They didn't have Page 3 girls 200 years ago but ...

Old News

In looking through old newspapers it is very easy to become distracted by a completely different story to the one you were researching.  "Glory1505" asked a question on Rootsweb about the possible existence of a press report relating to the trial of Joseph Saunders at Hertford in 1818.

I found a very brief mention in the Bury and Norwich Post squeezed between a long report (by the standard of early 19th century papers) on a breach of promise case in which the jilted lady was awarded £4000 and a seduction, where the mother of the seduced young girl was awarded £1000. The latter was followed by two brief reports of men being sentenced to death - at a time when public hangings were considered a great entertainment - with people flocking to watch the action.

So while modern newspapers are very much bigger that those of 200 years ago things haven't changed. The early editors undoubtedly selected stories about sex, money and violence because they were popular then - and helped to sell newspapers. 

POSTCRIPT: The case of Joseph Saunders, and two of the other criminals mentioned in the press report, are mentioned in Transported beyond the Sea (I have added detailed to the page on the press report) so there are almost certainly court record at HALS. If you live in or near Hertfordshire you may be interested to know that Ken Griffin, who wrote the book, will be talking on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: A Story of Transportation at the Herts Family History Society meeting on April 27.

Old News from Jackson's Oxford Journal, 1800

The number of early newspapers which cover Hertfordshire is low so I decided to look at the Jackson's Oxford Journal for 1800 on the British Newspaper Archive and quickly found three items (and there may be many more).

Opening of the Grand Junction Canal through Tring

Highway Robbery of Watford Couple

Hertford Assizes

The last of these involves house breaking, sheep steeling and highway robbery and in a number of cases the transportation records are given to provide extra details

Married Men Transported to Australia

Further to the posting Hill, Transported to Australia, 1837, David has checked the Tasmanian records, but they only say that he was ineligible to have his wife brought out from England, and there is not information as to whether the unexplained baptism of Faith Ells at Hemel Hempstead in 1840 (original documents not yet checked) is relevant. In fact a further investigation revealed yet another case where variations in spelling in the indexes (and possibly the original records) can lead to confusion and FELLS, Harpenden, circa 1840 provides evidence that Faith/Ruth Ells/Fell/Fells/Fitts is irrelevant to the main line of enquiry.

Interestingly David reports that there was a low level of requests for wives to come out to Australia and it would be interesting to know what percentage of men transported were married - and what percentage of married men made such applications? It may be that most of the convicts were unmarried and the Hertfordshire lower courts tended to be more lenient in sentencing married men with families because they were aware that the wife and children might end up as a charge on poor relief. In addition a wife with children might be a beneficial influence. Does anyone know if any such statistics (possibly for England as a whole) exists?