ON THE RECORD
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Free criminal ancestors website launched
The secrets of ancestors who were caught up in the criminal justice system are now easier to explore thanks to a new free website.
The Our Criminal Ancestors project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, launched its website ourcriminalancestors.org in April.
The project’s principal investigator Dr Helen Johnston of the University of Hull, and co-investigator Dr Heather Shore of Leeds Beckett University, led three free workshops on tracing criminal ancestors – including those who were victims, witnesses and police and prison officers as well as offenders – at the Hull History Centre last year. The website will help family historians carry out their own research and share their ancestors’ stories.
“What we are trying to do is create a site that’s free, that’s not behind a paywall,” Dr Johnston told Who Do
You Think You Are? Magazine. “We want to share our expertise and help people get started with their own history in this area.”
The website is not a genealogy service, but it includes background information and guides to locating resources for tracing your own criminal ancestors.
The guides cover finding criminal justice system records using sources such as The National Archives; researching criminal history in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire; quarter session records; the history of Holloway Prison; tracing police ancestors; and industrial and reformatory school registers.
The website also boasts timelines of the history of bodily punishment and transportation, prisons, policing and youth justice.
“If you are looking for a criminal ancestor and you need a little bit of context, then hopefully these will help you,” Dr Johnston added.
Furthermore, the website has a page for members of the public to get involved by sharing stories of their criminal ancestors via mapping site historypin.org.
These can be stories from anywhere in Britain or potentially the world, and can concern ancestors who were involved in the criminal justice system in any way. They should cover the period from roughly 1700 to 1939, because more recent justice system records are still closed in many instances.
“We would really like people to join in with their stories, however big or small,” Dr Johnston explained.
The stories will be added to a map in collections based around different themes, including mental health and the police.
The organisers also want to hear from people with stories that could be turned into full-length blog posts on the site, as well as museums and collections that are interested in producing guides to their own resources.
“What is important to us is engaging with the public, and helping people to think about their own history, their own families, and their own communities, towns and regions,” Dr Johnston said.
As an example of the kind of stories that the project wants to tell, the website includes interactive timelines following the lives of two notable Hull criminals.
One of them is Arthur Lockey, a wealthy estate agent and chair of the Cottingham Urban Council, who in 1930 was sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment for embezzling funds from clients. His story was contributed by a participant in the workshops.
“That’s a very interesting example,” Dr Johnston said. “It’s about white-collar crime, his financial dealings, his rise in local society and then his downfall.”
The other criminal, Ethel Major, became the only woman to be executed in Hull Prison after she was convicted of poisoning her husband in 1934.
If you are looking for a criminal ancestor and you need a little bit of context, then hopefully our information will help you