RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: InstitutionalH on Wednesday 25 September 19 14:26 BST (UK)
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Hi All,
I hope you're having a fantastic Wednesday!
Let me introduce myself. I'm a budding twenty something year old historian whose always been fascinated by the past: in particular, peripheral people's. What started out as a dissertation on dwarves in ancient greece (that's the shortened version ::)) ended up as, researching fom friends and family their disabled or imprisoned ancestors.
What I discovered, was a distinct lack of easy to access, free prison/institution resources (short of a train ride to the NA or BL) and so I and a friend have decided to create one ;D (yes we are fully sane!).
The website is completely free and a labor of love (like labor too it has been bloody painful at times ;D) but if you are researching your imprisoned ancestors, feel free to check out our site institutionalhistory.com.
Otherwise, we look forward to taking a more active part in this community! Hello :)
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Welcome to rootschat IH.
Looks like an interesting site. :)
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Hi Ruskie!
Thank you kindly and I'm glad you like the site. I've been perusing rootschat for years so it's great to finally be able to give back ;D
Which forums/threads would you recommend to get involved in for prisons/institutions?
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I can’t think of a specific forums or threads. Anything of interest could either be in the common room or on the county boards.
Maybe you could enter a few search terms in the “search” box (fourth from the left on the brown bar near the top of the page) and see what comes up?
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Welcome.
Peripheral people .... what an odd adjective ... anyway, welcome.
Likely you are already familiar with the excellent free resources listed on the Resources boards for the counties and countries.
JM.
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I've just posted a reply on a thread about a Scotsman sentenced to transportation in 1785 - "banished from Scotland". I asked what happened to prisoners like him who were sentenced to transportation between the start of the American War of Independence and the First Fleet to Australia.
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Thank you for the post. It looks like an interesting and useful site. Good Luck!
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When I was recently researching my great grandfathers spells in Bristol Prison for non payment of taxes, I found his entries in the Prison registers, but I was only allowed to view the pages in the company of an archivist, who had to cover the names of all other inmates on the pages of my relative. This was in the years leading up to 1911 so I dont believe it was the 100 year privacy rule, but some other form of data protection. If so, would this not apply to your data ?
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Sounds a good site. I have at leats 2 ancestor siblings who were transported in the 1800s to Australia. One stoe a gelding and one attacked a fellow drinker in a pub for trying to diffuse a row between him and his father.
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Hi all,
Apologies for the delay, it's been a really busy period of research for us and Surrey life have kindly written an article about us, gratified doesn't even cover it!
@Ruskie thank you so much for the tips, i'll be sure to put them to good use.
@Majm aha apologies, I do a bit of creative writing in my spare time and sometimes I run amok with rhetorical flare. But the truth is, many of our convicts at Woking Invalid Convict Prison
were unable to tell their own stories at that time, whether through illiteracy or, quite simply, society didn't care. So long as they were seen to be punished, that was enough. Redemption was
not offered either by state or by society at large. Even William Strahan, our most famous inmate and instigator of the Oxford v. Cambridge Boat Race, practically disappeared from the historical record post serving his sentence. It's great to see so many new sites pop up looking to research these institutions: history from below at it's finest.
@Maiden Stone that's a really interest poin. England implemented an act (Criminal Law Act 1776) so that any criminal sentenced to transportation during that period was instead forced to carry out hard labour. Mass transportation didn't take place in England again until the first transports to Australia in 1787If you PM me the name of your person of interest, i'd be more than happy to take a look.
@SilasWall Thank you, thank you! Any ways in which we can improve it, we'd gratefully accept any suggestion.
@Lidfam In terms of our current research project Woking Invalid Prison, the years covered are 1859-1889 and so we're covered by the 100 years rule. However to your second point,
you are able to view prison records from 1770-1935 on FindMyPast. Like @Maiden Stone, we'd be more than happy to research your ancestor or find relevant records.
@Coombes I really appreciate that! It's crazy how many people were transported for such trifling reasons. In a way your relatives were fortunate to end up in Oz, as in the latter
period many men who were meant to be transported actually ended up on 'prison hulks' where disease was rife.
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@Maiden Stone that's a really interest poin. England implemented an act (Criminal Law Act 1776) so that any criminal sentenced to transportation during that period was instead forced to carry out hard labour. Mass transportation didn't take place in England again until the first transports to Australia in 1787If you PM me the name of your person of interest, i'd be more than happy to take a look.
Thanks for the information. That's what I wanted to know.
The Criminal Law Act 1776 (aka the "Hard Labour Act" and the "Hulks Act") suspended the Transportation Act 1717 - according to Wikipedia.
I'd originally posed the question as part of a reply on another thread about a man who was sentenced to banishment from Scotland in 1785 but was still there in 1790s. I've now updated that thread with information about the Criminal Law Act 1776 .