Great Yarmouth Sessions of the Peace

Great Yarmouth obtained a separate commission of the peace by royal grant in 1494. Until Michaelmas 1676 the formal record of the borough sessions of the peace was entered on the borough court rolls (Great Yarmouth Corporation Archives, class C4).

Yarmouth was scheduled to retain its commission of the peace by the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, this being confirmed by a royal grant of 1836. Before this time the offices of town clerk and clerk of the peace had been held together. They were now separated and the sessions records (save those attached to the borough court rolls and certain others *, which the town clerk retained) passed to the clerk of the peace.

About the year 1900 the clerk of the peace placed in the town clerk's custody sessions records of date before 1863-4, and it is these records that are listed here. A small group of recorder's rough minute books of the later 19th cent. (class 311, below) probably found their way into the town clerk's hands at the same time.

The term 'quarter sessions' is used from the later 17th cent., but it is not until 1836 that the sessions are held at regular quarterly intervals.

* Great Yarmouth Corporation archives, classes C9 - 12.