Catalogue description ORDER ROLLS

Contents of selected Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions Order Rolls

[All the rolls for 1750 have many more removal orders than any other papers.]

Rolls for the years 1728 - 1734 contain similar material, but very few papers, and the series is incomplete.

The letters A, B, C, D in the reference, relate to the terms of the year i.e. A = Epiphany, B = Easter, C = Trinity and D = Michaelmas.

Coroners' expenses apparently cease after 1797

The rolls for 1805, 1810 are much smaller than for earlier years.

Depositions cease after 1812

Called in most counties 'sessions rolls', these are not true rolls, but rolled files, on which were placed certain types of document and most of the miscellaneous papers received or created in the course of proceedings at Quarter Sessions and considered proper to preserve. There are, or should be, four rolls a year, one for each session. 1 doc. only, Michs. 1728, files for Trin. 1730, Epiph. 1731, Easter 1734, Epiph., Easter, Trin. 1735, Trin., Michs. 1736, complete from 1737, except 1833).

Documents normally found on the rolls include grand jury presentments, accounts and justices' certificates for highway repairs, articles of the peace, coroners' claims for expenses, c.1750-1797 (sometimes with brief particulars of inquests), poor law settlement removal orders (very numerous), with some examinations, affiliation orders, decisions on appeals against assessments to the poor rate, releases of actions, nominations for high and petty constables. Highway diversion orders and plans have been removed from the rolls (see below). Among documents found at some periods or occasionally are depositions (c.1770-1812), sacrament certificates (c.1800-1838), gaolers' bills (c.1770-1790), convictions, petitions including petitions for licences for dissenters' meeting houses and theatrical licences. In some counties indictments and recognizances (filed as separate series in Gloucestershire) are found on the general sessions rolls.

The following examples drawn from this indicate the variety of unclassified documents and papers which occur: recommendation of a fuller at Cam as inspector of broadcloth, with a reference to a smallpox epidemic in Dursley (Easter and Trin. 1735), appeal for refund of duty on malt destroyed by fire (Trin. 1740), inventory of a pauper's goods (Easter 1745), warrant to distrain on an Avening clothier for non-payment of wages (Michs. 1755), scheme for employing prisoners at the Lawford's Gate house of correction in hemp manufacture (Easter and Trin. 1760), report of the deputy county treasurer (Michs. 1765), declaration of a debtor prisoner as to his affairs (Easter 1770), convictions of miners for felling timber in the Forest of Dean (Epiph. 1775), appeal against rating assessment for the 'Well commonly called the Cheltenham Spau' (Michs. 1775), appeal against election as constable of the manor of Dymock (Easter 1780), report of committee on gaol reform (Epiph. 1785) and medical report on outbreak of gaol fever (Michs. 1785), petition for grant for building a bridge at Awre (Trin. 1790), applications for flax bounty (Trin., Michs. 1795), order concerning vagrants (Michs. 1800), petition for allowance of excise duty on a bargeload of Droitwich salt sunk in the Severn (Easter 1810), defence of a Bristol soap-boiler whose trade has been indicted as a nuisance (Epiph. 1815). The roll for Michs. 1756 has an important petition from weavers and counter-petition from the clothiers, concerning a wage dispute.