The Bloody Code in Cheshire: The Court of Great Sessions, 1805-30

Walliss, John (2014) The Bloody Code in Cheshire: The Court of Great Sessions, 1805-30. Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historical Society, 163. pp. 55-72. ISSN 0140-332X

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Abstract

The Bloody Code of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century has generated a
great deal of interest from historians of crime for a number of decades. The aim
of this article is to explore the operation of the Bloody Code in Cheshire between
1805 and 1830, the last quarter of a century of the Chester Great Sessions. The
article argues that, belying an image of the criminal justice system dripping in
the blood of the condemned, the majority of those found guilty at the Chester
Great Sessions were sentenced to periods of imprisonment. Those who subsequently
expiated for their crimes on the gallows had typically been convicted of either a
serious crime against the person or burglary. Males were also more likely to receive
harsher sentences, and be executed for a broader range of crimes, than females,
even when convicted of the same offences.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Education and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
Depositing User:	John Walliss
Date Deposited:	13 Jun 2018 09:07
Last Modified:	02 Aug 2018 12:00
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/2459

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