18th century court cases tried at the Old Bailey

GenreThe text is an official document written by the court clerk in 1719. It’s a record of a court case that was tried at the Old Bailey which was the Central Criminal Court in London.

Audience and Purpose

The purpose of the text is to inform the court about a case and what the outcome of that case was. The text may also be used as a way of informing the public about prosecutions within the local area. Therefore, the audience would likely be the court, judges and the general public.

Crime and punishment in the 18th century

• The items that were stolen were 10 silk handkerchiefs which were valued at 10 shillings.

• Handkerchiefs are relatively cheap now which suggests that there was possibly a big market for them during the 18th century.

• The handkerchiefs were valued at 10 shillings which doesn’t seem a lot, however, having researched the average wages during this period it seems that they were extremely low.

• For example, wages could be as low as 2/3 pounds per year for a domestic servant plus food, lodging and clothing.

• A hangman was a man employed to execute condemned prisoners by hanging.

• The man who was prosecuted within the text was a hangman who only earned around £10 for each execution during this time.

• This suggests that he was very poor and therefore would be a likely suspect for the theft of the handkerchiefs.

• The hangman suggests that he’s being ‘prosecuted out of malice’ due to his trade as an executer. He believes he’s being scrutinised as a criminal as many people didn’t like them during this time.

• The hangman offered to ‘make satisfaction’ which means he was willing to pay them back but he could only afford a shilling a week due to being poor.

• The hangman was given a traditional line up where he was picked by the prosecutors wife and daughter as being the criminal.

• He then had to gather two people to defend him who told the court that he was a good man. They also pleaded that he ‘would rather beg than steal’ and if he stole ‘one penny, his very character would hang him’.

• The jury then had to consider both sides of the story and come to a conclusion on whether they believed he was truly guilty or not.

• In this case the jury ‘brought him in guilty’.

Lexis• There is reference to a ‘Beadle’

which was a word used for a parish official who acted as an usher and kept order. They were also hired to perform various duties and were extremely popular during the 18th century, however, this is an example of a word that is no longer in use today.

Lexis• The word ‘Compter’ is used as another way of

saying ‘counter’. This way of spelling it died out a long time ago and is no longer in use today.

• The word ‘Alehouse’ is also used to refer to a pub, which is also another example of a word that is no longer used today.

Lexis • The letter ‘S’ is also substituted for a ‘∫’ which

suggests that they still continued to use the long ‘∫’ during the 18th century.

Semantics • The phrase ‘to make satisfaction’ is used

which doesn’t appear to have the same meaning today as it did during the 18th century. It didn’t mean gratification as in common usage but meant ‘to make restitution’ or to pay back what was taken. In this case it was used to refer to the hangman offering to pay back for the handkerchiefs rather than him having to go to court.

Orthography • The words ‘nobody’ and ‘meanwhile’

are spelt as two separate words, ‘no Body’ and ‘mean while’.

• The ‘ed’ ending is also not used as it appears they ended their words with apostrophes such as ‘cheapen’d’.

• They also replaced the ‘ied’ ending with an apostrophe such as ‘carry’d’.

• These changes in spelling suggest that the endings we use today were not around or used at the time.

Grammar• The grammatical constructions used are also

relatively different from those we use today. For example, they use the phrase ‘but he was got out of sight’ which we would normally refer to today as ‘but he was out of sight’.

• There are also several phrases used such as ‘owned his being in the shop’ and ‘on the 7th of August last’ which are unlikely to be used in this way today.

Graphology

• The layout used appears very similar to the ones used today for court case records.