Catalogue description PRISONERS

The early gaol calendars are lists of prisoners (mostly awaiting trial) in the county gaol and the houses of correction at Berkeley, Cirencester, Lawford's Gate (Bristol), Northgate (Gloucester) and winchcombe. Many calendars for the houses of correction are missing. Particulars usually given for each prisoner are name, name of justice by whom committed to custody, date committed, offence. Calendars from the houses of correction often record the period kept in custody and note of discharge, or delivery to Quarter Sessions, etc. Gaol calendars include prisoners reprieved on capital charges at the assizes and awaiting transportation (from about 1737), and others serving terms of imprisonment (from about 1760). The printed calendars (presumably compiled from MS. calendars which were then destroyed) for county gaol only until 1814, give from that date separate lists of prisoners for trial at Quarter Sessions, for trial at Assizes, serving terms of hard labour in the penitentiary house and of imprisonment in the common gaol and in different houses of correction (Littledean, Horsley, Lawford's Gate and Northleach). Particulars as in calendars for 1728-1790 (above), with prisoner's age, and for those serving sentences the date of conviction and term of imprisonment, with any other punishment such as a fine or whipping. Up to 1838 a brief MS. note of verdict and sentence has been added against Quarter Sessions cases. From 1854 to 1878 the calendars include such categories as prisoners under summary conviction, convicts from the Gloucester city and Tewkesbury borough gaols, and from 1867 boys in the Hardwicke reformatory.

The draft after-sessions calendars are really court orders. The fair copy was evidently transmitted by the clerk of the peace to the gaoler at the end of each Sessions; they give verdict and (in cases of conviction) sentence, but no particulars of the prisoner and few of the offence. From 1878, folowing the transfer of prison administration to the central government by the Prisons Act of 1877, the printed calendars relate to Quarter Sessions only, and are after-sessions calendars showing verdict and sentence.

Calendars of prisoners are the most concise and readily accessible record of the criminal business of Quarter Sessions.

Calendars are closed until they are 100 years old