Correspondence and papers originating in the offices of the clerk of assize, his...

Correspondence and papers originating in the offices of the clerk of assize, his associate and his clerk of indictments; including scattered correspondence on costs, detailed accounts of fees and expenses to witnesses, jurors' excuses for non-attendance at assizes, correspondence on estreated recognizances, gaol calendars, certificates of conviction, or conditional pardons.

Includes orders of court, returns compiled for central government for statistical purposes, a brief of pleadings of about 1845, which was prepared for the judge in Munday v Nash, a case of malicious prosecution and a special case prepared in Swansea Dock Co v Abraham Levien, 1849. There is also an acrimonious correspondence between Arthur Denman, clerk of the South Eastern Circuit, 1888 to 1931, and William Collison, arising from Collison's refusal to attend assizes unless civil business was to be transacted. Collison was associate to the Norfolk Circuit, later Norfolk Division of the South Eastern Circuit, from 1864, and was associate of the whole circuit, 1884 to 1902.

There is also some printed material, once in Charles Platt's possession (clerk of assize from 1864 to 1902) which consists mainly of newspapers containing reports of trials on the Norfolk Circuit and of trials raising issues of general interest in other jurisdictions.

Finally some miscellaneous papers in this bundle relate to other circuits. They mainly relate to estreated Middlesex and Westminster recognizances in the mid eighteenth century, which appear to originate from a John Higgs, attorney and deputy clerk of assize of the Oxford Circuit. It is not clear how these papers have come into this collection, but there is some indication of a professional link between Higgs and Fleetwood Bury (associate of the Norfolk Circuit).

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