Researching eighteenth-century fraud in the Old Bailey: reflections on court records, archives, and digitisation

• Authors: Cerian Charlotte Griffiths

Title variants

Badanie osiemnastowiecznych spraw dotyczących oszustwa prowadzonych w Old Bailey: refleksje na temat akt sądowych, archiwów i digitalizacji

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article seeks to provide reflection and guidance to researchers of fraud in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This reflection explains two reasons why there is a dearth of historical research into fraud offences. These reasons are ontological and methodological. The definitions and laws of fraud are complex and difficult to identify, and one of the most accessible court archive, the Old Bailey Sessions Papers (the Proceedings), needs to be treated with caution by the researcher of fraud. This article uses the in-depth historiography surrounding the Proceedings and applies this to the research of fraud offences which, this article argues, require a particular methodological approach.

PL

Artykuł ma na celu przedstawienie spostrzeżeń i wskazówek pomocnych badaczom zajmującym się przestępstwem oszustwa w Wielkiej Brytanii w osiemnastym i dziewiętnastym stuleciu. Spostrzeżenia te wyjaśniają przyczyny, dla których brakuje historycznych badań nad przestępstwem oszustwa. Są one tak ontologiczne, jak i metodologiczne. Definicje praw dotyczących oszustwa są złożone i trudne do zidentyfikowania, zaś jedno z najbardziej dostępnych archiwów, Akta Sesyjne Old Bailey (Sprawozdania), muszą być wykorzystywane przez badaczy z ostrożnością. W artykule wskazano historyczne okoliczności powstania Sprawozdań i zastosowano tę wiedzę do badań nad przestępstwem oszustwa, które w świetle powyższych ustaleń, wymagają wyjątkowego podejścia metodologicznego.

Keywords

EN

Fraud; Old Bailey; Digitisation; Legal History; Methodology

PL

Oszustwo; Old Bailey; digitalizacja; historia prawa; metodologia; Oszustwo; Old Bailey; digitalizacja; historia prawa; metodologia

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Iuridica
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 91
• Pages: 9-24

Dates

published

2020-04-02

Contributors

author

Cerian Charlotte Griffiths

• Lancaster University Law School

• https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8629-434X

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Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/0208-6069.91.02