The Proceedings of the Old Bailey 1674-1913 is
"A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people
ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court."
It is now complete.
"The Proceedings" is the name of the original published version. Here is what it says about these:
"The Proceedings contain accounts of trials which took place at the Old Bailey. The first published
collection of trials at the Old Bailey dates from 1674, and from 1678 accounts of the trials at
each sessions (meeting of the Court) were regularly published. Inexpensive, and targeted initially
at a popular audience, the Proceedings were produced shortly after the conclusion of each sessions
and were initially a commercial success. But with the growth of newspapers and increasing publication
costs the audience narrowed by the nineteenth century to a combination of lawyers and public officials.
With few exceptions, this periodical was regularly published each time the sessions met (eight times
a year until 1834, and then ten to twelve times a year) for 239 years, when publication came to a
sudden halt in April 1913."
The site is beautifully prepared, with the full text available as well as digital images of the
original reports. There are also some pictures from legal material of the time together with an extensive Introduction.
There is a particular section for schools, with the site obviously seen as material for school projects.
The project is a collaboration between the Open University and the Universities of Hertfordshire and Sheffield
and is funded by various grants so that access can be free. There is to be a conference in
July on the project called "The Metropolis on Trial", to be held at the Open University, Milton Keynes.