County Borough of Doncaster: Council and Committees Records

By the time of the earliest surviving record of its acts, contained in the first volume of the 'courtier' which begins in 1559, the borough council consisted of the mayor, twelve aldermen and twenty-four capital burgesses. A summary of the contents of the courtiers from 1559 to 1822 was published in 'A Calendar to the Records of the Borough of Doncaster Volume IV: Courtiers of the Corporation' (Doncaster, 1902). This first volume of the courtier also contains the borough accounts and transcriptions of significant documents. A full transcription of the first volume, made by A Brent, with an introduction by G H Martin, covering the period 1559 to 1625, was published in 1994. Up to the early nineteenth century all the business of the council is to be found in the 'courtiers', but from 1819 there is a separate series of finance committee minute books. Then from 1835 there is a watch committee, made obligatory by the Municipal Corporations Act of that year, which made policing a duty of borough councils. Standing committees for markets and estates (which included the racecourse) were established in the 1840s. In August 1851, the council adopted the provisions of the Public Health Act, 1848. There is a separate series of minute books for the business the council transacted in its role as a local board of health (and, from 1872, as an Urban Sanitary Authority and then from 1895, as an Urban District Council) and for the health committee. Other committees followed as the scope of local government widened and, for committees which had only a temporary existence, there is a series of special committee minute books. In these, however, are also the early minutes of committees, such as housing, town planning and art gallery and museum, which began as temporary committees but were subsequently raised to permanent status. The agenda and meeting papers for the council and its committees for 1945 to 1974 are to be found amongst the archives of the Town Clerk (AB/CLERK/22). Courtiers 1559-1822; Council minutes 1814-1974; Council in Committee minutes 1849-1973; Corporation orders 1779-1862; Committee orders 1808-1840; Committee minutes 1819-1974, with inventory books of the municipal mansion house committee 1750-1909

Unless otherwise stated, everything over 30 years old is available for inspection