The Sessions rolls, now in the custody of the Clerk of the Peace, consisting of recognizances, presentments, informations, memorials, grand jury bills, &c., commence with 1600, but the order books do not go further than 1693. From the latter it appears that a great portion of the county business was transacted at inns and private gentlemen's houses. The Talbot, in Sidbury, for a great number of years enjoyed the magisterial patronage, adjournments being regularly made from the Guildhall (where the County Assizes and Sessions were then held) to that respectable old hostelry, where no doubt the magnates compensated themselves for the dry and tedious work in hand by generous and stimulating potations, as was the custom with the city authorities. Several Sessions were adjourned to Hooper's coffee-house at the Guildhall, which is first mentioned in 1767 as being kept by Lucy Hooper, and also to the Trinity Hall (an old building occupied by various trading "companies" or "guilds," on the site of which now stand Messrs. Freame's warehouses near St. Swithin's church). A committee of magistrates were ordered to inspect this hall in 1796, to consider the propriety of purchasing it and converting it into an office for the Clerk of the Peace; but this seems to have fallen to the ground. The Talbot, Claines (Tything), was preferred for some time, the Star being occasionally used; then the Crown inn was chosen in 1792 by a formal vote of the bench; and in the early part of the present century the Hop-pole came in for its share. During all this period, however, on many occasions, adjournments were made to other towns and villages. The Earl of Coventry was frequently visited in this way at Croome; the Hon. H. Herbert, at Ribbesford (1710); Rev. Dr. William Lloyd, at Ripple; William Hancock, Esq., at Bredon's Norton, and the Bishop's Palace at Hartlebury (1715); Lord Herbert, at Ribbesford (1721); and in 1723 a circuit seems to have been taken on many consecutive days to the Crown, Evesham; Crown, Blockley; George, Shipston; Angel, Pershore; Talbot, Feckenham; Crown, Bromsgrove; George, Bewdley; Lion, Kidderminster; Talbot, Stourbridge; Bush, Dudley; Hundred House, Witley; Crown, Tenbury; the house of Mrs. Collins, Shelsley; and the Sun, Upton. By the statute 9th George I, chap. 24, all persons who were Papists, and all persons who had not taken the oath for securing the throne to the House of Hanover, were to do so before the 25th of December, 1723, in one of the courts at Westminster or at the Quarter Sessions. This was no doubt the cause of the adjournments of the Quarter Sessions in that year. In modern times it often occurs that the Quarter Sessions are adjourned to different places in the county for the convenience of newly-appointed magistrates being sworn into office. In the year 1809, Sir Harry Lippincott, Bart., was appointed a magistrate for Gloucestershire, and he was sworn into office at an adjournment of the Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions—the Sessions being adjourned to the White Lion, the principal inn at Berkeley (now the Berkeley Arms), the late Earl of Berkeley taking the chair, and administering the oaths to the hon. bart. In 1697, Lancelott Jewkes, the Worcester county gaoler, was fined £20 "for not attending this court to do his duty, the court having had several occasions for him." It was ordered in 1716, "that the Sheriff for the future do not return any freeholders within the burrough of Bewdley to serve on jurys for the County Sessions, they having Sessions of their own." Another order was made in 1723, "that there be an advertisement in the Worcester newspaper, to give notice to people lyable to serve on jurys not to give money to the bayliffe to excuse them, and that the treasurer doe pay for the advertisement four weeks successively." The following is a table of fees ordered in 1753 for justices' clerks, in pursuance of an act of the previous session:
| s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|
| "Swearing every high constable | 1 | 0 |
| Swearing every petty constable, tythingman, &c. | 0 | 6 |
| Every common warrant | 0 | 6 |
| Every warrant to search for stolen goods | 1 | 0 |
| Every warrant of the peace or good behaviour | 2 | 6 |
| Every supersedeas | 2 | 6 |
| Signing every pair of parish indentures | 1 | 0 |
| Every license to sell ale, the fee to the clerk of the peace for filing ye recognizance, stamp and paper included | 5 | 0 |
| Every recognizance for peace or good behaviour | 2 | 6 |
| Every warrant for the highways | 1 | 0 |
| Swearing the surveyors to their presentment and receiving it | 1 | 0 |
| Every hue and cry | 1 | 0 |
| Every warrant for appointing overseers of the poor | 1 | 0 |
| Signing a warrant to distrain for the poor's levy | 2 | 0 |
| For a warrant to disturb inmates | 1 | 0 |
| An order and copy for removing a person from one parish to another | 2 | 6 |
| If drawn by another and only signed by you | 1 | 0 |
| Signing a certificate from one parish to another | 1 | 0 |
| Making and signing every original pass. | 0 | 0 |
| Signing every other pass | 0 | 0 |
| Every mittimus | 0 | 0 |
| Taking examn. of a settlement or bastard | 1 | 0 |
| Drawing an order for adjudging the reputed father of a bastard child | 2 | 0 |
| Signing the same order | 1 | 0 |
| Warrant to levy every penalty or forfeiture | 1 | 0 |
| For a summons for conveaning Quakers, &c. | 0 | 6 |
| Every order thereon | 1 | 0 |
| A warrant upon refusal | 1 | 0 |
| For a summons for a master who refuses to pay his servants' wages | 0 | 6 |
| For the discharge of a servant from his master | 1 | 0 |
| A warrant to distrain for servants' wages | 1 | 0 |
| Allowing overseers' or constables' levys | 0 | 0 |
| Signing freeholders' lists | 0 | 0 |
| For every warrant to the collector of the land tax for taking up a deserter. | 1 | 0" |
In 1753, William Cooper, of Shipston, was fined £5 for taking money of William Taylor, of Armscot, to excuse his serving upon the jury at Sessions. The only remaining item under this head is an order made in 1789, "that at all future Sessions, business be conducted only by counsel, and not by attorneys as heretofore; but that in testimony of the respect due to Wilson Aylesbury Roberts, Esq., for his integrity and abilities, as well as for the regularity of his attendance and the assistance this court has received from him through a series of years, he is from henceforth received and heard as our advocate or counsel, as if he was a barrister, and as if the said order had been never made."
Witchcraft.
Our county records do not contain evidence of the existence of this superstition to a great extent, owing to the fact that witchcraft cases were usually tried at the Assizes. The first instance occurring in the Sessions rolls is in the year 1601, when Edward Buckland "exhibited articles complaining of John Genifer, to whom he had lent money," and when Buckland's "poor wife" asked for it, Genifer used shocking language, and "charged her with being a witch, and had deserved burning seven years sithence, and if she was a midwife was not fitt to bringe a —— to bed, much less a woman."
In 1633 the recognizance of widow Bellett, of Stony Morton (?) was taken, to appear at the next Sessions, to answer charges brought by William Vaughan, of Inkberrow, and others. This document is in some places scarcely legible, but it appears that the principal charge was "for the evil artt that shee useth with the —— wich, and she gives —— to finde out goodes lost, and using the name of Peter and Paule therein in profane manner, beinge sayde to be —— of that sleight ——." I found no account of her trial.