 legal records written in Latin.

Official statistics of indictable crimes were not collected centrally until 1805: therefore, evidence of the work of the assizes has to be collated from surviving records in the TNA ASSI series. Preliminary evidence of a crime was gathered by local magistrates in the form of written examinations of the accused and deposition statements taken from complainants and witnesses. A substantial body of written examination and deposition statements from Yorkshire survive in ASSI 45. Depositions are not wholly neutral documents, nevertheless, they are a useful source for discovering the details of the crimes alleged and provide evidence of the detection of the crime, the circumstances of the detention of the suspect and any pre-trial confession by an accused.

The examination of Joseph Fearn, ASSI 45/24/1

 

            ASSI 44 includes copies of indictments (short descriptions of each alleged crime, its perpetrator and victim) presented to the Yorkshire assizes, together with lists of justices of the peace and jurors, recognizances (sureties), gaol calendars (records), and coroners' inquisitions. While the chronological run of the series is substantially complete, some of the documents are in poor physical condition and others have become detached from the correct bundles. It should be noted that the records of surviving indictments are not necessarily complete because of an instruction to court clerks that were meant to ‘rent into pieces’ or permanently deface all bills that were dismissed during the committal process by a grand jury. The bills contain a brief description of the offence committed and many of the ‘true bills’ are annotated with the trial verdict and, on occasion, the sentence passed.   

There are inconsistencies between the records of alleged crimes found in the indictments, and those recorded in court minute books, which to some extent reflects the different purposes of each set of records. The clerk of assizes was expected to produce four calendars of the delivery of the gaol: one copy for the judge; a second copy for the clerk of assize; the third for the sheriff; and the fourth went to the gaoler. The clerk’s copy of the minute book and gaol book for Yorkshire can now be found in TNA ASSI 41 and 42. These books record the name of the accused, the substance of the charge, the plea, the verdict and sentence and the names of the grand and petty jurors. Some books in these series also include minutes of recognizances (sureties) taken in court. Where both the minute book and gaol book survive for the same sessions, the records are not identical and the names of some defendants are omitted from one or other of the books. The fact that the two books were created for different purposes may explain some of the discrepancies.

Entries of traverses (challenges to indictments) more commonly appear in quarter session minute books for Yorkshire, while the estreat rolls in TNA series E include records of some of the fines and forfeited recognisances collected by local sheriffs. One rare book of costs exists in ASSI 43, which provides some insight into the cost of legal proceedings.

ASSI 43/8, small fee book c.1765 

             Transcripts of circuit memorials, listing the names of capital convicts recommended by a circuit judge for the king’s mercy, can be found in TNA series SP 36 and 37. These books contain, inter alia, incoming correspondence to the Secretary of State’s office relating to the judicial administration of each county, while outgoing responses are found in TNA SP 44. Individual pleas for mercy are also found in these series.

            Supplementary data relating to legal proceedings can be found in contemporary newspapers and broadsides. Few cases heard outside London were reported in printed form but some printed articles have survived in the British Library, Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) and in the microfiche series British Trials, 1660-1900, Chadwyck–Healey (publishers).

           Quarter session records are not stored centrally and the records for the East, West and North Ridings of Yorkshire are held across the three county record offices at Beverley, Wakefield and Northallerton and in the local record offices at Leeds, Doncaster, Hull and the City of York. While local record centres have some digitisation programmes, I had to visit each of the record centres for the purpose of collecting data for my PhD.

Bills of complaint presented at quarter sessions and assizes were subject to review following the application of a defendant, by a writ of certiorari, to remove a bill from the lower court to the King’s Bench. Difficulties arise in identifying cases determined before the King’s Bench because procedural rules required that the writ had to be served before the jury appeared in the inferior court:[1] thus the minute books of the quarter and assize sessions in Yorkshire are generally silent on such matters. The practice in the provinces was that particular cases were put over from quarter or assize sessions to be determined by a circuit judge, sitting as a judge of the King’s Bench. Records of their proceeding were collected locally and returned to the central offices of the King’s Bench in London (TNA series KB). It does not appear that returns were made on a methodical basis and records of a matter determined locally in one year might not appear in the records of King’s Bench until some years later.

As an example of quarter session-record holdings, the West Riding of Yorkshire (WRY) records held in Wakefield (series QS1 and QS4) contain, inter alia, indictments and recognizances with some informations, examinations, depositions, lists of jurors and calendars of prisoners. A preamble to each session notes the date and place of the session, the justices attending and the names of the grand jurors. The transcript of each indictment is annotated with a record of the verdict, sentence and names of witnesses. Notes of each session end with a list of the bills of indictment which the grand jury returned as ignoramus (bills not found) and of recognizances taken at that session.

QS4: ignoramus bills for Wakefield, July 1735

            Quarter session-records for the West Riding is generally chronologically complete and well maintained. Records for the quarter sessions in the East and North Ridings have mixed survival rates, nevertheless, sufficient records have survived across the county to create a substantial data base which covers both urban and rural areas and from which meaningful statistical evidence can be extracted.

            Manorial courts continued to play a part in local law enforcement during the eighteenth century and dealt with a range of complaints from determining nuisances to settling personal disputes, complaints of trespass by livestock, petty thefts (such as theft of wood and gleaning) and minor assaults, verbal assaults and scolding. Manorial courts had the power to impose fines for breach of local byelaws and impound animals that strayed onto the manor lands, as well as exercising a number of powers that crossed over with those exercised at petty and quarter sessions. A survey of manorial court records was beyond the scope of my PhD and remains an area for future research.

In my next blog I will consider some of the problems with these primary sources.

See: Stubbs, W., and G. Talmash (1749, second edition) The Crown Circuit Companion, J. Worrall: London.

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[1] 43 Eliz. c.5 (1601) An Act to prevent unnecessary expenses in suits of Law.

6. Law enforcement 1718-1775: Securing attendance at court.

In an attempt to curb frivolous prosecutions, Parliament provided that no criminal prosecutions were to be filed in court without an express order from the court or without taking a recognizance (financial surety) from the informant for an effectual prosecution.[1] There were three types of recognizance relevant to the trial process: a recognizance to prosecute (often issued to the victim of the alleged crime); a recognizance to appear (issued to a man or woman accused of a non-felonious offence) and witnesses recognizances (issued to prosecution witnesses). Coroners were also empowered to bind key witnesses, including examining surgeons, to attend the assizes.[2] Those accused of a felony were committed to gaol pending trial.

The failure to take a recognizance from a prosecutor or prosecution witness did not mean that they could not appear at the trial but they could not be compelled to attend. In contrast, witnesses for the defence could not be bound or otherwise compelled to attend by the court but appeared only at the request of the defendant. Legislation passed in 1749 introduced a requirement for a minimum of two witnesses be produced at trial to support any claim in felony: thereafter, the use of recognizances to bind prosecution witnesses to attend gained greater significance.[3]

       It was not always the case that the victim of a crime was bound to prosecute the accused, particularly when the victim was female and had a parent or husband to act on her behalf. Where the complaint related to a matter of homicide, a male member of the family or community might more commonly be bound to prosecute. Because of doubts concerning the capacity of married women to be contractually bound by their own recognizance, conditions for the appearance of a woman in court might vary according to whether she was married or single. When James Broadbent and others were indicted for their part in a coining operation in the county, male witnesses were bound in the sum of £40 each to secure their attendance while the married, female witness was bound to give evidence ‘on pain of imprisonment’ if she failed to attend.[4] Either her husband was unable to provide sufficient sureties on her behalf, or she was deemed more susceptible to intimidation or corruption.

Recognizance, Leeds Quarter Sessions (1765) QSL 1/6

When Robert Waddington was accused of the rape of Ann Rawson (a spinster) a recognizance of £50 was issued for her to give evidence against Waddington, while William Rawson (probably her father) was ordered to enter into a recognizance for £25 to prosecute him.[5] However, when Jane Smith (a married woman) accused John Hallott of an attempted rape, George Smith (her husband) was ordered to enter into a recognizance of £40 on the condition that he and his wife appeared at the next assizes to prosecute Hallott.[6] In that respect, the justices differentiated between the relationships of husband and wife and father and daughter, by placing the daughter more firmly in the position as the property of the father, when she was only required to give evidence, whereas the married woman was named as co-prosecutor.

Even when women played a key role in the investigation of a crime, the decision to bind a woman to prosecute depended on her financial independence. Therefore, when Elizabeth Frazier and Barbara Thompson were ordered to prosecute Ann Parcivall for infanticide, recognizances for their appearances were provided by Frazier’s father and Thompson’s husband.[7] When a female victim lacked any male support, the terms of her recognizance might be potentially more onerous because of her susceptibility to threats or intimidation to withdraw her complaint. Ann Knowles (a widow) was bound by a recognizance for £100 to prosecute two men and a woman for the theft of a large quantity of clothes and household items from her house.[8] Witness recognizances were taken from William Clark and his wife in the sum of £80, as they were said to have bought items of female clothing from one of the accused. A third witness, Richard Winterburne was bound in the sum of £50 for his evidence against another of the accused, having bought an item of stolen clothing from her. A fourth witness, Ralph Winterbottom, entered into a recognizance of £20 to give his evidence against all three defendants relating to his suspicions that they were the people who had committed the burglary. The fact that Knowles entered into a recognizance to pursue the prosecutions in her own right reflected both her status as a financially independent woman and, at the same time, her susceptibility as a woman to intimidation by any one of the witnesses, who were themselves involved in the purchase of stolen goods. In contrast, the different bonds ordered in each witness recognizance reflected the role played by each individual in the events described and the likelihood of their wishing to avoid giving evidence, rather than any specific issues of gender.

Recognizance, Newcastle Assizes (1740) TNA ASSI 45/21/4

The rules for binding prosecutors have been criticized for having “transformed the role of the private accuser from option to obligation” because of the condition that prosecutors would forfeit their recognizances if they failed to appear at the gaol delivery to give their evidence.[9] However, there is little evidence to suggest that magistrates regularly insisted that a victim proceeded with a prosecution if he or she did not wish to do so. Neither is there any evidence in Yorkshire to support Landau’s assertion that corrupt justices could abuse the system of recognizances to threaten and intimidate witnesses.[10] 

Some judges were willing to aid the prosecution case by postponing hearings while settlements were negotiated, during which time a defendant might be remanded in custody if he or she were unable to find recognizances for their appearance at a later hearing. For example, Elizabeth Bruce and Thomas Richardson were jointly indicted for an assault on a man when attempting to rescue livestock. They were ordered to remain in gaol until the next assize, unless they were able to provide their own recognizances in the sum of £50, plus two sureties each of £25.[11] The case was discharged when the victim reported to the court that he had ‘received satisfaction’. In those circumstances, the threat of imprisonment was sufficient to force the defendants to reach a compromise with the complainant.

Bail and committal procedures

Different issues became relevant in the consideration of the grant or refusal of bail to an accused, where the alternative was imprisonment until the day of the trial. When George Bainton, a local attorney, was jointly accused with another man and woman of forgery, he was released on his recognizance of £200, with sureties of £100 from two other men.[12] There is no evidence that either of his accomplices were offered the opportunity to find sureties for their return to court and it seems likely that Bainton’s social standing influenced the committing justice’s decision to grant bail. Nevertheless, Bainton and his male accomplice were convicted and sentenced to death and the female accomplice was acquitted. While Bainton ‘flattered himself with the hopes of a reprieve to the very last moment’, it was his accomplice who succeeded in martialling support for a petition for mercy.[13] Likewise, when in July 1765 Jane Henderson was accused of arson, Mary Dixon of the murder of her baby and Thomas Hutton of forgery, Henderson and Dixon were remanded in prison until the following assizes while Hutton was made subject to a subpoena for his attendance.[14] The remand of Henderson and Dixon was inevitable because their offences fell within the category of felonies, but forgery was also a felony for which Hutton should have been remanded in gaol. However, forgery was an offence of the literate, with the accused often coming from a higher social group than other common criminals. Hutton was in fact a school master and allowing him his freedom may be greater evidence of his access to legal advice, an ability to pay any legal costs and his appearance as a comparatively ‘sympathetic’ defendant, rather than providing evidence of male/female discrimination.

For those on the lower end of the social scale, not even pregnancy or mental illness were automatic grounds on which a magistrate might veer from the statutory provisions in ordering a committal for gaol, as demonstrated by a note found in the quarter session-records for Beverley: “I send you two women one of them big with child & troubled with fits so if you should let her have the use of a bed for a while I will set you a reasonable allowance for it”.[15] These cases appear to provide not so much evidence of gendered discretion but the influence of money and social status.

Where the facts of a potential felony might be interpreted in terms of a trespass to goods, a circuit judge or magistrate was empowered to determine the case under their civil powers and order compensation in settlement of the dispute. Thirty-four cases located in the quarter sessions for the East Riding (1765-1775) are marked as determined under the justices’ civil power and includes at least one assault and one theft of hens, both of which fell within the civil powers as trespasses to the person and to property. The advantage to a defendant was that the right to bail was automatic in all civil proceedings. Even so, because of the restrictions imposed by the bail and committal acts, it has been estimated that bail was granted in less than 10 per cent of criminal cases and only then for very minor offences.[16]

Failure to prosecute a case committed for trial was an offence punishable by imprisonment as it served to undermine the judicial process, yet there is little evidence that those who failed to appear were required to forfeit their recognizances to prosecute. To that extent both victims and magistrates were complicit in the punishment of many suspects who were remanded in gaol or the house of correction pending trial, without giving the accused an opportunity to clear his or her name when released following an aborted trial. There is a clearly a complex story behind the grant or refusal of recognizances and it is an area that would benefit from wider examination.

 

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[1] The Bail and Committal Acts of 1554-1556 (together known as the ‘Marian Acts’); 4 Wm. & M. c.18 (1692) Committal Act.

[2] 1 & 2 Ph. & M. c.13, s. 5 (1554-1555).

[3] 22 Geo. II, c.24 (1749).

[4] TNA ASSI 42/8; TNA ASSI 44/85, York county, March 1770.

[5] TNA ASSI 45/23 (1745) recognizance.

[6] TNA ASSI 45/20 (1734) recognizance.

[7] TNA ASSI 45/20 (1735) recognizance.

[8] TNA ASSI 44/55 (1740) recognizance.

[9] Langbein, John H. (1973) 'The Origins of Public Prosecution at Common Law', The American Journal of Legal History, vol. 17, pp. 313- 335.

[10] Landau, Norma (2002) Law, Crime and English Society, 1660-1830, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[11] TNA E 389/244, Assizes, York county, March 1769.

[12] TNA ASSI 45/22/1 (1741), recognizance of George Bainton.

[13] TNA SP 36/56, 10 May 1740, petition on behalf of John Gilley.

[14] All three appeared at the same assizes for the county of York in July 1765: TNA ASSI 41/5.

[15] ERY Beverley, QSF 48, March 1720.

[16] Beattie, J.M. (1977) ‘Crime and the Courts in Surrey 1736-1753’, in J.S. Cockburn (ed) Crime in England 1550-1800, London: Methuen & Co Ltd.

 

5. Law enforcement 1718-1775: Keeping the Peace.

By rmay 28 June 2009.

 

The law relating to orders to ‘keep the peace’ was enshrined in English law in the fourteenth century,[1] although the notion is of Anglo-Norman origin,[2] and is little changed 650 years later. A person can be bound by a magistrate to keep the peace and be of good behaviour, either generally or towards a specific person/s, for a stipulated period. When binding a person, a magistrate will usually stipulate a fine to be paid if the person later breaches that order. If the person breaches the conditions, he or she can be compelled to return to court where the magistrate may impose the fine or otherwise dispose of the case.

Orders to keep the peace are founded in concern with public order and are not categorised as a criminal conviction/punishment. They can be made against an accused, witness or claimant and usually concern a case involving violence or the threat of it and some complainants will drop a claim if the accused agrees to be bound over to keep the peace.

An eighteenth-century justice of the peace might resolve disputes between quarrelsome neighbours by requiring that those involved were bound by recognizances to ‘keep the peace’ until they made an appearance at the quarter sessions, at which time they would generally be released from their obligations if no new complaints were made against them. In practice, responses to acts of violence were measured in terms of social hierarchy, individual means and contemporary attitudes to the nature of the offence. Therefore, when John Umphelby, a gentleman, was accused of an assault by shooting at Francis Hunt, he was released from court on his recognisance of £500 to keep the peace and four additional sureties of £200 each.[3] During the period 1765-1775, 105 cases have been identified from the Beverley quarter sessions where four women and 101 men appeared at various times on their recognizances and received orders to keep the peace. The relative absence of orders against women to keep the peace may be explained in part because of an interpretation of the law that stated that a man might be released on his own ‘surety for the peace’ but doubted the ability of a married woman (femme covert) or a child under the age of twenty-one to be legally bound without additional securities provided by their friends or families “for they are incapable of engaging themselves to answer any debt”.[4]

Drunken Lovers by Thomas Rowlandson (1798)

Just over half the orders for men to keep the peace arose out of an incident involving another man. Of the female complainants of male ‘nuisances’, one-third  were wives of other men but without more information it is difficult to assess how many complaints arose out of allegations of unwarranted sexual attention. Complaints by wives against their husbands represent less than 10 per cent of all the orders against men but they provide rare evidence that some justices of the peace were prepared to take some steps to protect a wife from a violent husband, although the initiative lay with the abused wife and a justice’s powers were limited. Because of guidance that additional sureties should be taken before a woman could be bound to keep the peace, it is possible that women who caused a nuisance were dealt with by being ‘handed over’ to their father, husband or master without any further orders, which would explain why very few orders are found for women in Yorkshire to keep the peace. In the one exceptional case, in which a husband felt strongly enough to make a public complaint against his wife, the justice of peace took recognizances from another man in the community (possibly a relative of the complainant’s wife) requiring Diana Foster to be of good behaviour and keep the peace towards her husband.[5] In such cases the resort to patriarchal authority had clearly broken down.

It is difficult to estimate the extent to which these orders were policed by the community, although, a requirement for additional sureties obliged members of the family or local community to monitor behaviour. Alternatively, reciprocal orders allowed for self-policing between argumentative neighbours: when John Askam, a gentleman, farmer of Wilberfoss in the East Riding received an order to keep the peace towards Joseph Smith, a farmer from the same village, a reciprocal order required Smith to keep the peace towards Askam.[6] Otherwise, when the behaviour of any individual became too disruptive, a magistrate had authority to commit him or her to the house of correction until the following quarter sessions.

18th Century Chastisement: French illustration

While a few violent men in Yorkshire were ordered to ‘keep the peace’ towards their wives, very few of them were separately convicted of an assault during the periods surveyed (1735-45 and 1765-75). James Barber was fined 1shilling in 1740 for an assault on his wife and widowed mother-in-law and ordered to find sureties for his good behaviour because of his history of “frequently cursing, abusing, assaulting, beating and grievously threatening both women”.[7] Likewise, in 1765, John Winn was accused of an assault on his wife, for which he was ordered to remain in gaol until he found sureties for his good behaviour towards his wife.[8] Both orders suggest concern for the future protection of their wives, rather than punishing the offender. In a different domestic setting, Elizabeth Dickinson was the victim of an assault by her son for which he was found guilty and ordered to remain in gaol until the next assizes, by which time he was expected to find two sureties for an order that he keep the peace.[9] The sentence removed the source of the problem for six months, after which time two members of the community were bound to supervise any delinquent behaviour which broke ‘social norms’. These orders also demonstrate contrasting attitudes towards a husband’s right to ‘chastise’ his wife and social expectations that a son should treat his mother with respect which Garthine Walker similarly observed in seventeenth-century Cheshire.[10]

 

It is not known what level of behaviour forced the husband of Diana Foster to make public the fact that he had lost control of his wife, to the extent that he sought an order that she keep the peace towards him.[11] That case was unusual at a time when men, who were dishonoured by the behaviour of their wives, might expect to be mocked by their neighbours by displays of charivari.

William Hogarth, Charivari

It was generally male family members or men from the wider community who were encouraged to police the behaviour of troublemakers by acting as sureties for other men and the occasional woman who had been bound over to keep the peace. The relative absence of orders against women to keep the peace in Yorkshire is likely to have arisen because of doubts about the binding nature of financial orders against infants and femmes covert without additional sureties, rather than the timidity of women.

 

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[1] 34 Edw. III, c.1 (1361) Justices of the Peace Act: Who shall be Justices of the Peace. Their Jurisdiction over Offenders; Rioters; Barrators; They may take Surety for good Behaviour.

[2] 1140, ‘freedom from civil disorder,’ from Anglo-Norm. pes, from O.Fr. pais (11c., Fr. paix).

[3] TNA ASSI 41/6, ASSI 44/85, York county, March 1770.

[4] Blackstone, William (1765, first edition) Commentaries on the Laws of England: Of Public Wrongs, vol. 4, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 251; and see, Burn, Richard (1755) Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer, vol. 2, London, p. 431.

[5] ERY Beverley, QSF/246/C/8, Christmas 1769, recognizance of Henry Markham of Wressle.

[6] ERY Beverley, QSF/242/C/9-10, Christmas 1768.

[7] TNA ASSI 41/3, Crown Minutes, York; TNA ASSI 44/55, York county, March 1740.

[8] TNA York County March 1765, E 389/243 f.603.

[9] TNA ASSI 45/22/1/35; TNA ASSI 44/58, York county, July 1741.

[10] Walker, Garthine (2003) Crime, Gender and Social Order in Early Modern England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66-67.

[11] ERY Beverley, QSF/246/C/8, Christmas 1769, recognizance of Henry Markham of Wressle.