ORDER BOOKS

Quarter Sessions archives of most counties include a series of formal 'order books', in which the decisions and orders of the court were recorded for reference. As a rule, the series starts at about the beginning of the 17th Century, following the great increase in administrative business which resulted from Tudor legislation. In Gloucestershire, volumes earlier than 1672 may have been lost, like the volume for 1691-1702, which was missing already before 1800. From examination of the rough minute books (from 1781) it is apparent that items in the minutes regarded as orders of the court were marked as such, and written up in formal phraseology as draft orders, which were later copied into the order books. The keeping of order books was abandoned in 1868, by which time the minutes themselves were becoming a formal record; but the draft orders continued until 1931.

The heading for each sessions gives the place and date of the sessions, names of justices present, and before 1700 of the clerk of the peace. Until the 19th Century there is little attempt at regular or logical arrangement in the entries which follow. They normally include orders for the appointment of county officers and of high and petty constables, payment of salaries to officers (at first only gaolers and prison chaplains); the repair of county bridges, gaol, houses of correction, and the Shire Hall (Before the 19th Century the Booth Hall, shared by the county with the city of Gloucester.); and the levying of county rates. Of frequent occurrence are decisions on appeal in poor law settlement disputes between parishes (very numerous throughout the 18th and first half of the 19th Century), in bastardy cases, and on disputed rate assessments ; discharges from apprenticeship on petition from the master or apprentice ; orders for highway repair rates on parishes, inquisitions ad quod damnum and from 1773 justices' orders for diversion of highways and footpaths ; orders for the discharge of insolvent debtors under the various Acts for their relief. Fairly numerous are orders for poor relief and for payment of wages in arrears ; orders for suppression of disorderly or superfluous alehouses ; orders for removal of vagrants ; licences to parishes for erection of cottages for paupers without the statutory 4 acres of land ; licences for nonconformist meeting-houses from 1689 under the Toleration Act, 1 Wm. & Mary, c.18, for private asylums from 1774, under 14 Geo. III, c.49, and for theatrical performances from 1788, under 28 Geo. III, c.30. Local inspectors of 'cloths, racks and tenters' are appointed from 1727 under 13 Geo. I, c.23 and 'searchers of bricks and tiles' under 12 Geo. I, c.35, inspectors for enforcing the Acts (19 Geo. II, c.5, etc.) for preventing the spread of 'distemper among the horned cattle', from Epiph. 1746/7, surveyors of turnpikes at Trinity 1734, and inspectors of corn returns from 1791 under 31 Geo. III, c.30. Payment of coroners' bills is authorized from 1752, and of hemp and flax bounties, under 26 Geo. III, c.43, for some years from 1786. Certificates of the raising, embodying, and annual training of the South and North Battalions of the Gloucestershire Militia are entered at Epiphany sessions from 1767 to 1778 (with numbers of officers and other ranks) and a return of officers' names and abodes at Epiphany 1791. The Napoleonic Wars result in numerous orders for payments to the dependants of militia substitutes from 1799.

General orders for procedure at Quarter Sessions, tables of fees, lists of high constables, and schedules of rate assessments on Hundreds appear at intervals in the early volumes. 'Tyburn tickets' are enrolled among the orders before 1769. (See also p. 58.) The ends of volumes from 1711 onwards have been used for the enrolment of deputations to gamekeepers, for which see pp. 41-2. Vol. I contains, at Epiph. 1673/4, a list of 139 pensioners (maimed soldiers) stating parishes. In vol. IV (1714-1724) is a list of persons who took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy at Michaelmas 1715, Epiph. 1715/16, and Easter 1716, in all 899 names, with parish, and office or status (constable, rector or vicar, dissenting preacher, schoolmaster, postmaster, excise officer, esq., gent.) together with a list of 244 'papists and reputed papists', giving parishes and sometimes relationship or occupation. Volume III (1702-1713/14) contains orders and detailed accounts relating to the Northgate turnpike, which during its early years was operated under the direct supervision of the county justices. (This road, from the top of Birdlip and Crickley hills to Gloucester was the third earliest in England to be turnpiked under an Act of 1698 (9 Wm. III, c.18).)

Important entries in the order books include regulations for the suppression of revels, wrestling matches, disorderly alehouses, etc. (Epiph. 1717/18), and concerning vagrants (Trin. 1716, Easter 1718) ; an enquiry into poor relief in the Forest of Dean (Trin. 1716) ; a committee's recommendations as to methods of transportation of convicts (Michs. 1719) ; reports on turnpike roads in the Stroud and Newnham districts and the Northgate road (Michs. 1734) ; orders etc. concerning rates of wages for weavers (Trin., Michs. 1727, Easter 1728, Michs. 1756) ; reports of the committee for prison reform, 1783 ; resolutions as to measures for enforcing law and morality (Michs. 1787, Epiph. 1788) ; resolutions on measures to reduce the consumption of bread in war-time (Epiph. 1800, Epiph. 1801) ; correspondence concerning the proposed use of the county's houses of correction to accommodate French prisoners of war (Easter, 1804) (This proposal, from the Bristol magistrates, was indignantly and successfully opposed by Sir G. O. Paul, who pointed out that it would be a poor reward for the county's zeal in building model prisons.); records of an enquiry into the management of Dr. Bompas's private asylum, 1848-49.

To illustrate the variety of subjects of interest with which orders are concerned, the following may be mentioned : the suppression of gipsies ('Egiptians') at Bitton (Michs. 1681) ; the prevention of tobacco-growing (Trin. 1682 onwards) ; badges for paupers (Easter 1688) ; a riot at Dursley parish church (Michs., 1702) ; tolls charged to bargemen at St. John's lock, Lechlade (Epiph., Easter 1703) ; an estimate for rebuilding Oldbury-on-Severn church (Easter 1715) ; two Cirencester barbers, presumably Jacobites, bound over for speaking disrespectfully of King George (Trin. 1715) ; Thornbury fined for not repairing its town pump (Michs. 1725) ; a Minchinhampton clothier fined for payment by truck to employees (Michs. 1727) ; briefs for repair of churches at Churcham and Tetbury (Trin. 1729), Mitcheldean (Epiph. 1730/31), and Longhope (Easter 1769) ; Maisemore bridge washed away and rebuilt (1735) ; paupers apprenticed in other parishes (Michs. 1751) ; repairs to gallows at Over (Easter 1754) ; 336 paupers inoculated in small-pox epidemic at Wotton-under-Edge (Trin. 1756) ; payment of tithe (Easter 1756, Easter 1758) ; seizure of unsealed bushel measures (Trin. 1768) ; building of workhouses (1781-1791) ; treadmill labour in the gaol (1822) ; and numerous claims for refund of excise duty on salt lost in Severn wrecks and malt destroyed in fires, with particulars. Inserted in vol. V are specimens of printed orders for (a) testimonials to hired servants and (b) suppression of wakes and revels, and concerning parish apprentices (Easter 1731), (c) concerning vagrants (Epiph. 1733).

Except for a few sessions from Trinity 1725, the judicial work of the court scarcely appears at all in the order books, though some of its consequences can be traced in the form of orders for the transportation of convicted felons, 1718-1853, and for imprisonment and/or whipping from about 1760, the prison sentences becoming increasingly numerous. Fines and acquittals, noted in the minute books, are not recorded in the order books.

Volume 1692-1701/2 missing

Order Books Discontinued 1868

The Order Books are the most readily accessible records of Quarter Sessions and contain a great quantity of historical material concerning the judicial and administrative activities of Justices of the Peace in Gloucestershire. Unfortunately there are no contemporary indexes to the volumes, and the preparation of a general index would be a formidable task.

There exists, however, a short MS. index to the Order Books, compiled about 1802, of which this is a copy. It covers the main subjects for the years 1681-1692 and 1702-1802. The Order Book for 1692-1702 has long been missing; the volume for 1672-1681 was missing when the Index was compiled, and was found in a solicitor's office in 1915.

The references Epy., Er., Try., Ms., are to the four Sessions of the Justices, held each year: Epiphany, Easter, Trinity, and Michaelmas.

As an Appendix at the end is a list of places licensed as Nonconformist meeting-houses.

A few explanatory footnotes (marked by asterisks) have been added.

Order Books 13-21 (1806-1868) are almost entirely concerned with routine business.