Johann Georg Keyssler (1693-1743), was a German scholar who served as steward to a succession of German nobles before making his name as a skilled tutor ideal for leading young noblemen on the Gr...
In 1722 a ten-year-old girl, Hannah (surname possibly Starky, Norman, or Smart) came before the Old Bailey, charged with thefts. She appears to have been alone in the world – no parents are men...
One case I return to often in The Old Bailey Online is the trial of Elizabeth Cranberry for the murder of Thomas Biggs. It is a case of poisoning, long seen as a women’s weapon, but it’s so m...
It was on Christmas Eve in 1680 that a young girl died a horrible death in London. The victim was twelve or fourteen years of age and apprenticed to the chief suspect: one Leticia Wigington (aka ...
The Old Bailey Online shows us a great deal about the everyday lives of early modern people, often inadvertently. Something of the makeshift economy that keeps single women afloat in London – b...
In June of 1692, a Holborn woman, Ruth Phillips, was charged with high treason in the Old Bailey. Her crime? Clipping coins. This may not sound like a serious offence today, but in the early mode...
In early April, “a little Boy” was brought before the Old Bailey. He was prosecuted by one who he might have looked upon as a friend and benefactor: John Saucer, his next-door neighbour. Sauc...
https://jliedl.ca/2018/01/16/a-slippery-set-of-stories-1714-1715/
You’re walking through the eastern parishes in mid-March of 1715, when a child is crying loudly as a young woman roughly takes off his clothing. Other passersby must have disregarded Mary Skip�...
One of the first cases that drew me into the Old Bailey Online is a convoluted account from the first year of the published proceedings dealing with clothing theft that incidentally involved chil...
https://jliedl.ca/2018/01/09/from-shoe-lane-to-st-giles-in-1674/
Bridget Hussey: surely you’ve heard of her? Likely not. I first stumbled upon her during my doctoral research. She married Richard Morison, a Henrician humanist pamphleteer who was a devout, na...