The nature and extent of Jewish criminal activity in Georgian
England can only be gauged in a very rough and approximate
way. Most criminals in London went unapprehended, largely due
to the absence of an effective police force, and many crimes went
unreported, again because there was no government agency to
which victims could turn for assistance. Moreover, as it fell to the
victim rather than to the government to prosecute, many crimi-
nals also went free because their victims, either out of a fear of
reprisal or a lack of money, failed to bring them to justice. Hence,
whatever figures can be extracted from court records will reveal
only a portion of the total amount of criminal activity, and proba-
bly a small portion at that.

The most complete record of criminal proceedings for London
in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is the series of
printed volumes recording the cases tried at the Old Bailey in the
City of London, The Whole Proceedings upon the King's Commission of
Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery for the City of London and also the
Gaol Delivery for the County of Middlesex. Serious offenses committed
in both the City of London and the County of Middlesex were
tried before juries at the Old Bailey. Lesser offenses were dealt
with by police magistrates, justices of the peace, and elected
officials of the City of London, sitting in a variety of courts, often
with overlapping jurisdictions. The records of these courts have
either not survived, are not complete, or are inaccessible to the

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