Source Evaluation and Historical Inquiry Skills

Start with the question, not the source type

An investigation into Whitechapel, c1870–c1900, begins with a historical enquiry: a focused question that evidence can help answer. ‘What was Whitechapel like?’ is too broad to guide source selection effectively. ‘What difficulties did overcrowded housing create for policing in Whitechapel?’ gives the investigation a clearer direction.

Different sources reveal different parts of the answer. Housing records might establish living conditions, while local police records might reveal the difficulties officers recorded. Neither source type alone necessarily explains the relationship between housing and policing.

This is why usefulness is always usefulness for a particular enquiry. A photograph of a street could help investigate the physical environment, but it would not establish how many crimes went unreported there.

Connect content with provenance

Begin by identifying what a source actually reveals. Then consider its provenance: who created it, when, why and under what circumstances. These questions help explain both its strengths and its limitations.

Local police records can provide detailed evidence about investigations, police activities and tactics. Their creators were involved in policing, which makes them valuable for investigating police work. However, they present an official perspective rather than a complete account of residents’ experiences. They also cannot automatically reveal offences that never came to police attention.

Old Bailey trial records are useful for investigating cases that reached trial, including the evidence and legal proceedings recorded. Their limitation follows from that same purpose: cases tried in court are not a complete record of all crime in Whitechapel. An official document should therefore be assessed for what it records, not treated as an unquestionable account of everything that happened.

A source can also be useful without every claim being reliable. A newspaper’s dramatic description of crime might need checking against police or court records, yet its language could still reveal how crime was presented to readers. Similarly, a Punch cartoon can help investigate the attitudes or criticism it expresses, but its exaggeration should not be read as a literal record of an event.

Match strengths and limitations to the investigation

For an enquiry into poverty and living conditions, census returns offer information about households and occupations. Housing and employment records can add evidence about where people lived and worked. Census returns may miss unregistered lodgers or people outside the recorded system, so they should not be assumed to capture every resident.

Workhouse records are particularly useful for investigating people receiving poor relief. That focus also limits their representativeness: the experiences of workhouse inmates cannot simply stand for those of every poor person in Whitechapel.

Charles Booth’s survey and poverty maps help investigate the geographical distribution of poverty. Their classifications reflect the judgements of researchers, and their main focus is poverty rather than crime. They can help establish the social setting of a policing enquiry, but cannot by themselves prove that a particular street had a high crime rate or that poverty caused an offence.

For an enquiry into violent deaths, coroners’ reports are appropriate because they investigate causes of death. They address a different question from records of police investigations: establishing how someone died is not the same as identifying the offender.

For an enquiry into the physical environment, photographs can reveal visible housing and street conditions. However, each photograph records a selected view at a particular moment. It cannot alone establish whether those conditions were typical across Whitechapel or throughout the period.

For an enquiry into responses to local problems, council records can reveal decisions about housing, sanitation and crime prevention. A recorded decision is evidence of an intended response; further evidence is needed to establish whether it was carried out and what difference it made.

Turn an observation into a follow-up question

A useful follow-up question identifies something specific that remains uncertain. It should extend the investigation rather than merely repeat information already available.

Consider an enquiry into whether overcrowding complicated policing. If a housing record identifies overcrowded accommodation, a focused next question would be: ‘What difficulties did police report when investigating offences in overcrowded lodging houses?’ Local police records would be an appropriate choice because they could contain accounts of investigations and the obstacles officers encountered.

The housing evidence establishes one part of the enquiry; the question seeks evidence about policing. It does not assume in advance that overcrowding caused crime or prevented an investigation from succeeding.

Another possible enquiry is whether the housing described in a photograph was typical. Housing records could provide information about other properties, while census returns could help investigate household occupation. The choice depends on precisely what ‘typical’ means: building condition and the number of residents are different things to investigate.

Build an answer from complementary evidence

Combining sources is most useful when they contribute different kinds of evidence. To investigate the relationship between poverty and policing, Booth’s survey could establish patterns of poverty, housing records could explain living conditions, and police records could reveal recorded policing difficulties.

London and national newspapers could then help investigate how those problems were reported to different readerships. Comparing their coverage with official records helps distinguish public presentation from recorded police activity.

Agreement between sources can strengthen a conclusion, but check whether the accounts are independent: two reports repeating the same information are not necessarily two separate confirmations. Differences can also be valuable. They may reflect different purposes, dates, locations or perspectives rather than making one source entirely worthless.

A sound historical conclusion answers the enquiry while keeping these limits in view. Evidence about one household, street or criminal case should not automatically become a claim about all of Whitechapel.