GENERAL SESSIONS

Annual General Sessions were first held in 1814 by virtue of the Act, 54 Geo. III, cap. civ, 'enabling the Justices of the Peace for the county of Kent to hold a General Session annually or oftener, for levying and applying the rates and expenditure of the said county...' By this means differences were finally resolved which had existed between the two divisions of the county since the refusal of the Treasurer for East Kent to contribute to the salary of the Gaol Keeper at Maidstone in 1791.

From 1814 to 1889 the Annual General Session was held at Maidstone on the Thursday before the Midsummer Quarter Sessions and thereafter through the year by adjournment. Its business was the levying of county and gaol rates, expenditure on county property and bridges, the election, etc., of officers and the audit of accounts.

The bundles of papers which supplement the Order Books are in good order and reflect the arrangement of the Sessions from midsummer to mid-summer. Until 1860 each bundle (after the first) covers one year but the chronological arrangement is maintained within each bundle; from 1860 the annual bundles became too bulky and the year's papers were split into four, each sub-bundle containing one, two or three meetings.

The management of the Gaols figures prominently throughout until the Prison Act, 1877, and almost monopolises the early bundles; there are reports of visiting justices, tenders for repairs or supplies, manufactory accounts, chaplains' reports and annual returns of the Keepers under the Act, 4 George IV cap. 64. Bridge repairs formed the bulk of the early reports of the County Surveyors. The building of the Sessions House was ordered in 1824, the Lunatic Asylum at Barming in 1828 and that at Chartham in 1872, and all these increased activities are reflected in the papers. A proposal in 1839-40 to adopt the Constabulary Act, 2 and 3 Vict., cap. 93, was rejected; Superintendent Constables for each Petty Sessional Division were appointed in 1850 and the Chief Constable was appointed in 1857. Reports of the Lunatic Asylum Committee begin in 1832, of the Finance Committee in 1836 (with later sub-divisions for Police and Works), of the Vagrancy Committee in 1870, and of the Chief Constable in 1857. Private Lunatic Asylums were visited and licences issued, renewed or refused upon application.

In the list below of the papers [Q/GB] note has been made of items of interest not included in the above description.