Records of the Clerk of the Peace for the Westminster Quarter Sessions of the Peace, 1665-1807. Records comprise one volume containing the following: copies of orders of Privy Council to the Justices of the Peace of Middlesex and Westminster as to measures to be taken to prevent the spread of plague - including an order to erect a pest house; copies of resultant orders of the Justices to high constables, Churchwardens, etc including orders for removal of lay stalls and repair of an offensive lane; lists of suspected papists and instructions from the Privy Council and others to the Justices of the Peace in connection with them; lists (indexed) of persons who have taken oaths of allegiance and supremacy and subscribed the declaration under Act of 1 Wm and Mary, or who have refused to do so; lists (indexed) of persons convicted of profane cursing and swearing according to the Act of 627 Wm III, 1665-1708.
Also one volume containing the following: register of the names of persons who have been granted Game Certificates at the Westminster Sessions; Commissioners' Certificates under the Property Act, filed at Westminster Sessions; register of certificates of Freemans Lodges, filed at Westminster Sessions; register of the names of persons who carry on the trade of Press and Type Makers, and who have given notice to Westminster Sessions; register of names of persons who carry on the trade of Printer, and who have given notice to Westminster Sessions; register of Surveyors Certificates files at Westminster Sessions; 1799-1807.
Also a booklet containing standing orders, with appendix, 1840.
Note on the Quarter Sessions records: Although Westminster has fewer surviving records than Middlesex, the City's sessions would have produced similar records to those of the County, but they would have been smaller in quantity, and have included less administrative material. Also, as with all Quarter Sessions records, "seeing that the Custos Rotulorum was a private gentleman or nobleman and the Clerk of the Peace an attorney with a private practice it is likely that many county records were (if not lost or destroyed) handed down to their families or their professional successors" and many may still remain to be found in private hands (Emmison and Gray, County Records, 1987). Those records that have survived are often difficult to read or understand because of the handwriting, use of Latin (until 1733), or legal jargon and abbreviations; although standardised legal formats were used and printed pro formas introduced by the nineteenth century.
For the Middlesex and Westminster records there may also be confusion over the records' arrangement resulting from the attempts at classification by previous generations of archivists which have left many records split up into unnatural groupings. Originally they would not have been sorted into any cohesive arrangement. These were records that were "kept for administrative convenience rather than as sources for future generations" (G. Jones, Quarter Sessions records in the Leicestershire Record Office).
Because of this overlapping between many classes of record, any study of the Westminster records should include consultation of those for Middlesex. There was in any case a lot of co-operation between the two courts during the period covered by the records. Judicial (Gaol Delivery Sessions for example) and administrative functions were shared, as were court personnel (including justices). Westminster prisoners could elect to be tried at the Middlesex sessions, as these were held more frequently than their own.
The sessions records are a very useful source for family history, studying trends in law and order, and the life of the City and its inhabitants over a relatively long period of time. The capital was an area with high levels of crime, the natural place for riot and conspiracy, and attracted a wide variety of people from the whole country and abroad. The main record of proceedings at the sessions will be found in the sessions rolls (MJ/SR and the uncatalogued WJ/SR - index in WJ/CB); the (partially uncatalogued) sessions books (WJ/SB, MJ/SB); and the (partially uncatalogued) sessions papers (WJ/SP, MJ/SP). City administrative work is in the records of the County Day sessions (WJ/O), and for one particular type, in the records of the street surveyors (WJ/SS). Records of judicial procedure are in the records of court fines (WJ/E), writs to summon juries (WJ/W), and the trial process (WJ/Y); Lists of prisoners made at various times during the trial process are in WJ/CC and WJ/CP.
