From the 13th century right up until 1971, the court system in England and Wales consisted of three main types – Petty Sessions, where minor offences were heard, Quarter Sessions and Assizes, with the same system existing in Scotland until 1975. Quarter Sessions were the second tier of the system – local county and borough courts, held four times a year. Generally, they were held in each county seat, such as in Oxford or Gloucester.

Each session was, fundamentally, a meeting involving two or more magistrates – Justices of the Peace – where criminal cases would be heard. Each Quarter Session was named after a traditional time of the year when they were held – Epiphany (January to March), Easter (April to June), Midsummer (July to September) and Michaelmas (October to December). At each meeting, there would be at least two magistrates with a chairman, sitting with a jury. These magistrates would also have a clerk, known as the Clerk of the Peace. However, the system was slightly different in county boroughs, which were allowed their own Quarter Sessions, but with one Recorder instead of a bench of justices.

Quarter Sessions had an important judicial role, not only determining criminal cases, but also referring the most serious crimes, including capital offences (those punishable by the death sentence), to the Courts of Assize. In addition to this role, they also had an important part to play in local administration. The Courts of Quarter Session dealt with taxes, the appointment of local officers and licensing issues, hearing reports from various committees, such as asylum and police committees, setting the county rates, and hearing applications from local town councils regarding the fees charged for hiring local buildings to serve as the locations for Petty Session hearings. In 1860, a committee was appointed at the Oxfordshire Quarter Sessions to report on how best to house the permanent staff of the county militia, illustrating the varied issues that the Quarter Sessions had to deal with.

Quarter Sessions also acted as courts of appeal over decisions made in summary proceedings, or Petty Sessions.

Prior to the 1834 New Poor Law being passed, this often involved issues of poverty, such as when an individual had disagreed with a parish refusing to grant them poor relief. A magistrate at summary proceedings might state that they should be given relief – and a parish that disagreed with that decision might then take the issue forward to Quarter Sessions. Not all appeals involved the Poor Law, though. In 1801, a group of tailors was brought before two London magistrates, accused of being unlawfully combined to procure an increase of wages, and having refused to work till this increase was obtained – the 1799 Combination Act having banned collective bargaining. They were convicted and sentenced to two months in the Tothill Fields Bridewell, but allowed the liberty of appealing to the Middlesex Quarter Sessions, which were imminent (The Ipswich Journal, 17 January 1801). Unlike other counties, the Middlesex sessions were held eight times a year.

Magistrates also visited prisons to investigate their state and the condition of prisoners, reporting back their views to the other magistrates at Quarter Sessions.

The allowances given to prisoners on their discharge from gaol was also an issue discussed at Quarter Sessions.

In 1861, in Oxfordshire, each prisoner was allowed one shilling and a piece of bread on being discharged, but magistrates on one visit noted that this did not take into account that some prisoners lived further away from the prison than others, and might need more money in order to return to their own parish.

All this bureaucracy and administration might make the work of the Quarter Sessions sound quite dry, but newspapers took an increasing amount of interest in their affairs as the 19th century progressed. The press did not just cover Assize trials – they also looked at Quarter Session cases, and the provincial press took great interest in how local administration was dealt with at the Sessions.

However, much of the Victorian media’s interest lay in the criminal trials at Quarter Sessions – theft, fraud, and assaults were common offences, but others included sexual assault – such as George Franklyn, 26, who was convicted of raping a young girl at the Surrey County Sessions in 1848 and given six months in prison – and libel or sedition, eg Francis Harker being acquitted of uttering seditious words at the Lancashire Quarter Sessions in 1801.

The Quarter Sessions were not always run perfectly. Prior to the late 18th century, magistrates had been unpaid, and some were accordingly less committed to their work than others, failing to attend court or interfering in cases that other magistrates were supposed to be involved in.

Some were accused of corruption, particularly in more urban areas, thus tarnishing the reputations of those who dispensed justice in a more civilised way. In the 19th century, some of the Courts of Quarter Session had a reputation for bias against certain prisoners, failing to maintain proper records, and not being consistent in setting sentences. Yet it was a system that worked well enough to exist until a fairly recent time, and as a result of its long history, a wealth of records survive. They hold information about a wide variety of individuals – criminals and jurors, magistrates and local officials, witnesses, prosecutors, poor and rich alike. They not only tell the family historian about their ancestors, but also a lot about the world in which they lived, and the society that told them what they could and could not, do.