| Description | This sub-fonds relates to records of enrolment, registration, deposit and returns. It consists of records relating to jurors, including:
- freehold or freeholders' or jurors' books: annual lists of men qualified by township under wapentakes, taken from the returns by petty constables at Michaelmas Sessions. Includes names and style of gentry, some occupations (more usual in the 19th century), Quakers distinguished, date of previous service (from at least the 1750s) and, after the Act of 1827, type of qualifying property (freehold etc) [c.1729, 1733-1848]
- list for the East Riding: includes names by wapentakes and townships, and some places of residence [1757]
- original returns (not a complete series): in wapentake bundles giving similar information to the registers, names and occupations of those qualified, from 1825 nature of qualification, from 1872 details of poor rate assessment and inhabited house duty, and whether special jurors [1777-1921]
- orders made by the Clerk of the Peace in Sessions to the High Constables to issue precepts for jury lists [1755-1756, 1827-1829]
- registers of enrolments of certificates of exemption from jury service: gives name, place of residence and style of division for which the commissioner exempted from service was acting [1848-1896]
- original certificates of exemption from jury service: contains similar information to the register, includes signatures of Commissioners of Inland Revenue [1846-1896] |
| Administrative history | The petty constables of parishes and after 1825 the overseers were directed to return annually to Quarter Sessions lists of men between 21 and 70 qualified to serve as jurors under an Act of 1695 (7 & 8 William III cap. 32). Copies of these lists were to be kept by the Clerk of the Peace in a book. The qualification for jury service fixed by an Act of 1692 (4 & 5 William & Mary cap. 24), the ownership of freehold and copyhold lands worth at least £10 a year, was extended to substantial long-term leaseholds by an Act of 1730 (3 George II cap. 25, s. 18). An Act of 1825 (6 George IV cap. 50, ss. 1, 6-8, 12) which added holders of leases for 21 years or more to the annual value of £20, directed high constables to instruct overseers to compile jury lists and return the to the Clerk of the Peace; he in turn registered them in a jurors' book which was handed to the sheriff. Under the Juries Act of 1922 (12 & 13 George V cap. 11) the rating authorities as successors to the overseers, provide the electoral registration officer with the names of jurors which are marked in the registers of electors and passed to the undersheriff by the clerk of the County Council. The jurors' book which still nominally exists is combined with the electoral registers.
An Act of 1842 (5 & 6 Victoria cap. 35) exempted Commissioners of Taxes from all parish offices and from service on juries. This provision remained current under succeeding Acts. The certificates issued by the Commissioners of Stamp and Taxes were to be enrolled with the Clerk of the Peace. |