VPRS 78 Criminal Record Books

This series comprises a summary record of criminal sessions held by the Supreme Court in Melbourne and on circuit around Victoria. In 1841 Resident Judge of New South Wales Supreme Court for the Port Phillip District was appointed. In 1852, following separation from New South Wales, the Legislative Council passed an Act (15 Vic., No.10) to establish the Supreme Court of Victoria. The record books commence with Criminal Sessions held in Melbourne on 12 April 1841 and end with Sessions held in Melbourne in April 1940. It is not known whether record books were created after this date.Entries in the books have been made in chronological order according to the date of the sessions. Each session is identified by place and date. Entries for each session have been numbered consecutively. Details recorded included:No. of TrialPrisoners nameOffenceJudges nameDay of TrialVerdictDate of SentenceSentence.Indexes by prisoners surname can be found at the back of each volume. Within each letter of the alphabet the entries have been entered in chronological order rather than being lexicographical.Relationship to Criminal Trial Briefs and Uhl IndexVPRS 30 Criminal Trial Briefs comprises the documentation crated by the Crown Solicitor (later Victorian Government Solicitor/Director of Public Prosecutions) in the course of the prosecution of individuals committed for trial on indictable and capital offences on behalf of the Crown. Indictable offences are generally those crimes identified within the various Crimes Acts since 1890. The 1890 Crimes Act had replaced the Criminal Law and Practice Act 1864 which consolidated the various legislation in place beforehand. A capital offence differed from an indictable offence in that it carried a mandatory death sentence.Trials relating to these offences are held in either the Supreme or County Court depending on the charge. (The County Court was known as the Court of General Sessions prior to 1968.) A trial cannot occur until the accused has been committed for trial from a committal hearing heard in the Magistrates Court (known prior to 1971 as Courts of Petty Sessions). At this hearing the Magistrate determines if sufficient evidence exists to commit the accused for trial.Units 1-184 of the P consignment (date range 1841-1865) contain files which were arranged in 1971-1972 by a researcher, Mrs Jean Uhl. Each file in this set was allocated a multiple number registration which relates to entries found in the Criminal Record Book, for example:5/118/14Criminal Record Book number (5) / page number (118) / entry number of page (14)A card index to these files, prepared by Mrs Uhl, (VPRS 6933) is located in the Laverton Repository Search Room. It has also been duplicated on two microfilm series (VPRS 6774 which contains the entire index and VPRS 4325 which contains only those cards which control the briefs in Units 1-184). The Criminal Record Book entry was stamped BRIEF EXTANT for the above files.Units 185-227 of the P consignment (date range 1841-1861) contain files for which no entries were found in the Criminal Record Books. These files were arranged in chronological order by Mrs Uhl who then allocated a single number prefaced by the letters NCR (for not in criminal record book). Cards indexing these briefs are found within VPRS 6933.Other Related SeriesCriminal Record Books created by the County Court (VA 686) have been registered as VPRS 3158.