| Administrative history | The parish overseers of the poor by Acts of 1815 (55 George III cap. 46, s.8) and 1828 (9 George IV cap. 40 s.1, which repealed the Act of 1815), and the Clerks to the Poor Law Unions by an Act of 1842 (5 & 6 Victoria cap. 57) were required to send lists of pauper lunatics under their care to the Clerk of the Peace. Abstracts of these were to be sent to the Secretary of State and the Commissioners in Lunacy under an Act of 1828.
No returns under the 1815 Act were apparently made in the North Riding and the main series of returns does not begin until 1828. There are, however, a few earlier returns for the years 1806, 1810-1813. These were apparently made either in response to a circular letter from the Clerk of the Peace asking for the information or to an order of Quarter Sessions. The returns of 1806 and 1810 were the result of a letter from the Clerk to the Overseers of the Poor and the Chief Constables (of the wapentakes) respectively, while those of 1811 and 1813 were the result of Sessions Orders of 1811 and 1812. The returns of 1810-1813 must have been made for the purpose of ascertaining the likely demands on the proposed County Lunatic Asylum in Northallerton. |