THE POLICE GAZETTE

Part 3: Issues for 1829, 1858, 1879-1881 & 1898 from the British Library Newspaper Library, London

The Police Gazette can be used profitably by a wide range of scholars from the criminologist and social historian, to the sociologist and literary researcher. Dating from 1752, it records crimes, criminals and deserters from the forces. These descriptions vary in their level of detail from a brief one line entry concerning someone who has escaped from transportation, to a lengthy account of the items stolen in a burglary which casts light on property and consumption.

There are portraits of many of the people sought by the police for their involvement in arson, burglary, fraud and murder. Scholars can build up pictures of crime in particular areas, crime related to social and political issues and patterns of desertion from the army. They can also examine issues such as: 

 - How lawless was Britain in the late eighteenth century? 
 - How accurately did Dickens depict the dark side of Victorian city life?

Despite the large number of copies produced of The Police Gazette and its predecessors, no complete run exists anywhere in the world. The aim of this microfilm project is to assemble a 149 year run of the journal from 1752 through to 1900 by filming various scattered holdings.

Part 1 made available issues for 1866-1869, 1871-1878, 1882-1897 & 1899-1900 from the holdings of the Cambridgeshire Police Archive (covering 30 years, representing 20% of the total).

Part 2 made available issues for 1797-1810, 1828 & 1830-1840 (covering a further 26 years, representing 17% of the total) from the holdings of the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

This third part fills some important gaps in the coverage of the first two parts, offering issues for 1829, 1858, 1879-1881 & 1898 from the holdings of the British Library Newspaper Library, London. This means that scholars can now examine virtually unbroken sequences of the Police Gazette from 1797-1810, 1828-1840 and 1866-1900.