Criminal court cases: County of London Sessions

1. About this guide

This guide will help you find the records of criminal cases heard at the County of London Sessions which later became the Inner London Sessions. Sessions courts, like courts of Assize elsewhere in the country, dealt with more serious cases than those heard in magistrates' courts.

See Criminal Court Cases: an overview for an introduction to our criminal court records.

2. The geographical area covered

The County of London was a new area formed in 1889 taking in parts of Middlesex north of the Thames, and parts of Surrey and Kent from South of the Thames, that are now considered to be Inner London boroughs. The City of London was still a separate entity and was not covered by the County of London Sessions.

In 1965 the County of London was enlarged again to form Greater London, at this point the County of London Sessions were renamed the Inner London Sessions.

For the period 1889-1909, there were two separate court houses: one in Clerkenwell for North London and one in Newington for South London. Eventually a decision was made to hold all trials at Newington although cases continued to be heard at Clerkenwell until the early 1920s to allow for the rebuilding of the Newington Sessions House which opened in January 1921.

3. Online Sources

Before you delve into the original records, please gather as much information as possible from the following online resources. It is particularly important to get the date and place of the trial.

• Crime, Prisons & Punishment, 1770-1935 on Findmypast.co.uk (charges apply)
• UK, Calendar of Prisoners, 1868-1929 on Ancestry.co.uk (charges apply)
• The British Newspaper Archive (charges apply)

4. How to search the records held at The London Archives

4.1. Calendars of Prisoners

The main source are the calendars of prisoners which list prisoners tried at several different courts including the County of London Sessions. The calendars are in chronological order and are indexed on a monthly basis.

The calendars give the following information on individual prisoners:

• name, age and occupation
• previous convictions
• from where committed
• when received in prison or bailed
• the charge, verdict and sentence

The calendars up to 1929 are available to view on Ancestry.co.uk and Findmypast.co.uk (see links in Section 3). Registers from 1930 onwards will need to be viewed at The London Archives.

Use the table below to find the correct reference codes:

4.2. Sessions Rolls

The sessions rolls give the same information as the printed calendar of prisoners. They are only worth looking if there is no surviving calendar for the year that you are interested in.

Use the table below to find the correct reference codes:

4.3. Depositions

Unlike the period prior to 1889, depositions (witness statements) and other papers relating to cases were not generally kept.

There is a series of deposition books in ILS/B/06 covering 1932-1972 but they just list the documents that were deposited with the court for each case. The documents themselves do not survive.

Only a small sample of witness statements from cases which took place in the years 1963 and 1967 survive and these can be found in ILS/B/34/001.

4.4. Court Books

Sessions books do survive for the entire period 1889-1972, though they are split into multiple individual courts. They give a basic summary of cases including the defendant's name, offence, plea, verdict and sentence. Like the Sessions rolls, they may be useful in years where printed calendars do not exist.

Use the table below to find the correct reference codes: