Introduction

When a trial was over and the sentence was announced, friends, relatives and others could petition for clemency which, if upheld could reduce the severity of the sentence. It was possible to:

The formal petitions (with lists of names attached) and personal letters often give information about the individual's background, previous employment and some reference to their feeling of regret as to their crime. On occasions (see example above) the petition may originate in the local prison or court some way into the prisoner's sentence. Where ordinary petitioners are listed you may find details of their occupation or social status and provide some indication of what part of the community was petitioning on the behalf of the prisoner. The petitions can also tell us a great deal about the background to particular crimes in specific localities. This is especially true with those crimes which may have been widespread locally, such as poaching, or major local events such as attacks on workhouses or factory machinery.

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For the record:

Petitions for clemency increased during the early 19th century. By the 1810s there were around 1,300 petitions per year pouring into the Home Office. This figure doubled by the 1830s. Petitions can be found in variety of record series: PC 1, HO 42, HO 44, HO 47, HO 48, HO 49, HO 54 HO 56, with earlier material in SP 36 and SP 37. Formal recommendations for mercy (1783-1840) along with some summaries of petitions relating to capital convictions in London can be found in HO 6 and HO 47.

Many 18th and early 19th century petitions have been lost. The main series of indexed petitions are to be found in HO 17 (1819-1839) and HO 18 (1839-54), with the indexes in HO 19. The indexes go back as far as 1797 but the petitions in this series begin around 1819. The petition indexes are arranged by surname. By the early 1820s the county or city where the person was convicted was also entered. An important change (for local historians) in the way the indexes were produced by the late 1820s means you can often survey the county and cross reference it with the type of crime you are interested in - murder, riot, machine breaking etc. Copies of letters concerning individual cases can be found in the criminal entry books in SP 44 and HO 13.

The Metropolitan Police