Find your ancestors in Hue and Cry Police Gazette Index

Each record includes a transcript. The amount of information listed varies widely, but you can discover all or some of the following information:

• Name
• Name as transcribed
• Place of their offence
• Date
• Year
• County
• Country
• Volume number
• Page number
• Column number

The newspaper circulated details of crimes committed all over Britain as well as physical descriptions of the offenders in question, from petty criminals to highwaymen, smugglers, murderers, forgers and arsonists. The names of missing persons and those who had been transported or imprisoned were also printed. In some cases, these were followed with requests for information or offers of rewards.

Despite having a high circulation of roughly 150,000 copies printed each issue, there is no complete set of the Hue and Cry throughout its entire print run (and various name changes). There are a number of scattered collections of various years of the newspaper’s print run held in several archives and libraries in Australia and the United Kingdom, including in local police force archives, although some gaps in coverage remain. Earlier editions of the newspaper, between 1773 and 1776, are available in Findmypast’s digitised historic newspaper collection, under the title Police Gazette.

Ordering a copy of an article from the Hue & Cry and Police Gazette

To order a copy of the relevant article in which your criminal ancestor appeared in this index of the Hue and Cry, simply complete the research form on the Family History Connections web site using the reference number provided in this index. Note that a pre-paid charge applies.

If you would like to search for your ancestor in the newspaper for years beyond the coverage of this index, you must first determine the archive that is most likely to hold the original source material, which depends on the year.

Findmypast holds the entire digitised copies of the Police Gazette (or Public Hue and Cry) between 1773 and 1776 in its historic newspaper collection. The British Newspaper Archive also holds digitised scans of the newspaper, between 1773 and 1918, although there are gaps within this coverage.

The State Library of New South Wales in Sydney holds copies between the late 1790s and 1810, while Somerset Record Office and Durham Record Office also hold several years from the early and mid-19th century respectively. Cambridgeshire Police Archive has extensive holdings of the Police Gazette through much of the late 19th century, although this too is an incomplete collection. The British Library Newspaper Library in London also offers issues from the late 19th century.