The Justicing Notebooks of William Hunt, 1744–49
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%iltsIJire ilkerurh éurietp (fonnerly the Records Branch of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society) VOLUME XXXVII FOR THE YEAR 1981 THIS VOLUME IS PUBLISHED WITH THE HELP OF GRANTS FROM THE LEVERHULME TRUST, TI-IE MARC FITCH FUND AND THE TWENTY-SEVEN FOUNDATION THE JUSTICING NOTEBOOK OF WILLIAM HUNT 1744—1749 EDITED BY ELIZABETH CRITTALL DE VIZES 1982 Portrait believed to be of William Hunt © Wiltshire Record Society ISBN: 0 901333 14 X First impression 1982 Reprinted I987 Set in Times New Roman 10/1 lpt. PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY PM PRINT, WARMINSTER WI LTSHIRE C O N T E N T S Frontispiece P036’ iv Preface Xi Abbreviations Xii INTRODUCTION I Life and career 3 Sphere of activity 4 Attendance at quarter sessions 5 Work with another justice outside quarter sessions 6 Commissioner for land and window taxes and recruiting 8 Meeting-places and fellow justices 9 Work as a single justice 11 Assault 13 Theft 13 Summary offences against property 14 Other offences 15 Procedure, clerks, and professional aids 16 Character and tastes 18 Editorial Inethod 19 THE NOTEBOOK OF WILLIAM HUNT, 1744-1749 21 APPENDIX: Table of entries and dates 87 INDEX OF PERSONS AND PLACES 94 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 105 CORRIGENDA compiled by Jane Freeman 111 List of Members 124 Publications of the society 130 PREFACE Thanks are due to the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, its owner, and to the Records Sub-Committee of the Wiltshire County Council who gave permission for William Hunt’s Notebook to be deposited at the Institute of Historical Research of the University of London so that Miss Elizabeth Crittall could prepare this edition. Miss Crittall wishes to express her gratitude to Professor R. B. Pugh, President of the Wiltshire Record Society, who first brought the Notebook to her attention and has given much help and advice in friendly discussion of the volume, and to Mr John Styles of the University of Bath for lending his expertise in elucidating the contents of the Notebook. Mr M. G. Rathbone, then County Archivist, gave special help with quarter sessions records in the Wiltshire County Record Office, and Mrs Helen Rogers kindly answered queries and undertook some research among the county records. Miss Crittall also asks that her thanks be extended to the Society’s former Honorary Editors, Dr D. C. Cox, during whose editorship work on the volume began, and particularly Miss Janet H. Stevenson, for much help and kindness during its completion. Thanks are likewise due to Mrs M. J . Hunt Grubbe of Eastwell for permission to reproduce as a frontis- piece the portrait which hangs in her home and which her family has always believed to be that of William Hunt, and to Mr A. P. Baggs who took the photograph. The Society pays special tributes to the Twenty-Seven Foundation, to the Marc Fitch Fund, and to an anonymous benefactor for generous grants towards the costs of printing the volume, and to the Research Awards Committee of the Leverhulrne Trust who financially aided its preparation. The book has been seen through the press by Dr D. A. Crowley, a former Honorary Editor of the Society, and Dr Jane Freeman. ABBREVIATIONS B.L. British Library E. H.R. English Historical Review Endowed char. Wilts. Endowed charities of Wiltshire, H.C. 273 (1908), Ixxx P.R.O., ASSI 23 Public Record Office, Clerks of assize, western circuit, gaol books P.R.O., PROB11 Public Record Office, Registered copies of wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury Phillipps, Wilts. inst. Institutiones clericorum in comitatu Wtltoniae, ed. Sir Thomas Phillipps (priv. print. 1825) V. C.H. Victoria County History W.A.M. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine WN&Q Wiltshire Notes and Queries W.R.O., A1 Wiltshire Record Office, Commissions of the peace etc. for Wiltshire W.R.O., Wills, Wiltshire Record Office, Wills proved in the Con- Consist. Sar. sistory Court of Sarum W.R.S. Wiltshire Record Society INTRODUCTION William Hunt whose justicing notebook is transcribed below was first named in the commission of the peace for Wiltshire dated 29 July 1743.‘ He received the writ of dedimus potestatem enabling him to act as a justice the following spring, probably just before the Easter quarter sessions opened at Devizes on 3 April His notebook falls into three parts. The first contains his expenses when attending quarter, and special or petty, sessions, sessions for the land and window taxes, and for recruiting, and other meetings on unspecified justice business. It also has lists of payments to the poor of West Lavington in 1747 (34) and at Christmas 1746 (35). It begins with the expenses of taking his dedimus and attending quarter sessions in April 1744 (2), although a summary of expenses on tax and recruiting business incurred between 20 July 1738 and IO July 1747 is included (52), and ends on 19 September 1749 (85). The second and largest part records Hunt’s proceedings when acting outside quarter sessions, often alone, but sometimes with another justice. It begins on 1 April 1744 (87) and ends on 24 May 1748 (498). Many of the entries are records of the decisions taken by Hunt when sitting alone to deal with a multitude oi Complaints brought for his attention. Such entries bear the date when Hunt initiated proceedings by the issue of a warrant or a summons, but as many were not entered in the notebook until some time later, they by no means follow a strict chronological sequence? The third ~part records some expenses on land-tax and recruiting business between 20 July 1738 (502) and 12 June 1746 (533), and some miscellaneous matter, including a list of poor persons in 1742-3 (500), and the recipients of a local charity in 1743, 1744, and 1745 (517, 522), but it is primarily a record of conviction warrants with the names of the poor to whom the fines resulting from the convictions were paid. Almost all the conviction entries are signed either by Hunt himself or in his name by one of his clerks. Most of the cases leading to the convictions are already entered in part two of the book, but there are a few which have not appeared before. The first entry is dated 8 November 1744 (499) and the last 12 June I749 (577). The notebook is a folio volume bound in brown tooled leather over boards. Its spine has been reinforced with maroon paper in the 19th century. It contains 138 pages which have been numbered in pencil for the purpose of making this edition and which measure approximately 31 X 23 cms. The first page has been cut out. There are eight blank pages between the first and second parts, and eleven at the end of the second part. The third part begins at the back of the book. The entries are clearly and legibly written in ink in three R.O., Alfl/19. [\,J|-u E?e Appendix. 2 HUNT'S NOTEBOOK different hands, one of which is Hunt’s,' and it is clear that the book was written up from time to time from earlier notes and records. Some pages have ruled margins of varying widths and many have been roughly ruled horizontally. The entries are not numbered but have been numbered in this edition for convenience. On the inside of the front cover a note, in Hunt’s hand, records the then customary, but not invariable, sequence of the Wiltshire quarter-sessions towns: ‘Devizes Sessions 2 April 1744. Warminster Sessions 12 July 1744; Easter Quarter Sessions at Devizes; Thomas a Becket, Warminster; Michaelmas, Marlborough; Epiphany, Sarum’. Also inside the cover a note dated 1897 and initialled E.H.G. states ‘William Hunt magisterial diary and account book. This book was sold to Mr W. A. Bones, Bookseller, Devizes, amongst a lot of old books from the library of Eastwell and purchased from him for the Society at 5s. ’. E. H. G[oddard] was librarian of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society at the time. The notebook remained in the Society’s library at Devizes until 1979 when it was transferred to the Wiltshire Record Office in Trowbridge.3 Eastwell is the Hunt Grubbe family home in Potteme. The volume is better described as a notebook than a diary. The keeping of some sort of record of actions taken outside quarter sessions was strongly recommended to all magistrates in their manuals, chiefly as a precaution in case of appeals to a higher authority. The resulting notebooks and diaries were consequently private and informal records, taking many forms. One kept by a Northamptonshire justice between 1748 and 17513 and three kept by members of the Brockman family of Beachborough in Newington next Hythe, Kent, between 1689 and 1781‘ have been examined briefly. They illustrate well the different uses such books were put to by the individual justices, and it has to be remembered that matters which one justice chose to include in his notebook another justice might elect to record elsewhere. None of the notebooks looked at, for example, contains records of expenses as Hunt’s does. Because of its personal and sometimes casual nature a note- book’s chances of survival were not great and many were lost or destroyed when they had served their purpose. Few records of any sort of the justices’ work outside quarter sessions before the 19th century have survived and Hunt’s notebook is something of a rarity. One other which is partly concerned with Wiltshire is known and it seems that few have come to light in the rest of the country.-‘ I Statement based on comparison with handwriting in a personal acct.