Home Office: Criminal Petitions, Series II

Original petitions made by convicted persons seeking the revocation or reduction of their sentences. Attached to some petitions are related papers and some returns, made by the governors of convict prisons, of convicts recommended for early release for good behaviour.

The petitions were made between 1839 and 1853; some of the related papers are dated after 1853. Earlier petitions are in HO 17.

PLEASE NOTE: Electronic images of selected pieces of these records can be searched online through our partner website. Pieces 1-79, 82-111, 113-280, 282-293, 295, 299-303, 305-318, 320-334, 336-364, 366-367, 369-381 only have been digitised at this time (June 2015); further releases within this series to follow.

The original arrangement of the petitions into bundles has been maintained. This is broadly chronological but the exact basis for it is not known; it may reflect when the Home Office filed the first paper for each case. The dates of the individual petitions overlap considerably between one bundle and another.

The original bundle number and a paper number for each item have been maintained in the current references, e.g. bundle 6, paper 5 is HO 18/6/5.

Topics

Food and drink

Crime

Prisons