Petitions mainly for poor relief or for exemption from poor rate, 16th century.

Several of the petitions concern matters not relating to Quarter Sessions, and nos. 4,16 and 25 are certainly strays from Assembly Files.

These petitions were repaired by Lamacraft, who numbered them" GG1-30" and left them, together with petitions to Mayors for removal of suits from the Pentice to the Portmote Court, in with Assembly Petitions. They have been classified under Quarter Sessions, since most of them are addressed to the Mayor and Justices of the Peace, and since similar petitions occur in the Quarter Sessions files (1573-4 and 1584-5), together with assessments and lists of persons refusing to pay. By the Act of 1598 which instituted the first compulsory poor rate, the Justices in Quarter Sessions were empowered to hear appeals against the rate. The earlier Acts (1536, 1552,1563 and 1572) had conferred most of the responsibility for organizing poor relief on Mayors in towns, though the Justices in Sessions were empowered by the Act of 1563 to deal with persons refusing to pay the rate, and by the Act of 1572 they were to appoint yearly Overseers of the Poor.