Sessions Rolls

Among the Quarter Sessions records, four engrossed sessions rolls [Q/SR/1-4] are extant covering the years 1600-1604. These contain proceedings for both East and West Kent Quarter Sessions during the period, together with four "special sessions" and they record both judicial and administrative business. As well as giving the indictments brought at each sessions, in many instances the process arising from the indictments and the subsequent determination of the cases at a later sessions is also recorded, sometimes within the body of the text, sometimes in the form of brief marginal notes or in a mixture of the two. It is thus possible to reconstruct the actual business dealt with at various sessions in a way which is not possible from the main series of records for later dates, the files of indictments and the administrative order books.

A further engrossed sessions roll [QM/SR/1 and Q/SR/5] similar to the one mentioned above was found at Maidstone Museum among Maidstone Borough Records and this was transferred to the County Council. It covers two sessions in 1604-5.

Also found at Maidstone Museum were original indictments, recognizances, depositions and other papers for the period 1595-1618, which thus provide many of the original documents from which the engrossed records must have been compiled and can be compared with them. A separate detailed list of these has been made.

A further engrossed roll [Q/SRg] has survived dated 1596-98, 1605. This records judicial matters only and is for a series of ten sittings headed "Gaol Delivery" dealing with criminal cases including some more serious felonies not normally coming before the justices of the peace at this date but reserved for the Assizes Judges. Sittings held at both Canterbury and Maidstone are recorded and both the gaols at Maidstone and at Canterbury are being delivered, the latter at sittings held at both Canterbury and Maidstone.

The justices of the peace holding these "gaol deliveries" are those normally attending Quarter Sessions and many of the sittings recorded are on dates close to the dates of Quarter Sessions, though one is for a mid-December date which coincides with neither Quarter Sessions or Assizes. The number of cases dealt with at any hearing was small, sometimes only one or two, five or six, rising on occasions to ten to thirteen.

It is possible that pressure of business at Assizes or overcrowding in the gaols led to the justices of the peace being specially commissioned to hold these "gaol deliveries". This is known to have happened in Essex in the late sixteenth century but no specific evidence to prove that this is the case in Kent has so far come to light.

In making up the roll [Q/SRg] of eight membranes, m. 5, giving the proceedings held in January 1598/9 was placed before the membranes recording the proceedings for April, July, September and December 1598 and the one case dealt with in January 1604/5 is recorded on a space on m. 2. In the calendar the entries have been arranged in chronological not membrane order.

Some of the original indictments, recognizances and depositions for cases on the gaol delivery roll are to be found among the records transferred from Maidstone Museum.

List of Sessions

Q/SRg 20th July, 1596 Canterbury Gaol Delivery

Q/SRg 7th January, 1596/7 Maidstone Gaol Delivery

Q/SRg 11th January [1596/7] Canterbury Gaol Delivery

Q/SRg 27th September, 1597 Maidstone Gaol Delivery

Q/SRg [? January, 1597/8] Canterbury Gaol Delivery

Q/SRg 25th April, 1598 Maidstone Gaol Delivery

Q/SRg 25th July, 1598 Canterbury Gaol Delivery

Q/SRg 26th September, 1598 Maidstone Gaol Delivery

Q/SRg 19th December, 1598 Maidstone Gaol Delivery

Q/SRg 10th January, 1604/5 Canterbury Gaol Delivery

Q/SR 1 8th January, 1599/1600 Canterbury Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 1 1st April, 1600 Maidstone Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 1 16th May, 1600 Maidstone Special Sessions

Q/SR 1 22nd July, 1600 Canterbury Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 1 23rd September, 1600 Maidstone Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 1 8th January, 1600/1 Maidstone Special Sessions

Q/SR 2 13th January, 1600/1 Canterbury Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 2 21st April, 1601 Maidstone Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 2 21st July, 1601 Canterbury Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 2 22nd September, 1601 Maidstone Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 3 12th January, 1601/2 Canterbury Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 3 13th April, 1602 Maidstone Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 3 20th July, 1602 Canterbury Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 3 22nd September, 1602 Canterbury Special Sessions

Q/SR 3 28th September, 1602 Maidstone Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 3 11th January, 1602/3 Canterbury Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 3 20th January, 1602/3 Maidstone Special Sessions

Q/SR 4 3rd May, 1603 Maidstone Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 4 19th July, 1603 Canterbury Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 4 27th September, 1603 Maidstone Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 4 10th January, 1603/4 Canterbury Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 4 17th April, 1604 Maidstone Quarter Sessions

Q/SR 4 24th July, 1604 Canterbury Quarter Sessions

QM/SR 1) 25th September, 1604 Maidstone Quarter Sessions

[Q/SR 5]) 23rd July, 1605 Canterbury Quarter Sessions