Sub-series MA 1967-1984. - Quarter session files and papers

The quarter session files (some tolerably complete, others imperfect) include various warrants and precepts; lists of the officials in the town and liberty, names of the grand jurors, and their presentments; return of bills, bonds, recognisances, and bail pieces; some depositions in cases of theft and assault before the borough magistrates; presentment of defective highways (pursuant to Act 3 and 4 William III); infringements of the assize of bread and ale, and 'the blowing of meat'; defective stocks, etc.; local nuisances, 'shaving on the Saboth day', and occasional contraventions of the then existing Poor Law. Seemingly, the local quarter sessions (as from about 1615, the date of Pool's charter) tended to absorb the bulk of the 'statutory offences' which for some generations after the Act of Union (1536) were presented by both the urban and rural petty constables in the leets of their respective manors. Doubtless the court leet of the manor of the borough of Pool lost much of its significance as an organ of borough government during the seventeenth century, but from about 1750 to 1846 it continued to be an active organisation for the supervision of the commons, the reparation of the common highways, and particularly the collection of alienation fees accruing from the transfer and sale of property within the town and liberty.