The existing Old Bailey website - www.oldbaileyonline.org - has been doubled in size with the help of researchers from Sheffield University.

Heinous deeds carried out by Irish terrorists, train robbers, suffragettes and the infamous Dr Crippen can be viewed for the first time on a university-run site.

The original Old Bailey Proceedings Online website has now expanded its coverage to include details of criminal trials from 1674 to 1913, from just after the Great Fire to just before the Great War.

The website, which has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, provides access to the largest single source of searchable information about 'ordinary' British lives and behaviour ever published.

Sheffield criminals are among the rogues' gallery, such as highwayman Edward Blastock, hanged at Tyburn in 1738, and bigamist Alexander Borromeo convicted in 1858.

People from all over the world can visit the site and get a valuable insight into a diverse range of crimes from pick-pocketing and robbery, to abduction and murder.

Professor Robert Shoemaker, head of the Department of History at the University of Sheffield and co-director of the project, said: "This new expansion means it is now possible to search records of 197,745 individual trials, running to 110,000 pages of text and some 120 million words.

"Up until now this treasure trove of social, legal and family history has only been available to a few dedicated historians, who were prepared to spend months peering at microfilms.

"Now everyone from schoolchildren and amateur historians to scholars working in a range of academic disciplines can have easy access to this wealth of information.

"The site's use is widespread, with people as far away as Australia using it to trace their ancestry or find out a little more about British history.

"Without this invaluable resource these people wouldn't have access to the innumerable fascinating snapshots of individual lives contained in these trial accounts."