QUARTER SESSIONS

Quarter Session court records can date back to 1195. They were local courts held four times a year at Easter, Midsummer, Michaelmas and Epiphany from 1388 in England and from 1535 in Wales. The title Quarter Sessiond was given because they officially began each session on the quarter days of the year. They were organised either on a county or borough basis but could be held at more than one venue.

The main business of the courts dealt with both civil and criminal matters and records include:

• lists of names of justices, bailiffs and high constables of Hundreds, and jurymen
• writs to the sheriff, to summon juries, officers, defendants and others
• Presentments and returns on a variety of matters (some with signatures)
• Indictments (formal accusations), usually in legal Latin language
• Bonds (a monetary fee) to ensure defendants and witnesses appear at the trial and that they are orderly
• Lists of prisoners, usually stating the offence and sometimes the sentence
• Complaints, Certificates and Testimonials concerning a variety of matters
• Licenses granted to persons for a variety of occupations, such as alehouse keeper, gamekeeper, slaughterhouses etc
• Removal Orders for paupers. They were "removed" from their current location to their home parish
• Reports of Inspectors of Weights and Measures
• Certificates of dissenters' meeting-houses
• supervision of how the vestries of each poor law parish were administering the English Poor Laws before 1834
• repair of roads and bridges and appointment of county surveyors
• highway diversions and closure including the stopping up of rights of way
• construction and maintenance of county buildings
• administration of the county gaol(s)
• supervision of both public and private lunatic asylums
• supervision and organisation of petty sessions which were more local sittings of the magistrates themselves
• licensing of public houses
• the county militia, particularly under the Militia Act 1802
• the local police constabulary.
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The quarter sessions had a bench of two or more Justices of the Peace who were presided over by a chairman and they usually sat with a jury until c1929. County and other boroughs held their own sessions, usually with a single recorder rather than a bench of justices.

Every quarter sessions court had a clerk of the peace. For county quarter sessions, this person was appointed by the “custos rotulorum” i.e. the Justice of the Peace charged with custody of its rolls and records. The clerk rarely discharged the duties of the office himself but appointed a solicitor to act in his stead in return for a share of the clerk’s fees. After 1852 payment of a salary replaced the fee.

The Justices of the Peace were local men usually appointed from the gentry or church to presided over the courts.  They were responsible for civil administration in a county and also dealt with a range of lesser criminal cases.  More serious cases which might result in the death penalty were passed to the Assizes court

The defined roles for Justices of the Peace were:

• Bind over to keep the peace
• Fixing of working wages
• Indictments
• Appointment of parish constables
• Appointment of highways surveyors
• Examination and jurisdiction on poor law matters
• Licensing.

A summary offence is one that can only be tried before magistrates. Most minor offences are summary and in 1855 summary jurisdiction for criminal offences became possible in Petty and Quarter Session courts.

An indictable offence is a serious one that may be tried by jury in a higher court than petty sessions. An indictment is a formal document accusing one or more persons of a specified indictable offence or offences.

Judicial administration

Offences against the Poor Laws including settlements, removals, vagrancy papers and poor apprenticeships, records of which may not survive in individual parish chests.

• Bastardy orders and dealing with delinquent fathers.
• Offences against licensing laws and by-laws.
• Non-payment of tithes and taxes.
• Petty crime and committals to Assize Courts on major crimes.
• Bails and Recognisances
• Various oaths for conformity and allegiance

County administration

Before local government was established, the Quarter Sessions Court was responsible for civil administration within the county or borough over which it had jurisdiction. Some of the matters dealt with and appearing in the various court records include:

• Appointments, salaries, fees, allowances, dismissals etc. of county officials.
• Coroners' accounts, reports and inquests
• County gaols and convict transportation.
• Elections and voters’ lists.
• Enclosure of land and deeds, awards and agreements about land.
• Militia recruitment training and billeting, also volunteers, navy recruitment and militia storehouses.
• Regulating wages, rates for carriage and prices of staple goods
• Licensing of trades and professions
• Roads and Bridges

The following is a selection of everyday crimes which will appear in Quarter Session records. Some of these are of a serious enough nature to be referred to the Assize court but will have commenced action in the lower courts.

• assault, especially on constables            
• manslaughter
• breaking hedges and fences                                 
• murderb
• burglary                                                        
• poultry stealing
• cattle stealing                                              
• rape
• damaging wagons, carts or ploughs                   
• robbing a garden or orchard
• destroying grain or root crops                   
• Ssheep stealing
• eavesdropping                                            
• theft of clothes
• highway robbery                                         
• theft of furniture
• wounding or maiming of cattle                 
• horse stealing.

You may be surprised at the number of records generated by the courts or referred to within the court records, some of which are of significant value to the family historian.

Oaths of allegiance

These resulted from a series of Acts beginning in 1672 and which required that all those who served in public offices take an oath to the Crown and the Established Church. Records exist up to the end of the nineteenth century.

• Lists of Society Members

• Lists of members of societies and other seditious organisations can be found in the records and incude:
• Freemasons
• Friendly societies
• Savings banks.
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• These all had to be registered and the lists will include the names of members and the operators together with their addresses and occupations.
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Occupations for which a licence from the Quarter Sessions was required

• boat owners and registration of barges
• printing presses
• gamekeepers commencing in 1710
• Llcenced victuallers, ale and beerhouse-keepers commenced in 1628
• badgers, hucksters, commercial travellers up until 1772
• butchers with slaughterhouses.
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Local tax lists

• hair powder duty
• corn tax
• hearth tax
• dog tax
• gun tax.
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The collection of these taxes fell under the jurisdiction of the Quarter Sessions and the records include lists of persons who were liable for payment.

Militia

The Militia Act of 1757 aimed to create a professional national military reserve with each county paying for the militia out of the local rates. This was administered by the Quarter Sessions so it is likely that militia muster rolls and the accounts of the local militia will survive.

Appointment of parish officers

Confirmation of appointments of parish officials, resulting from vestry elections as well as scrutiny of their reports and their accounts fell to the county clerk and magistrates. Where adult males took their turn as unpaid parish officers and were reimbursed for expenses.

Local government

• control of various local government functions vested in the Quarter sessions
• supervision of highways
• supervision of poor law appointments
• control of animal diseases
• supervision of elections
• traders' weights and measures
• public health
• constabulary recruitment
• markets and fairs.

In many Quarter Sessions the records of the licensing of alehouses, gamekeeping etc. were held separately from the main business of the court. The licensing of alehouses was a requirement after 1551. Licences were given out by the Justices of the Peace, who met at the court of the Quarter Sessions. A surety had to be paid by another person who could be a relation and would be forfeited if the terms of the licence were broken. Registers of licences were not kept until the Licensing Act of 1753 required Clerks of the Peace to do so.

The system of licensing was changed in 1828 after which a surety was no longer required. However, there was no guidance on how licensing records should be kept; so in reality they do not always survive. In 1872 the responsibility for licencing passed to the Petty Sessions courts but a Licensing Committee in the Quarter Sessions to confirmed licences granted by the Petty Sessions. In the early twentieth century, legislation in the form of the Licensing Acts 1902 and 1904 required applicants for licences to submit plans of their premises to the licensing Justices.

After legislation in 1710, manorial lords were required to appoint a gamekeeper. The names had to be registered with the Clerk of the Peace and are found within the records held by the Justices of the Peace.

Gamekeepers could have been liable to a fine if they were caught killing game outside the manor in which they were licenced. The licence held more powers than a normal licence to kill game and allowed game to be captured out of season for breeding purposes. At one time a keeper also had the power to apprehend trespassers and suspected poachers. After 1784 all who were qualified by the ownership of property to kill game were also required to have a licence. After 1831, game certificates were granted irrespective of property qualifications on payment of the appropriate fee.

There are many records within the court system that will provide information about an ancestor. All records may not survive for all court locations but the following suggest the type of records which you will need to research:

Sessions Minute Books are the summaries of the events of each session, which lead to Sessions Rolls which include the evidence presented for each case. These are where the real gems are. They are often grouped together for each case with a leather string punched right through the middle of the pieces of parchment or paper!

Order Books include the court’s decisions on every item of court business,

Separate records frequently exist for specific types of administration or cases such as indictment rolls, fines, or recognizances.

Session book

Many session books were written in Latin until 1734 and havesince been transcribed and published, giving references to the actual rolls. It is often easier to find information in these records than in the rolls

Other quarter session records

• Returns of persons committed for trial provide basic information about all those who were due to appear at court.
• Process books deal with the judicial business, pleas and verdicts
• Minute books are the minutes of the proceedings and are very often “rough” notes.
• Order books are the records of the decisions on each case and cover all the business of the court
• Bills of indictments are a list of cases submitted to the grand jury and outcomes of trials
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• Criminal entries are generally brief, which is why it is a good idea to find reports in newspapers, whereas the general records for the areas which were subsequently covered by local councils are fairly detailed
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Indictment

Indictment was the name given to the process whereby a person made an accusation of an offence (usually serious) against another person. Indictments were made by both private individuals and public officials, typically parish officers, such as constables, surveyors of the highways and overseers of the poor.

Presentments

Presentments may be written in Latin. They are written in the form in which the jury would read them out. Constables' presentments, were a presentment of a particular offence in a particular parish, usually concerned with deficiencies in rent collection or bastardy If a parish constable had no presentment to make he reported omnia bene which translated means all is well.

Depositions

Many of the documents contained in the Quarter session records relate to depositions which were the witness statements and examinations associated to the case..

Recognisances

Recognisances generally make up around seventy per cent of surviving Quarter Sessions Records. They are normally written in Latin but later in English and fall into four broad categories:

• to keep the peace - pace ferund
• to be of good behaviour - de se bene gorend
• to attend a court and give evidence
• to attend a court and answer a charge.

The wealth of information available in the Quarter Session records surpasses many other types of document that family history researchers use and consult. They are in effect an essential resource, but one that is often overlooked and therefore seldom used. 

You perhaps think that your ancestors could never have had anything to do with the courts because they weren't criminals and would never have broken the law. But as explained in this article, there were many other instances when your ancestors may well have been involved in matters which had to be heard in the Quarter Sessions. They could have been called as a witness or had applied for a Victualler's License or might even have been a court official. 

So, since there is such a wide scope of how people might be involved, it is very likely that somewhere within your ancestr,y people will have appeared in the records.  Don't be afraid of using these records...you never know what you might find!