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The Old Bailey Criminal Court

The criminal court of the City of London and the County of Middlesex, sitting under royal commissions of the peace, of oyer and terminer, and of gaol delivery of Newgate at Justice Hall in the Old Bailey, whose room, gaol, juries and printers served the Admiralty sessions that tried pirates without the court itself ever holding jurisdiction over piracy.

To1834Also writtenThe Old Bailey; Justice Hall in the Old Bailey; The King's Commission of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery of Newgate; The Old Bailey sessions

The Old Bailey criminal court was a recurring event and not a chartered body: royal commissions authorising named men to meet at Justice Hall in the Old Bailey, hear and determine criminal causes arising in the City of London and Middlesex, and deliver the gaol of Newgate. The court was the commission in session; the building only the room it used.

Three commissions, two jurisdictions

The front matter of the sessions of 13 January 1720, Old Style, states the constitution: "THE PROCEEDINGS ON THE KING'S Commission of the Peace, AND Oyer and Terminer, and Goal-Delivery of Newgate, held for the CITY of London, and COUNTY of Middlesex, at Justice-Hall in the Old Bayly". The peace gave the magistracy, oyer and terminer the power to try indictments, gaol delivery the power to clear Newgate. The two jurisdictions were kept apart inside the room: separate grand juries, London's sitting first at the Guildhall and then in the Old Bailey, Middlesex's at Hicks Hall and sending its indictments over, and separate trial juries of twelve for each.1

The bench and the rhythm of the sessions

The court met eight times a year until 1834, each meeting preceded by the quarter sessions for the City and for Middlesex, the clerks drawing the indictments from the prison keepers' lists. Early in the history of the Proceedings a day might carry fifteen to twenty cases, and juries heard trials in batches before retiring.2

The working bench drew on the Westminster common law judges, officers of state and City magistrates including the Lord Mayor, the Recorder or his deputy and the Common Serjeant; normally only two judges came. Middlesex justices were in the commission but were refused a seat on the bench.

Piracy, and the court that borrowed the room

Piracy was committed outside the body of any county and lay beyond a county commission. It was tried instead at Admiralty sessions held for the jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England: the same room, a different commission, a different bench, and records of the High Court of Admiralty. The National Archives dates the court's establishment for this purpose to 1535; the statute supplying the machinery, 28 Hen. 8 c. 15, had royal assent on 18 July 1536; the two are unreconciled.3

The Admiralty sessions that tried Henry Every's men opened here on Monday 19 October 1696, and the jury acquitted all six. The sessions adjourned to Saturday 31 October, the men were arraigned afresh for conspiring to run away with the Charles the Second, the Crown told the new jury to act without respect to "the Dishonourable Proceedings of the former Jury", and that jury convicted them. It ended on 6 November. The Admiralty's condemned hanged at Execution Dock, the ordinary court's at Tyburn.4

William Kidd was tried at an Admiralty sessions here on 8 and 9 May 1701. At his arraignment he asked for counsel, and Crown counsel answered "We admit of no counsel for him". A condensed state trials edition has the Recorder, Sir Salathiel Lovell, adding the ground that no issue had been joined. Defence counsel were excluded in felony trials until the mid 1730s.5

The Proceedings

The Proceedings were a commercial periodical licensed by the City from January 1679, not a transcript. Editions are missing for two thirds of the sessions between 1699 and 1714, and none survives for 1701, 1705 or 1706. Within 1690 to 1725 they report no trial for piracy, and name the Admiralty sessions only in two perjury prosecutions, of 9 December 1696 and 8 June 1698. Both piracy sessions are in separately printed pamphlets.6

What the sources cannot yet give is the court's own paper. The City's sessions files, gaol delivery books and repertories at The London Archives have not been consulted here, so the deputy Recorder's tenure is undated, the printer's fee to the Lord Mayor unquantified, and no sessions by sessions count is safe. That negative finding rests on searches of a corpus missing about a third of all sessions between 1674 and 1714.

What the evidence does not settle

Printer's fee to the Lord Mayor

  • The printer's annual fee to the Lord Mayor is unquantified

Cost of a sessions

  • The cost of holding an Old Bailey sessions is unknown

Piracy trials in the Proceedings

  • Whether the printed Proceedings contain any piracy trialUnverified

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The Old Bailey criminal court sat under the King's commissions of the peace, of oyer and terminer, and of gaol delivery of Newgate, for the City of London and the County of Middlesex, at Justice Hall in the Old Bailey, with separate trial juries of twelve for the two jurisdictions. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Printed court proceedings: Front matter of the sessions of 13, 14 and 16 January 1720, Old Style, Old Bailey Proceedings Online, reference f17210113-1
  2. The court met eight times a year until 1834, each meeting preceded by the quarter sessions for the City of London and for the County of Middlesex, at which the clerks drew the indictments from lists supplied by the keepers of the prisons. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Scholarly editorial commentary: Old Bailey Online, Publishing History of the Proceedings, and Trial Procedures
  3. Piracy on the high seas lay outside this court's jurisdiction and was tried at Admiralty sessions of oyer and terminer and gaol delivery held for the jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England, in the same building but under a different commission and before a different bench. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlets and archival catalogue description: The tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis and John Sparkes, London 1696; The arraignment, tryal, and condemnation of Captain William Kidd, London 1701; The National Archives, HCA 1, High Court of Admiralty: Oyer and Terminer Records
  4. The Admiralty sessions that tried Henry Every's crew opened at Justice Hall in the Old Bailey on Monday 19 October 1696, acquitted all the defendants at the first trial, adjourned to Saturday 31 October, convicted them on a new indictment for conspiring to run away with the Charles the Second, and ended on 6 November 1696. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The tryals of Joseph Dawson, Edward Forseith, William May, William Bishop, James Lewis and John Sparkes, printed for John Everingham, London 1696
  5. At his arraignment at the Admiralty sessions in the Old Bailey on 8 May 1701, William Kidd asked for counsel and was refused in open court with the words "We admit of no counsel for him", the Recorder's stated ground, that no issue had been joined and therefore no counsel could be assigned, resting on the condensed state trials edition alone and no higher than Probable. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet and condensed state trials edition: The arraignment, tryal, and condemnation of Captain William Kidd, London 1701, corroborated against the 1899 condensed edition of the state trials of Hargrave and Howell
  6. Within 1690 to 1725 the printed Old Bailey Proceedings report no trial for piracy and mention the Admiralty sessions only in two prosecutions for perjury, of 9 December 1696 and 8 June 1698, the corpus itself being missing for two thirds of the sessions between 1699 and 1714 and for the whole of 1701, 1705 and 1706. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Digitised corpus search and scholarly editorial commentary: Old Bailey Proceedings Online full text search, records t16961209-65 and t16980608-68; Old Bailey Online, Publishing History of the Proceedings