PREFACE.
The North Riding Record Society have issued nine volumes
of Quarter Sessions Records from 1605-1780 which are
admirable in that they give not only a pretty full transcript
of the text but also retain the old verbose forms and spellings.
The present author is fully conscious that antiquaries will
regret that the North Riding example has not been followed,
but, if that had been attempted, nine or more volumes would
have been needed instead of this one. As therefore a full and
literal transcript was out of the question there seemed to be no
call for keeping the old spelling.
He has been compelled to omit all Poor Law cases, maintenance, settlement, conveyance of vagrants and bastardy;
with far greater reluctance all military matters such as the
assessments for the army, the billeting of soldiers, the conveyance of their baggage, the relief of the lame and maimed
and of the widows and orphans of such as had been slain, and
further all reference to the impoverishment and distress
prevailing on the occasions of the Scottish army marching
through the Barony. Neither has it been possible to include
the frequent appointments of Gamekeepers in connection
with the history of the Game-laws, they are always described
as generosus or gentlemen and there are instances of the
position being held by the clergy.
Misdemeanours and felonies have only been touched upon to
show what we should now consider the cruel punishments
inflicted. For the stealing of goods valued at a few pence,
men and women were stript to the waist and marched through
the open market, or, as in some cases, from the Market Square
down to Blindbeck Bridge, and whipt with the cat-o'-ninetails till their blood came. There is no instance where the
Court of Quarter Sessions exercised the power of life and
death, such as are to be met with in the North Riding
Sessions (1651) where for horse stealing men were ordered to
be hanged by the neck until they were dead. Neither do we
find any indictments against sorcery and the practice of the
magical arts. That witchcraft existed and was in active play
throughout a great part of the 18th century is known and the
fact that no cases are recorded is not a little curious.
There are several orders for "briefs" (fn. 1) to be issued to the
churches and all charitable people, recommending that
assistance should be given to those who had sustained loss by
fire, such as:—It is therefore desired by this Court that the
respective Ministers within the Barony read this recommendation upon the Sabbath day in the middle of Divine
Service and exhort their parishioners to a liberal charity and
contribution to this distressed person.
Chief attention, however, has been given to the growth of
the Townships:—the building up of the churches and the
pastorate; the growth of religious liberty as witnessed in the
houses set apart for the worship of those "defealing" from
the Church of England; the development of the highways;
the formation of culverts beneath the roads in place of the
open runners that spread out and flooded the ways; the
substitution of stone for wooden bridges and their subsequent widening or rebuilding to accommodate vehicular traffic.
It is hoped that it will be possible to gather up the history of
the long struggle for the efficient maintenance of both the
roads and the bridges, how that at first the obligation was
thrust upon the adjoining landowners and then upon the
parishes; how that Henry VIII in 1530 ordered Quarter
Sessions to take over, at the county's expense, all bridges and
three hundred feet of the highway at either end where the
rightful persons who ought to repair the same could not be
ascertained; how that by the Acts of 1555 and 1562 enforced
labour was exacted from every householder and by that of
1662 how that the surveyors were empowered to raise the
necessary money over and above Statute labour by assessment; the introduction of the principle of tolls by the users,
after the Rising of 1745, and the final abolition of Turnpike
Roads in 1878 when Quarter Sessions and later the County
Councils received power to levy rates for the purpose upon
the whole county.
Heversham,
September, 1926.