This chapter covers the kind of evidence that you could use to help you find out more about an event – what information each sort of evidence contains, where to find it and where to go next – as well as highlighting potential difficulties with the evidence.

To begin with, do you want to know more about a specific event, or do you want to know more about things that happened in a particular parish, street or building over a period of time? Or you might be looking at a group of events, such as changes in a trade or industry.If it is a specific event, it is likely that you already know the approximate date and can go straight to primary sources – records and eyewitness accounts, as well as newspaper reports.

If you are looking at what happened over a period of time, or are looking for a specific group of events (such as riots, crime, fires, entertainment, politics) you need to try to narrow your search a little first, which means using secondary sources to pin down the dates of the events that you are looking at.

Using Eyewitness Accounts

Eyewitness accounts are contemporary records of events, made during the events themselves or maybe later. These include:

• Local newspaper reports – often (and particularly for 19th century trial reports) these include direct quotes from the people involved in an event and may be a verbatim record

• Letters – they may have accounts from someone who was involved in the event

• Diaries and notebooks – again, this may be an account from someone who was there and may quote people and give accounts of events. For example, in Norfolk we have the diaries of Parson Woodforde. Some county record societies publish these records: for example, Norfolk Record Society published The Notebook of Robert Doughty 1662-1665. Doughty was a Justice of the Peace and the records made in his notebook give rich details about life in the North Walsham area during that period

• Scrapbooks – these were often made in the 19th century and include newspaper cuttings, postcards, handbills, broadsheets, engravings and pamphlets; although in some sense this is a ‘secondary’ source (particularly if the person who compiled the scrapbook copied out reports in longhand rather than clipping the newspaper cutting and pasting it into a book). There may also be annotations and comments from the person who compiled the scrapbook

• Handbills

• Broadsheets (particularly from public executions)

• Pamphlets – these may have been written at the time or shortly afterwards

• Court records – mayor’s court, quarter sessions, assizes, consistory courts

• Official log books – such as school log books (which may be detailed), prison registers, Bridewell registers, surgeons’ reports

• Minutes of meetings

What Information They Contain

• Newspaper reports (local and national) – will generally follow the reporter’s creed of’who, what, when, where, why and how’. They may include direct quotes from people involved in an event; they may also include comments from the reporter linking the event with other local events (e.g. in an opinion piece). This will give you other leads to follow up

• Letters – anything and everything!

• Diaries and notebooks – it depends on the diarist. For example, in The Notebook of Robert Doughty 1662–1665, he talks about issuing a warrant of the peace on 5 July 1664 against Mary Shale ‘upon the oath of Robert Colker (labourer) of [Paston], whom she threat [sic] to knock on the head’. The Shales must have been a bit of a thorn in his side, because later that same month he had to issue another warrant against Mary, this time because she threatened to knock Margaret Empson and her children on the head! A couple of months previously, her husband had been suspected of stealing a lamb, selling it and pocketing the proceeds

• Scrapbooks – it depends on the interests of the person who compiled the scrapbook, but these could include cuttings from magazines and newspapers about a particular area or family, as well as photographs or sketches

• Handbills – often advertising people’s wares

• Broadsheets (from public executions) – often headed as an ‘account of the trial, execution, life, character and behaviour of the person about to be executed’. They usually contained: The name of the accused with the place and date of executionThe reason he or she had been indictedAn account of the trial (e.g. if it was particularly long or crowded)The evidence against the prisoner (i.e. what happened) – sometimes (e.g. in the case of the ‘Hempnall Poisoner’ Charles Daines) this will include verbatim comments of witnesses in the trial (which can be corroborated against newspaper reports as well as in the assize records)Sometimes a ‘moral’ or comments on the case or a religious text that the printer thought appropriateSometimes a character description (may include the age and occupation of the accused)The confession of the accusedDetails of the execution (e.g. the number of people who attended it – the broadsheet of Samuel Yarham’s execution in 1846 printed by Walker and Co. of Church Street St Miles, Norwich, states’No execution of late years had attracted so large an assemblage of spectators, some thousands being present’)Printer’s name and addressSometimes a woodcut showing either the crime or the execution

• Pamphlets – these could contain absolutely anything, from rules and regulations to an account of a local event

• Court records – mayor’s court, quarter sessions, assizes, consistory courts (see Chapter 3)

• Official log books – such as school log books (which may be detailed), prison registers, Bridewell registers, surgeons’ reports (see Chapter 3)

• Minutes – usually the time, date and place of meeting, who attended, business discussed and ‘any other business’.