This is a brief guide to help you with your research. Many records of prisoners survive and are held by The National Archives, prisons and local archives. Prison registersa register of incarcerated inmates created after 1878 are more likely to be found in a local archive than at The National Archives. Work on indexing The National Archives' records of prisoners by name, crime, court and locality is ongoing.
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What do I need to know before I start?
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Try to find out:
- the name of the prisoner, including variant spellings
- when and where they were imprisoned
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What records can I see online?
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Prisons listed in census records (1841-1911)
Search census records (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.) for England and Wales from 1841 to 1911 online. If you find a prison in the census, it will list the names of prisoners present at the time the census was taken.
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Prison hulk registers and letter books (1802-1849)
Search by name for convicts held on prison hulks (HO 9) in England 1802-1849 on Ancestry.co.uk (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.). The registers contain personal information on the prisoners and where and when they were convicted.
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Licences of parole for female convicts (1853-1871, 1883-1887)
Search by name for licences of parole issued to female convicts (PCOM 4) on Ancestry.co.uk (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.). Their contents vary but can include a variety of personal details, reports on behaviour while in prison and (from 1871) photographs.
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Criminals, convicts and prisoners (1770-1934)
Search among the assorted records of criminals, convicts and prisoners on Findmypast.co.uk (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.) for registers of convicts in prison hulks 1818-1831 (ADM6), after-trial calendars of prisoners 1855-1931 (CRIM 9), Home Office calendars of prisoners 1868-1929 (HO 140), Prison Commission prison records 1880-1885 (PCOM 2) and other crime records.
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What records can I find at The National Archives at Kew?
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Prison registers and calendars of prisoners (1770-1971)
Search Discovery, our cataloguea search tool with descriptions of tens of millions of documents from the UK central government, law courts, and other national bodies, by date or place, in HO 23, HO 24, HO 140 and PCOM 2 for registersRegister - a volume of regularly and formally recorded information and calendarscalendar - a list, usually in chronological order, in which a detailed summary of individual documents is provided of prisoners. These are arranged by prison or by county and individual prisoners' names do not usually appear in our catalogue.
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Quarterly returns of convicts in prisons and prison hulks (1802-1876)
Search our catalogue in HO 8, by name of prison or prison hulk and year, for records of prisoners held in these institutions. Search also T 38 for lists of crews and convicts on convict hulks.
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Petitions for clemency (1762-1854)
Browse our catalogue in HO 17 (1819-1839) and HO 18 (1939-1854) for petitions of clemency. They are arranged in coded bundles so you will need to use the registers in HO 19 to identify the right one. Some files are searchable by name in our catalogue.
You can also search for petitions by date in HO 48 and HO 49 (c.1762-1871).
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Prisoners tried at the Old Bailey or the Central Criminal Court (1815-1849)
Browse HO 16 for lists of prisoners arranged by date.
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Court orders (1842-1871)
Consult PCOM 5 (which is indexed by PCOM 6) to find details of a prisoner's movements from prison to prison, misconduct, physical description and next of kin.
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Printed lists of prisoners tried at Newgate (1782-1853)
Browse our catalogue in HO 77 to find printed lists of prisoners tried at Newgate.
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Indexes of prison licences for men (1853-1887)
Consult the indexes of prison licencesdocuments - popularly known as 'tickets of leave' - authorising convicts of good behaviour to be released before completion of their sentences in PCOM 6 to locate male prison licences held in PCOM 3.
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To access these records you will either need to visit us, pay for research (£there will be a charge) or, where you can identify a specific record referencea unique set of letters and numbers identifying a document in The National Archives, order a copy (£there will be a charge).
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What records can I find in other archives and organisations?
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Records held locally
Search the Access to Archives (A2A) and National Register of Archives (NRA) databases to find prison records held by local archives.
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What other resources will help me find information?
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Books
Read Criminal ancestors by David T Hawkings (Stroud, 1996).
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Criminals and convicts
Bankrupts and debtors
Criminal transportees