2. How to search for records

2.1 Using Discovery, our catalogue

Search Discovery our catalogue to find records from The National Archives and over 2,500 archives across the UK.

Your search results will display details from a range of archives and you can then refine your results.

Where the keywords you searched for appear in the description of a record, the search results are displayed under the ‘Records’ tab.

Where the keywords you searched with appear in the name of the institution or person that originally created the record (often not the same as the institution or person that currently holds the record), the search results are displayed under the ‘Record creators’ tab.

For further tips on searching see our catalogue help pages.

2.2 Printed index of papers relating to art and architecture

As well searching our catalogue, there are four typescript indexes to art (and architecture) papers mentioned in catalogues and reports received from repositories in the years 1969-1972. These are bound together and available in the reading rooms, Kew. They are useful in that they refer to individual items, whereas the computerised indexes only notice groups of papers.

3. Accessions to repositories

Each year The National Archives contacts approximately 250 of the principal record repositories in the British Isles in order to discover which major and unusual accessions have been received. This information is added to Discovery, our catalogue. It is also edited and used to produce thematic digests, including one relating to architecture. We make the digests available through this website and distribute them for publication in a number of learned journals and newsletters.

4. Artists Papers Register

The Artists Papers Register contains many references to architects’ papers in repositories around the country. Although information about architects’ papers was not specifically sought by the project officers, a number of details about plans etc were drawn from the NRA and supplemented with information on collections at local level. Users seeking information about architects and architectural history should consult it in addition to the NRA.

5. Relevant repositories

The following provides details of repositories and institutions that hold major collections relating to architectural history.

Lambeth Palace Library, London SE1 7JU

Holds 15,000 files and minute books of the Incorporated Church Building Society (ICBS), established in 1818. Its records consist of plans, drawings, correspondence and photographs from 1818 until 1967. A database index to the collection allows searches to be made under the names of architects, churches, counties and dioceses.

Historic England

Holds England’s national collection of photographs, drawings and written records of historic buildings and archaeological sites including records produced as a result of survey work undertaken by the former Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, aerial photographs covering the whole of England, deposited collections, early Ordnance Survey maps and statutory lists of listed buildings. The main finding aids are the Listed Building System (LBS), a database containing details of all listed buildings in England, and MONARCH, the main database of information.

National Monuments Record of Scotland, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, John Sinclair House, 16 Bernard, Edinburgh EH8 9NX

Maintained by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, which was established in 1908 to make an inventory of the surviving built heritage of Scotland. Performs similar functions to the English NMR. The principal finding aid to the NMRS is CANMORE, which can be searched online.

National Monuments Record of Wales, Crown Building, Plas Crug, Aberystwyth SY23 1NJ

Maintained by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, which was established in 1908 to make an inventory of the ancient and historical monuments of Wales and Monmouthshire. Performs similar functions to the English NMR.

The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU

Records of successive works departments are held at The National Archives under the series WORK. Also held here are the records of the architects departments of many government bodies, such as the Education Department, Local Government Board and the Poor Law Commission.

Maps, plans and architectural drawings are scattered throughout many different series of records; see Maps and Plans in The National Archives 1. British Isles c1410-1860 (HMSO 1967).

V&A + RIBA Architecture Partnership

Two major national and international resources based in London have entered into a joint initiative: the V&A + RIBA Architecture Partnership brings together in a single location the drawings and archives collections of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the architectural drawings and photographs in the collections of the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum. From November 2004 these collections have been accessible through the appropriate study rooms in the Henry Cole Wing of the V&A. The collections contain material likely to be of interest to researchers studying particular buildings or architects, whether in the public or private sector, from the Renaissance to the present day. Access is free, but you must make an appointment.

The location and postal address are:

V&A South Kensington
Cromwell Road
London SW7 2RL

For further information about the RIBA’s drawings and archives collections and the RIBA Study Room, visit the RIBA Library and Collections page .

For further information about the V&A’s collections of architectural drawings and photographs and the Prints and Drawings Study Room, see the V&A study rooms page.

RIBA’s library and photographic collections are at RIBA headquarters. You can access the Library catalogue online.

RIBA British Architectural Library
Royal Institute of British Architects
66 Portland Place
London W1B 1AD
United Kingdom

Main Switchboard
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7580 5533
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7255 1541
Public Information Line – Mon-Fri: 10:00-17:00 (GMT)
Tel: +44 (0) 906 302 0400
(Information line calls charged at 50p per minute in the UK. These lines cannot be accessed from outside the UK)
Library Information (24-hour recorded):
Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7307 3707
(administrations, loans, photographs, manuscripts)

Sir John Soane’s Museum, 13 Lincolns Inn Fields, London WC2A 3BP

Holds Sir John Soane’s personal correspondence, and journals, account books and other papers connected with his professional practice. Also holds the manuscript Book of Architecture of John Thorpe.

6. Local record offices

Nearly all local repositories hold a wide range of estate, inclosure, tithe and Ordnance Survey maps for the area they cover, many of which may help in tracing the development of an estate, or the changing block plan of a building.

Licences, or faculties, for alterations to churches, which can include plans, may be among parish or diocesan collections; and plans for 19th century buildings will be among planning applications included in the records of district councils.

Records concerning specialist buildings such as schools, workhouses, prisons and non-conformist churches may be among locally held collections. Building accounts and plans can often be found in collections of family and estate papers.

In addition, these repositories usually have a good collection of prints, drawings, photographs and sale particulars, as well as the standard sources such as census and land tax returns. Contact details for local repositories can be found using the Find an archive tool.

7. Useful links

The Archives Hub provides a single point of access to descriptions of archives held in UK universities and colleges. At present these are primarily at collection-level, although where possible they are linked to complete catalogue descriptions.

Archives in London and the M25 area (AIM25) is a major project to provide electronic access to collection level descriptions of the archives of over 50 higher education institutions and learned societies within the greater London area.

The Scottish Archive Network the project aims to revolutionise access to Scotland’s archives by providing a single electronic catalogue to the holdings of more than 50 Scottish archives.

8. Further reading

Rebecca M Bailey, Scottish architects’ papers: a source book (1996)

H M Colvin, A biographical dictionary of British architects 1600-1840 (third edition, 1995)

H M Colvin (ed), The history of the King’s works (1973-)

H M Colvin, English architectural history: A guide to sources (second edition, 1976)

Roger Dixon and Stefan Muthesius, Victorian architecture (1978)

Alison Felstead, Jonathan Franklin, Leslie Pinfield, Directory of British architects 1834-1900 (1993)

A Stuart Gray, Edwardian architecture: A biographical dictionary (1985)

John Harvey, English mediaeval architects: A biographical dictionary down to 1550 (1987)

John H Harvey, Sources for the history of houses (British Records Association, Archives and the User Number 3, 1974)

Rolf Loeber, A biographical dictionary of architects in Ireland 1600-1720 (1981)

Nikolaus B Pevsner (et al), The buildings of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (1951-)

2. Who were the Indian indentured labourers?

Under colonial rule, India’s population provided the British Empire with a ready source of cheap and mobile labourers.

Many Indians agreed to become indentured labourers to escape the widespread poverty and famine in the 19th century. Some travelled alone; others brought their families to settle in the colonies they worked in.

The demand for Indian indentured labourers increased dramatically after the abolition of slavery in 1834. They were sent, sometimes in large numbers, to plantation colonies producing high value crops such as sugar in Africa and the Caribbean.

3. How do I search for records at The National Archives?

The best way to start is to search our catalogue using keywords. Try using the keyword ‘Indian’ plus terms such as:

• coolie
• labour, labourer
• place name, (for example Mauritius, Jamaica, Calcutta)
• emigrant, emigration
• immigrant, immigration

You can refine your search by the Colonial Office department (CO), which contains many relevant records.

It is not possible to search for a particular labourer’s name in our catalogue. Some records may contain names, but these have not been entered into the online descriptions.

Many of the records contain only the first names of the labourers, not their last names.

Most of the records have not been digitised, so you may need to consult original documents.

4. What kind of records does The National Archives hold?

The records at The National Archives are mainly concerned with how governments generally administered different indentured labour systems. They contain very little personal information about the labourers themselves.

The largest sources of records about Indian indentured labourers are:

• Colonial Office correspondence
• Foreign Office correspondence

Whilst these papers may contain sample records on how the labourers were contracted, transported, and employed, they do not hold information on how local administrations managed labourers on a day-to-day basis.

The archives of former colonies may hold records relating to the local management of Indian indentured labourers. Try contacting them directly for information about surviving records.

5. Key records at The National Archives

5.1 Births, marriages and deaths at sea (1891-1972)

As Indian indentured labourers were British colonial citizens, the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen recorded their births, marriages and deaths.

Search and download these registers in BT 334 from findmypast.co.uk (£).

If an indentured labourer gave birth to a child on board a ship, the records give the child’s name, but the parent is simply listed as ‘coolie’.

5.2 Colonial Office original correspondence

Use the original correspondence for the relevant colony to find details of the indentured labour system. The correspondence consists of letters coming into London from the colonies. For example:

• Mauritius in CO 167
• British Guiana in CO 111
• West Indies in CO 318
• Trinidad in CO 295
• Jamaica in CO 137
• Ceylon in CO 54
• Fiji in CO 83
• Cape Colony (in South Africa) in CO 48, Natal in CO 179
• St Christopher (St Kitts) in CO 239
• Windward Islands in CO 321
• Grenada in CO 101
• Kenya in CO 533 – see also FO 107 for the period before 1906
• Uganda in CO 536

You’ll need to use entry books or registers to find particular items within these collections of original correspondence.

To find the entry books or registers for a collection of correspondence, refer to the full series description in our catalogue: for instance, the description for CO 167 (Mauritius original correspondence) says that the registers are in CO 326 and CO 356.

5.3 Records of the colonial emigration departments

Use the Land Board and Emigration Department’s correspondence in CO 384 for information about indentured labour practices and systems.

Browse the Land and Emigration Commission correspondence in CO 386 for information on Indian indentured migration to the West Indies.

Use the Colonial Office General Department’s original correspondence on immigration in CO 571 for information about the entry of Indian indentured labourers into Mauritius and the West Indies.

The types of records you may find include:

• medical reports, which sometimes give details of the births and deaths of Indians on the ships
• population analysis, statistical returns and mortality rates
• lists of ships, receipts and information about expenditure
• policy papers and reports on criminal cases involving indentured labourers

5.4 Foreign Office records

Many Indian indentured labourers were sent to work for the colonies of foreign countries, such as the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and France.

You can find some records relating to this by searching for keywords in our catalogue within the Foreign Office (FO) department.

6. Parliamentary records

Search Proquest UK Parliamentary Papers to find papers relating to the British Parliament’s legislation of the Indian indentured labour system. This is a subscription website you can access at the National Archives. You may also be able to access it via a large reference library such as a university library. 

Discussions in Parliament can be found in Hansard, which is available online on the Parliament website. Please note there are some volumes missing from the online data. 

7. More about the history of indentured labourers

The term ‘coolie’ is of disputed origins: some believe it derives from an aboriginal tribe in the Gujarat region of India, and others believe it comes from the Tamil word ‘kuli’, meaning ‘payment for occasional menial work’ (Oxford English Dictionary).

The labourers were mostly young, active, able-bodied people used to demanding labour, but they were often ignorant of the places they agreed to go to or the challenges they were going to face.

Before 1840 a large proportion of the labourers were so-called ‘Hill coolies’, aboriginal people from the plains of the Ganges. Later many others signed indentured labour contracts, including Hindus, Brahmins, high castes, agriculturists, artisans, Mussulmans, low castes (untouchables) and Christians.

Over 41,000 Bengali labourers were sent to Mauritius in 1834, but the Indian government banned ‘coolie’ shipments in 1838 because there were reports of repression and abuse.

In 1842 the British Prime Minister Robert Peel directed the Indian government to re-open these lines of emigration under proper safeguards. A Protector of Emigrants was appointed to ensure that the labourers had adequate space, food, water and ventilation on the journey.

Emigration to Jamaica, British Guiana and Trinidad was legalised in 1844. Emigration to Grenada and St Lucia was legalised in 1856 and 1858 respectively.

The last indentured labourers went to the West Indies in 1916. Repatriation continued for many years after the time limit. The last ship carrying returning emigrants left the West Indies for India in 1954.

8. Further reading

Read historical newspapers such as The Times, Asiatic Journal of Calcutta and The British Emancipator.

Use our library catalogue to find a recommended book list. The books are all available in The National Archives’ reference library, or you may be able to find them in a local library.

Contact the British Library. The Asia, Pacific and Africa collections contain many records about Indian indentured labour under colonial administration.

Use the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, which is a major source for academic studies into Indian indentured labour systems.

Also try searching our bookshop for a wide range of history titles.

The records at The National Archives have detailed information on the political and military activities as well as the events leading up to and following the Easter Rising.

They contain detailed information on some key figures of the Rising.

2. General search tips

Look for mentions in this guide of:

• department references such as WO (War Office) or CO (Colonial Office)
• record series  references such as WO 35 or CO 903

These will help you to focus your search for relevant records using the advanced search option in our catalogue.

Search for relevant records in our catalogue using keywords or a combination of keywords such as:

• Irish AND rebellion
• Ireland AND rebellion
• Easter AND Rising
• Disturbances AND Ireland
• Prisoners AND Irish
• Irish AND nationalist

The names of many of the people involved in the Rising are well known and you can search many records by name. For example, using “Constance Markievicz” as a search term will search across all record series.

For general tips on searching the catalogue, use the Discovery help page.

Discovery, our catalogue, contains descriptions of our records and of records held at over 2,500 other archives (mostly within the UK).

To find out how to view records held at other archives please contact the relevant archive directly.

3. Key records

A number of pieces in several key record series on the Easter Rising are available online (see 4.1) but other pieces within the same series are not (see 4.2). One of these series, WO 35, is particularly rich in details of individuals – for a summary of what the entire series contains see the WO 35 series description. More details on many of these records appear throughout this guide.

3.1 Online records

Click on the links in the table to search for records available online on the websites of our commercial partners – the document references for the original records, held at The National Archives, are shown in the right-hand column but are not needed for an online search.

4. Intelligence reports and inquiries

The records in CO 904, known as the Dublin Castle Records, are a major source of information for the Easter Rising. In particular, the following may be of interest:

• CO 904/23, part 2 – detailed analysis of the numbers and arms of the Irish Volunteers and part 3 -reports from British agents ‘Chalk’ and ‘Granite’ who were placed within the Irish Volunteers
• CO 904/193-216 – intelligence profiles of leading nationalists, including figures like Eammon De Valera, later President of Ireland. These date mainly from 1917 but include people who were involved prior to 1917. You can search by name and download intelligence profiles which cover these records at ancestry.co.uk (£)
• CO 903/19 – records of Dublin Castle: Judicial Division – reports of political activities in Ireland during the period 1885-1919. They provide information on the internal proceedings of the Irish Republican organisations in the Colonial Office. You can search these records by name and download at ancestry.co.uk (£)

Records from the Royal Commission enquiring into the events of the Easter Rising are in HO 45/10810/312350 and PRO 30/67/31.

You can also search our catalogue using keywords for intelligence reports and inquiries within HO 45 and HO 144.

5. Courts martial and prisoners

5.1 Courts martial records

The following records relate to courts martial following the Easter Rising.

• CO 903/19 – intelligence records listing 171 people tried by courts martial. You can search these records by name and download at ancestry.co.uk (£)
• WO 71/344-358 – records of those men executed between 3 and 12 May 1916 including evidence against the defendants, their statements and proclamations. They include case papers in the Proceedings against Clarke, Pearse, Connolly and the other executed leaders of the 1916 Dublin Rising from the War Office and Judge Advocate General’s Office. Search these records by name and download at ancestry.co.uk (£)
• WO 35/67 – reports and inquiries into the execution of prisoners
• WO 35/94-119 – lists of civilians prosecuted, arranged by case number. WO 35/68, WO 35/96-119 and WO 35/143 contains records of individual files on the prosecution of civilians (Irish Republicans) from the War Office: Army of Ireland. You can search these records by name and download at ancestry.co.uk (£). Otherwise use the index in WO 35/120 to identify the relevant case number first if the records aren’t online
• WO 35/97 – reports of prosecutions of civilians. Search WO 35/97 by name in the advanced search option of our catalogue
• WO 35/132 – a register of cases tried by courts martial

5.2 Prisoners

HO 45 and HO 144 contain records relating to nationalist prisoners, mainly in gaols in England. You can search our catalogue using terms such as ‘Irish AND nationalist’ or ‘Irish AND prisoners’ within HO 45 and HO 144 and includes files such as:

• HO 144/10309 which contains details of Edward de Valera convicted at Court Martial, Dublin, on 8 May 1916 for armed rebellion and war against H.M. the King and sentenced to death (commuted)
• HO 144/1580/316818 which contains information on the activities of Countess Markievicz (case papers of her court martial trial)

You can also find records of remittances and commutations of sentences in PCOM 6/39. It includes the 80 or so commutations of death sentences of Easter rising prisoners.

6. Policy and political reactions

For The Third Home Rule Bill and Act 1914, and the Suspensory Act 1914, and the Government of Ireland Amendment Act (1916), see the Parliamentary Papers online website (institutional subscription required) and the legislation.gov.uk website.

For Parliamentary debates relating to Ireland, see the Parliamentary Papers Online website and House of Commons Parliamentary Sessional Papers online (institutional subscription required).

Key records include:

• CAB 1/21/1
  plea for conciliatory attitude towards Ireland Dec 1916
• CAB 37/147 -159 – photocopies of Cabinet Papers relating to Ireland in 1916
• CAB 41/37/17  – spread of the rebellious movement throughout Ireland
• HO 45/10810/312350 – report of Royal Commission on Irish Rebellion
• MEPO 2/10674 – news cuttings giving reactions to the Rising
• YLG – The political papers of David Lloyd George
• PRO 30/67/31 – Midleton Papers Unionist reaction to the Rising
• PRO 30/89/1–2 – WE Wylie Papers which contain written and printed notes of proceedings during and after Rising
• PRO 30/89/16 – WE Wylie Papers: Easter 1916 which contain photographs of Dublin during and after  the rising; copy of the stamp of the Republic (Wylie was involved in the suppression of the rebellion and was one of the key prosecutors at the Courts martial trials)

You can also use the search boxes contained in the following record series to identify relevant Cabinet papers :

• CAB 16 – Committee of Imperial Defence, Ad Hoc Sub-committees
• CAB 21 – registered files (viewable online)
• CAB 23 –  War Cabinet and Cabinet minutes (viewable online)
• CAB 24 – War Cabinet and Cabinet: Memoranda (viewable online)
• CAB 27 – War Cabinet and Cabinet: Miscellaneous Committees

When you search our catalogue, try using the keyword ‘Ireland’ and restrict your search to the dates 1916–1922.

Read our research guide to Cabinet and its committees for advice on searching our catalogue for cabinet papers.

Also use the advanced search option to search by date within ZHC 2 for parliamentary debates (Hansard) which contains debates of the British Parliament in relation to Ireland. To do this, enter an asterisk [*] as your keyword, date(s) in the date range field, and enter ZHC 2 with the reference field.

Alternatively you can search for copies of the Hansard online (£).

7. Records held elsewhere

To find records held elsewhere, search our catalogue and refine your results using the filters.

The following collections may be of interest:

• Asquith Papers – The Bodleian Library, Oxford University. Also Papers of four of the last six Chief Secretaries and also some of Lords Lieutenant of Ireland
• Various collections including links to online records of veterans interviews – National Archives of Ireland
• Churchill Papers – Cambridge University: Churchill Archives Centre
• Dillon Papers – Trinity College Dublin
• Sir John Maxwell Papers – Princeton University Library
• Redmond Papers – National Library of Ireland
• Ulster Unionist Council Papers (D1327) – Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
• Military Bureau Collection including the Michael Collins Papers – Military Archives, Dublin
• Political and Military Collection – The Linen Hall Library

8. Further reading

Some of the publications below may be available to buy from The National Archives’ shop. Alternatively, click on the links to view the books in The National Archives’ library catalogue and see what is available to consult at our building in Kew.

Michael Foy and Brian Barton, Easter Rising 1916 (Stroud: Sutton, 2000)

Brian Barton, From behind a closed door: secret court martial records of the Easter rising (Blackstaff Press, 2002)

Sean O’Mahony, Frongoch, University of Revolution (FDR Teoranta, 1987)

Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence (Gill & Macmillan, 2002)

Fearghal McGarry, The Rising (Centenary Edition): Ireland:  Easter 1916, (OUP 2016)

The Easter Rising 1916 Web Archive

Lorcan Collins, 1916: The Rising Handbook (O’Brien, 2016)

2. What are Crown courts?

Following a Royal Commission, the Courts Act 1971 established a restructuring of the criminal justice system. Assize courts and quarter sessions courts were replaced by Crown courts, which began life at the start of 1972. Liverpool and Manchester Crown courts had already been established in 1956.

Crown courts hear serious criminal cases such as:

• robbery
• burglary
• grievous bodily harm
• kidnapping
• rape
• murder
• manslaughter
• treason
• riot

A judge has overall responsibility for the court with a jury of twelve people providing the verdict.

Crown courts also deal with:

• appeals against a magistrates’ court conviction or sentence
• cases passed from a magistrates’ court for trial or sentencing

York Crown Court (source: Andy Farrington via Wikimedia Commons)

There are approximately 80 Crown courts around England and Wales and they include the Central Criminal Court in the City of London, popularly known as the Old Bailey.

3. Record types, the information they contain and what gets kept

Whilst the records are still held at the courts themselves (for the six to seven years after the trial) almost everything is retained. Once records are removed from the courts, some are destroyed. Not all records created by the courts are kept for permanent preservation. For most cases indictments are permanently retained but only a small sample of case files are kept.

3.1 Indictments

The indictment contains key information about the progress of the trial, outcome and appeal (if there is an appeal). The indictment is formally annotated during the trial thereby providing a concise account of the events and decisions that occurred.

Information contained on the indictment includes:

• defendant’s name, sex and date of birth
• whether bail or custody was granted
• date committed for trial, conviction and sentence date
• trial dates (from/to) added upon completion of the trial
• the identity of the firm of shorthand writers
• judge’s name
• defence counsel names of barristers and solicitors
• prosecution counsel names of barristers and solicitors
• offences charged to the defendant listed as separate ‘counts’
• defendant’s plea to the charges
• jury’s verdict
• sentence or order
• appeal details – date of appeal and whether grounds for appeal granted or refused

A copy indictment is usually attached to the indictment and includes a list of witnesses called to trial, along with repeating much of the information contained within the initial indictment.

3.2 Case files

Information contained within a case file varies from one file to another but can include:

• committal proceedings (records created at magistrates courts to determine whether a case should be heard by a Crown court)
• court logs (recording brief case histories, such as dates of hearings)
• police statements
• copy indictment (a duplicate of the indictment file itself)
• evidence for the prosecution
• list of witnesses with their statements and depositions
• list of exhibits produced in court
• photographs of the crime scene
• sentence
• detail of appeal if there was one
• a case file number (which you can help you to find an indictment). This is usually a six-digit number, such as ‘721717’ or ‘91/0108’. The first two numbers indicate the year and the other numbers denote the case number heard by the Crown court that year. In our first example, the case number indicates that the case dates from 1972 and was the 1717th case heard that year.

Crown court files have been selected for permanent preservation partly to represent the wide variety of cases heard by the courts but not all individual case files are kept permanently. Those that are kept tend to be files that record more serious crimes, cases that attracted public interest, or were of significance (either legally or historically), or where the accused was eminent or infamous or if the case generated widespread public concern.

3.3 Transcripts

Court stenographers recorded the proceedings in short hand known as computer aided transcription notes. These are filed separately from the case file and not kept permanently. However, if the defendant lodged an appeal within five years of the conviction then long hand notes were recreated from the original computer aided transcription notes for the appeal and may be found on the criminal appeal case file (see our guide to criminal appeal cases).

4. How to search for records

Before you start a search, bear in mind that The National Archives holds only samples of surviving Crown court case files and that many Crown courts have not yet sent any indictment files at all to The National Archives. Many records remain in the custody of HM Courts and Tribunal Service. For information about these records contact the Ministry of Justice. Consult the HM Courts and Tribunals Service website for contact details of individual Crown courts.

To understand how files are selected for preservation at The National Archives see our Operational Selection Policy for Crown Courts.

Some of the records that we do hold are not accessible to the public as the information within them is sensitive. You can request that a closed file be opened by submitting a Freedom of Information request.

To get an idea of what you might find in Crown court records, see section 3 above.

Stage 1 of a search: case files

Start by looking for case files as they unlock information that will make a search for indictments easier.

Search for case files in one of the two following ways:

Method 1: If you know the Crown court where the case was heard, locate its name in the table in section 5 of this guide and click on the links for case files – this will take you to a catalogue description page for all the case files held for that court at The National Archives. Use the ‘Keyword search’ box to search by name of defendant or the charge.

Method 2: If you do not know the Crown court where the case was heard, try using our advanced search, placing a J in the reference fields and searching with the defendant’s name and/or the charge. The results for this kind of search are likely to be more jumbled than those for Method 1 as they will include results from a variety of other courts.

Sometimes the name of the defendant is not listed in our catalogue, either because the defendant was under age or because it could give away the identity of the victim. To account for this, you should search with the phrase ‘name withheld.’

The naming of a defendant within our catalogue does not imply guilt.

Stage 2 of a search: indictments

To search for an indictment you will need a case number.

If you don’t already have a case number, contact HM Courts and Tribunal Service who can provide you with a case number for some Crown court cases (The National Archives has indexes to cases, and therefore case numbers, only for the Central Criminal Court – the Old Bailey – and only up to 1980).

With a case number you can search for the indictment, in one of the two following ways:

Method 1: Try this method first.

1. Locate the name of the court in the table in section 5
2. Click on the series code for that court’s indictments
3. Click on ‘browse from here by reference’, as shown here:
4. Look for the case number in the ranges of case numbers displayed in the right-hand panel
5. Order the record to locate the precise case number you are looking for

Method 2: If you have not found the court listed in section 5 or the indictment is not among those listed for that court, try using our advanced search, placing a J in the reference fields and searching with the name of the court, the word indictments and the year, or a range of years. Some series contain indictments for more than one court.

5. Key to records of Crown court cases

Different Crown courts transfer documents at different rates so some of the record series below are less complete than others. Many Crown courts have not yet sent any indictment files to The National Archives and their records remain in the custody of HM Courts and Tribunal Service.

Click on the links below to view the record series description – the ‘Access conditions’ will indicate whether or not files have been transferred from the Crown Court to The National Archives.

Wales and Chester Circuit
Crown Courts in North Wales were part of the Wales and Chester Circuit, which included the courts at Caernarfon, Dolgellau, Knutsford (Cheshire), Mold and Welshpool.

Indictments can be found in J 302. Some case files are in J 301.

6. Director of Public Prosecutions files

The Office of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) was created in 1879 with powers to institute and conduct criminal proceedings in any of the senior criminal courts – assizes, King’s/Queen’s Bench or Central Criminal Court, and, more recently, Crown Court.

Search or browse case files of the Director of Public Prosecutions in DPP 2 1931-2016. File descriptions include the name of the defendant (recent records are closed).

The following recommended publications are available in the The National Archives’ Library:

Richard Beeching, Royal Commission on Assizes and Quarter Sessions 1966-69: Report (London, 1969)

Michael Zander, Cases and materials on the English legal system (London, 10th edition, 2007)