The Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online

The fully searchable accounts of thousands of trials from 1834 to 1913 have gone online today, thus completing the project of making the records of the Old Bailey available over the Internet.

The Old Bailey Proceedings Online makes available a fully searchable, digitised collection of all surviving editions of the Old Bailey Proceedings from 1674 to 1913, and of the Ordinary of Newgate's Accounts, 1690 to 1772. It allows access to over 210,000 trials and biographical details of approximately 3,000 men and women executed at Tyburn, free of charge for non-commercial use.

The trials featured include those of Oscar Wilde and the suffragettes but also those of hundreds of men sent to the pilory and hard-labour or the gallows for attempted buggery or buggery.

Professor Tim Hitchcock, from the University of Hertfordshire, said: "If you want to know how to order a plate of oysters in an East End pub, or what not to wear to church in Islington, the information is all here. Besides the desperate drama of crimes punished, the Proceedings give us a new and remarkable access to the everyday."

The records can be found at www.oldbaileyonline.org

The press release from the researchers from the Universities of Sheffield, Hertfordshire and The Open University involved in the project is here.