Tyburn diminished only slightly following 1718. And, as we have seen, when
crime was particularly threatening the cabinet continued to order the execution
of large numbers of property offenders, in London as elsewhere.
The most obvious effect of the Transportation Act was the transformation it
produced in the punishment of more minor offences that were, in effect, not
subject to capital punishment. Table 10.1underlines the dominance that trans-
portation assumed after the passage of the act when, over the following thirty
years, 80 per cent of men and women convicted of offences against property
were transported to America, either directly by order of the judges at the Old
Bailey or after being pardoned by the king from a capital conviction. One of the
principal consequences of the dominance of transportation, also revealed in
Table 10.1, was the effective abandonment of the branding and discharge of
clergy. Another was the sharp reduction in London of sentences of whipping.
Compared to other parts of the country, as we have seen, relatively small num-
bers of defendants in the City were subjected to the pain and humiliation of
being flogged in public in the late seventeenth century. But the level fell even fur-
ther with the establishment of transportation as a punishment for petty as well
as grand larceny—from almost a quarter of all punishments imposed on con-
victed property offenders before the act to less than 10 per cent in the three
decades following 1718. This striking change, which began as soon as trans-
portation became available, points to one of the underlying forces at work in the
transformation of penal practices in this period.
The clause making petty larceny subject to transportation no doubt reflected
William Thomson’s desire to impose a more serious punishment on some de-
fendants. It may also have reflected his view that the established punishment for
petty larceny, whipping—generally carried out in public—was no longer ap-
propriate in a city like London, at least not if it was to be administeredConclusion 473Table 10. 1 .Sentences in Property Offences, City of London cases
at the Old Bailey, 1660 – 17501660 –March 1718 April 1718 – 1750
Male Female Total Male Female Total
% % % % % %
Hanging 12. 1 5. 2 9. 2 7. 5 1. 8 5. 6
Clergy 41. 1 37. 5 39. 6 5. 4 5. 4 5. 4
Transportation 21. 1 21. 1 21. 1 79. 0 80. 7 79. 6
Whipping 21. 0 27. 4 23. 7 8. 1 12. 2 9. 5
Hard labour 3. 2 7. 1 4. 8 — — —
Forces 1. 3 — 0. 8 — — —
Workhouse 0. 3 1. 8 0. 9 — — —
N 759 563 1 , 322 667 336 1,003
% 100. 1 100. 1 100. 1 100. 0 100. 1 100. 1
Source: Samplech10.y5 11/6/01 12:06 PM Page 473