A house of correction was formerly a prison for 'idle and disorderly persons', and certain classes of criminals, such as prisoners convicted of felony or misdemeanour, vagrancy, etc, or committed on charge of such. Originally vagrants, trespassers, and convicted persons were detained in these houses that they might be compelled to work. They were sometimes called bridewells. Formerly in England every county had to have one, and at the end of the 19th century few of the larger cities and towns were without them. Research House of Correction
Transportation is the policy of punishing crime by removing offenders to some penal settlement abroad for a period of years or life. In England the Vagrancy Act of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I first empowered justices to order that certain classes of offenders might be sent beyond the seas, and by the reign of Charles II convicts were regularly transported to America where they were forced to work on plantations. Transportation to the American colony ended with the American War of Independence, and in 1788 the first batch of convicts landed at Botany Bay in New South Wales. The convicts sent to Australia were sent with a view to colonising the country. However, in 1835 a party was formed with the view of abolishing the transportation of convicts into Australia and from 1840 convicts were instead sent to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) where penal settlements already existed.
The system of transportation was abolished in Britain in 1853 in favour of penal servitude, by the Penal Servitude Act. Research Transportation
Vagrancy is the state of homelessness, vagabondage. Formerly, in English law the term was applied to various classes of idle and disorderly persons. The principal Act in this connexion was the Vagrancy Act, 1824, extended in certain directions by Vagrancy Acts of 1838, 1873, and 1878, and further amended by the Casual Poor Act, 1882, and the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1912.
Three classes of vagrants were recognized by the law: (1) Idle and disorderly persons ; (2) rogues and vagabonds ; (3) incorrigible rogues. The sentence on conviction varied from one month for the first class, to one year's imprisonment for the third. Research Vagrancy
Sus laws was British slang for the law that authorized the arrest and punishment of suspected persons frequenting, or loitering in, public places with criminal intent. In England, the sus law formed part of the Vagrancy Act of 1824 which was repealed in 1981. Research Sus Laws
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research House of Correction
