This worked a bit better
I’m spending many a happy hour reading in the British newspaper archive, though as you can see, the enjoyment is tempered by the quality of the images and their own OCR is atrocious. So I had the bright idea to upload it in chunks and ask Grok to OCR it for me. It does a brilliant job:
Edwin Miles, 18, labourer, pleaded guilty to feloniously breaking and entering the dwelling house of Stephen Smith, and stealing therefrom one round frock, value 1s., and other articles, the property of the said Stephen Smith, at Bosham, on the 5th March, 1861.—Twelve months’ hard labour.
But it also gave me this useful commentary:
“Stephen Smith” is assumed to be the correct spelling, though “Stephn” in the image might be a typographical error or abbreviation.
“Bosham” is a village in West Sussex, England, consistent with the historical context.
“1s.” refers to one shilling, a unit of pre-decimal British currency, indicating the modest value of the stolen frock.
The date “5th March, 1861” aligns with the Victorian era, and “Twelve months’ hard labour” reflects a typical sentence for felony at the time.
Uncertainties: None significant, though “round frock” might be an archaic term for a type of coat or garment, possibly a misreading of “frock coat” or similar, but I’ve retained it as shown.
I’m generally loath to use AI for research on account of it’s a lying hound, but in this case, I can see for myself whether the transcription is accurate. This is going to be most useful.
Also – holy shit! Twelve months hard labor for stealing a dress worth a shilling! (Modern value £2.20).
Posted: September 4th, 2025 under personal.
Comments: 7
Comments
Comment from p2
Time: September 4, 2025, 5:04 pm
Someone needed a frock for some fancy event and hired Eddie to nick one. Paid him what it was worth. Bob a Job, ‘cept Eddie got pinched.
Comment from Uncle AL
Time: September 4, 2025, 7:25 pm
…holy shit! Twelve months hard labor for stealing a dress worth a shilling!
Don’t overlook the “feloniously breaking and entering” part of his crime. Even if Eddy hadn’t stolen anything at all, he still deserved a stiff penalty.
Comment from ExpressoBold Pureblood
Time: September 4, 2025, 7:31 pm
Eddie is fortunate that he was not sentenced to transportation…
Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie!!! Oy!Oy!Oy!
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: September 4, 2025, 8:07 pm
I am the direct descendant of a man who was transported for 7 years to the Virginia colony for “Felony Stealing One Linnen Handkerchief Value 2d,” and tied up inside was “half a sovereign in gold, and eleven shillings.” I don’t know how much money that was, but it was 1766 and he was 24 and a bastard child, and Virginia needed men to work like slaves.
When there were enough convicts to fill up a ship, they used an actual slave ship to bring them across to America. Then someone bought him. But he could read and write and that helped him enormously.
Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: September 4, 2025, 8:10 pm
I recently completed a project: scanning, OCRing, and translating the memoirs of a WW II French intelligence agent. (He was the man in charge of Enigma decryption for France.)
Scanning was easy.
OCR? Mac OS comes with Preview, which can open PDFs, text, and many image formats. I discovered that Preview can recognize and capture text in a JPEG or other image – very well. Not perfectly – I had to fix a modest number of glitches – but more than satisfactorily.
Translation? Google Translate did all the heavy lifting. I know enough French to fix glitches and also rephrase idiomatic usages.
One odd thing: I found some typos in the original book. Which I fixed.
Comment from ExpressoBold Pureblood
Time: September 4, 2025, 11:48 pm
@Deborah HH
Where did your ancestor live in the colony?
Comment from Deborah HH
Time: September 5, 2025, 11:41 am
@ExpressoBold Pureblood—The family doesn’t know for certain, but believe it may have been Stratford Hall/Lee Plantation. My ancestor married the daughter of a man who was an indentured servant from Stratford Hall.
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