Recently I visited the West Yorkshire History Centre at their new premises in Wakefield in pursuit of my convicts project and one the things I looked at was the Calendar of Prisoners which was printed up before each quarter session of the courts.

For Wakefield House of Correction the courts cover the West Riding, but at end of the list of people and charges appearing in each court is a list of all the prisoners currently serving sentences in the House of Correction, and what they are there for and for how long. I thought it was quite interesting and that others might be interested in a summary so that is what is set out below.

It doesn't include those waiting for trial. Nor will it ever show those transported, because they are never kept long enough to appear on the list, and the same is true for those executed.





I did come across one splendid name, which must have been either an alias or miswritten - Noble Spoouls, and one truly shocking prisoner, and certainly thankfully the only instance of this that I saw - "Sophy O'Brien & her 3 children jailed for 1 month for vagrancy". They were categorised as 1 prisoner.