Plebeian Lives and the Making of Modern London

June 8, 2010 7:33 PM

London Lives 12 London archives – digitised, marked up and tagged – to "create a comprehensive electronic edition of primary sources on criminal justice and the provision of poor relief and medical care in eighteenth-century London". The Lives page is a good place to start browsing. [related]
posted by unliteral (8 comments total)

(In case anyone is else curious, the notation next to the people's names of "fl" stands for "floruit," or "flourished," and it indicates when a person was active, as opposed to when they were born and died.)
posted by crunchland at 7:44 PM on June 8, 2010

This is great, unliteral, thanks. Interested Mefites should also check out this site from my colleagues at the Harvard Law School Library, Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:02 PM on June 8, 2010

This is my favorite kind of internet rabbit hole. I can tell already it's going to be one of those nights where I'll have to remind myself to go to bed.
posted by That's Numberwang! at 8:56 PM on June 8, 2010

Thank you!
posted by jokeefe at 9:02 PM on June 8, 2010

Awesome thanks :D
posted by Monkeymoo at 9:44 PM on June 8, 2010

Potentially very useful for my next phase of study. Thanks very much!
posted by nthdegx at 12:20 AM on June 9, 2010

Wonderful resource! The very first biography is (Robert Abel) is British Criminal "Justice" in a nutshell: 17 year old boy sentenced to be hanged for robbery on the evidence of one eyewitness, evidence cast in doubt and boy exonerated, Judge decides to ship him off to Australia anyway because he is a "bad boy."
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:41 AM on June 9, 2010

The very first biography is (Robert Abel)
Keeping in mind that this data is from 1680 to 1820, your (Robert Abel) comment intrigued me, so I looked further, Convict Stockade:

6 January 1787 - Embarked on the 'Alexander'
February 1788 - had 15 half pounds of flour stolen from the hut he shared with Michael DENNISON and William WATERHOUSE
12 June, 1790 - received 200 lashes for stealing sugar from the transport ship 'Lady Juliana'
20 February 1794 - Received a 30 acre land grant at Bulanamming which he later sold to Thomas MOORE
1795 - Robert left the Colony on the 'Endeavour' bound for India. the ship sank off New Zealand. Robert was among the rescued who were taken to Norfolk Island in January 1796. He did not remain on the island and there are no further records of him

Swings and roundabouts — he could have ended up a Norfolk Islander.
posted by unliteral at 7:25 AM on June 9, 2010