History links

The attempt on Queen Victoria's life

Maclean's attempt was the last of eight attempted assassinations of the Queen during her reign. He tried to shoot Queen Victoria outside Windsor Railway station on March 2, but missed.

Tried for high treason on April 20 the same year, the jury only took five minutes to find the Scotsman Maclean "not guilty, but insane". Maclean lived out his remaining days in Broadmoor Asylum. The verdict prompted the Queen to ask for a change in English law so that those implicated in cases with similar outcomes would be considered as "guilty, but insane."

A poem was later written about Maclean's attempt on the Queen's life by William Topaz McGonagall, considered by some the worst poet in the English language.

Broadmoor Hospital in the 1950s

Dan Jones is from www.ancestry.co.uk, the website which has published the 1.4million criminal trials from 1791 to 1892.

He told BBC Berkshire's Henry Kelly that reading trials from the 19th century provided an interesting contrast.

"Putting these trials online allows us to compare what crimes we committed then compared to today." he said. "By 1830 there were over 200 crimes on the statute which carried a capital penalty.

"Stealing anything of over five shillings, the equivalent of £35 today, could potentially mean you ended up with a hangman's noose around your neck. Stealing from a rabbit warren was another offence or being out at night with a blackened face could carry the death penalty."

Mr Jones said that the website allowed people to make comparisons between different counties.

He said: "In Berkshire in the 19th century you had a slightly higher chance of being acquitted but a 100 per cent higher chance of being given a death sentence. The southern counties tended to be stricter and the most lenient counties were Yorkshire and Lancashire.

"However, compared to the system we have today, even the most lenient counties were fairly severe."

The documents available on the www.ancestry.co.uk website are held at the National Archives in Kew, but have been scanned into the website and made searchable by keywords. 

As well as famous Berkshire felons such as Roderick Maclean, other notable criminals on the database include Dr Thomas Neill Cream, a murderous doctor who claimed to be Jack the Ripper.

Also included is Isaac Solomon, the pickpocket thought to have inspired the character of Fagin and the hapless highwayman George Lyon, whose pistol once failed while he attempted to rob a coach in the rain because he allowed his gun powder to get wet.