[2]. An application is reported for the 2nd of December before "Justice Fielding" of Meards Court, St. Anne's, but for reasons given below this may refer to John Fielding. [Back]
[3]. From the autograph now at Woburn Abbey, and printed in the Correspondence of John Fourth Duke of Bedford. Vol. i. p. 589. [Back]
[4]. Middlesex Records. Volume of Qualification Oaths for Justices of the Peace. 1749. From an entry dated July 13, 1749, in the same volume, Fielding appears to have then owned leases in the three first named parishes only. [Back]
[5]. See the King's Writ, now preserved in the Record Office. [Back]
[6]. Middlesex Records. Sacramental Certificates. [Back]
[7]. Middlesex Records. Oath Rolls. [Back]
[8]. Amelia. Book i. Chapter ii. [Back]
[9]. The Westminster Session Rolls, preserved among the Middlesex Records, contain many recognizances all signed by Fielding. [Back]
[10]. "On Friday last," announces the General Advertiser for May 17, "Counsellor Fielding, one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace was chosen Chairman of the Sessions at Hicks Hall for the County of Middlesex"; a statement not very compatible with the incontestable evidence preserved in the General Orders Books of the Middlesex Records, by which it appears that John Lane Esq're was elected Chairman of the Middlesex General Sessions and General Quarter Session from Ladyday 1749 to September 1752. The personal paragraphist of 1749 was perhaps no less inaccurate than his descendant of to-day. But a few weeks later this honour of chairmanship was certainly accorded to Fielding by his brethren of the Bench for Westminster. An entry in the Sessions Book of Westminster, 1749 runs as follows: "May. 1749, Mr Fielding elected chairman of this present Session and to continue untill the 2nd day of the next." MSS Sessions Books for Westminster. Vol. 1749. Middlesex Records. [Back]
[11]. From the autograph now at Woburn Abbey, and printed in the Correspondence of John, Fourth Duke of Bedford, vol. ii. p. 35. [Back]