COUNTY ADMINISTRATION: NAVAL AND MILITARY RECRUITMENT

Copies of the returns, assessments and certificates were sent to the Clerk of the Peace in both instances of recruitment, and the series MA/MN contains these together with related material concerned with the scheme's administration, such as sessions' minutes, correspondence and accounts

The material is arranged in one series - MA/MN/001 - 759

These records are available for public inspection, although records containing personal information are subject to access restrictions under the UK Data Protection Act, 2018

In 1795 an Act was passed requiring each county in England to provide a certain number of men for service in the Royal Navy. General Sessions of the Peace were to be held to determine how the number of men in each county quota should be raised - according to the number of houses shown on the returns of tax paid on inhabited houses, and an order sent to the parish overseers accordingly. At the next petty sessions the Justices would then approve the list of names drawn up by the overseers and send it to the regulating officer. The Act allowed parish officers to pay a bounty to volunteers from the poor rate; of which a third could be paid immediately, and the rest sent to the County Treasurer to be paid to the volunteer or his family as soon as he was on board ship. Both Middlesex, the City of Westminster and Liberty of the Tower had to raise 451 between them; with the Special General Sessions of the Peace being held at Clerkenwell and the administrative work being done by the Clerk of the Peace for Middlesex. Another Act passed in 1796 required the raising of men for the army in a similar fashion; Middlesex had to raise 584 men this time