 Grand Larceny was the most common offence found in the 1800s.
It involved the theft of goods of the value of one shilling or more, but without any aggravating circumstances such as assault, breaking and entering, stealing "privately", or taking from a series of specified locations such as a house.
Occasionally juries used their discretion to find people accused of such thefts guilty of the lesser crime of petty larceny with a partial verdict. By finding the defendant guilty of the theft of goods worth less than one shilling, the jury ensured the defendant would receive a lesser punishment, most notably a punishment other than death.
Grand Larceny was abolished in 1827 when a new offence of (simple larceny) removed the distinction between grand and petty larceny.
Animal theft
This was theft of domestic animals, including sheep, cattle, horses, pigs, and fowl. Horse theft was considered the most serious of these offences and by statute was punishable by death. Statutes passed in 1741 and 1742 made sheep and cattle stealing capital offences. See below for stealing of 'wild' animals.
Game Law offences
Only persons who met specified property qualifications, essentially gentlemen and the aristocracy, could legally hunt game (such as deer, rabbits, or pheasants). Anyone else hunting these animals, whether using nets, guns, or other animals, were committing a crime, even if they owned land upon which the game was found. Prosecutions under these statutes frequently occurred outside the courts, under summary jurisdiction, but some offences were made punishable by death under the "Black Act" (1723) and in the process brought within the jurisdiction of the Old Bailey. This Act made it a capital offence to hunt, wound, or steal deer, conies, hares, and fish in the King's forests; break down the heads of fishponds; or simply go about armed and disguised anywhere game was kept. This act was repealed in 1823, but being armed and entering into enclosed land in order to remove game remained a crime.
PS - Penal Servitude
Penal servitude was a term of imprisonment at hard labour first introduced by the 1853 and 1857 Penal Servitude Acts as a replacement for transportation. It gave judges the discretion to sentence anyone who might otherwise have been transported for less than 14 years to penal servitude. This normally meant labour in a convict prison.
This information was extracetd from the site: The Old Bailey Online... a most interesting read!
|
