The Institutional History Society is dedicated to researching and recording the lives of individuals throughout history who found themselves within institutions around the world. We cover everything from asylums to jails, dungeons to workhouses and all those in-between.
From the desultory to the deranged, the dangerous and the detained, Institutional History aims to recreate the lives of the men and women who experienced these establishments first-hand.
This site is a learning resource for any who are interested in researching their relatives or the climes of historic England and her institutions.
If you’re interested in how The Institutional History Society came about, head here or alternatively to learn a little about those involved in the research of Victorian true crime, this is your first port of call.
For those driven by research, you can find inmates’ biographies, histories of prisons and for interesting perspectives on Victorian crimes and useful historical and genealogical resources.
If entertainment is your game, feel free to peruse our podcasts or read reviews of the latest crime and punishment themed audiobooks, books and more in our reading nook .
We will also periodically be running competitions, so if you fancy winning free things, head here.
Victorian Convicts Researched so far…
John Lynch – The Bold Fenian Man
Alexander Moir – The Merciless Murderer
William Strahan – The Bent Banker
Aaron Rungay – The Water Boatman
William Privett – The Melancholy Pickpocket
Joseph Richards – The Beast of Brecon
Emery Spriggs – The Dark Shooter
Enoch Hall – The Ab-duck-tor
Edward Smith – The Grieving Thief
And though he lives to be in the same cell ten weary years, he has no means of knowing, down to the very last hour, in what part of the building it is situated; what kind of men there are about him; whether in the long winter night there are living people near, or he is in some lonely corner of the great jail, with walls, and passages, and iron doors between him and the nearest sharer in its solitary horrors.
Dickens C American notes for general circulation. ( 2nd edn Chapman & hall 1842 ) 242