Prisoners and transportationUntil the mid 19th century, most indictable offences carried the death penalty. Other offences were punishable by fines Each county had its own gaol for holding prisoners awaiting trial and these records, where they survive, will be held in county record offices. We hold records of some convict prisons in the PCOM series and of Crown prisons attached to the central law courts. Crown prisons include the King´s Bench, Marshalsea, Fleet and Queen´s Prison. Surviving records are in the PRIS series. These prisons were used for the correction of vagrants and those convicted of lesser offences, debtors, and could also include those awaiting trial or the carrying out of sentence.
PrisonersPrison Records in PCOM 2
Other prison registers are in series HO 23 TransportationAfter 1776, gaols became congested and floating prisons (hulks) were introduced, but these soon became overcrowded. The ´first fleet´ sailed to New South Wales in 1787. Thereafter, regular transportation to New South Wales, Van Diemen´s Land (Tasmania) and later Western Australia continued until the 1850s. It was not formally abandoned until 1867. Registers of convicts in a number of prisons can be found in series PCOM 2 Details about many early transported convicts have been published. P W Coldham Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1775 (Baltimore, 1987, with Supplement, 1992) includes lists of those transported to the American Colonies. Lists of those transported to New South Wales in the first and second fleets have also been published: P G Fidlon and R J Ryan eds, The First Fleeters (Sydney, 1981), and R J Ryan The Second Fleet Convicts (Sydney, 1982). Transportation registers from 1787 to 1867 in series HO 11 There are various colonial returns of convicts and settlers for New South Wales and Tasmania between 1788 and 1859 in series HO 10
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with or without whipping. Many death sentences, however, were commuted to transportation for life or for a term of years. From 1718 the period was fixed at 14 years, with seven years becoming the usual penalty for non-capital offences. At first transportation was to the American colonies (from 1615 to 1776), then for a brief period to the Caribbean, and from 1787 to Australia.
include registers of prisoners and habitual criminals, photograph albums, minute books, visitors' books, order books, journals, assize and quarter sessions calendars and other records relating to various prisons in England and Wales, to Gibraltar prison and to some ship prisons. Two volumes of photographs and case details of prisoners in Wandsworth Prison dating from 1872 to 1873 have been digitised. Each case gives the prisoner's physical description, a photograph, their date and place of birth, the crime they committed, their sentence, place of conviction and often their place of residence. Search 
