Haverfordwest Quarter Session Records

Haverfordwest Quarter Sessions records, 1772-1961, including Court in Sessions and Summary Jurisdiction records, 1843-1951; administration records, 1826-1951; records relating to bridges, 1861-1883; records relating to lunacy, 1857-1872; records relating to the Clerk of the Peace, 1772-1953; court procedures, rules, etc., 1871-1894; records of the Treasurer, 1857-1885; police, gaol and judical accounts, 1851-1948; Commissions of the Peace, 1851-1961; list of members of the Commission of the Peace, 1891-1948; and enrolment, registration and deposit, 1786-1951.

The Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace was established by the Acts of Union 1536 and 1543, and was responsible for the administration of the county, as well as the dispensing of justice. The Court in Haverfordwest sat at Shire Hall; Haverfordwest has the status of Town and County and therefore had its own Court (separate from the County of Pembroke). The midsummer meetings were sometimes called St Thomas or Trinity Sessions. The Clerk of the Peace was the court officer reponsible for recording transactions and administering roads, bridges, lunatic asylums, vagrancy and police and prison services. Courts of Quarter Sessions were replaced by Crown Courts in 1971.

Arranged into the following: Court in Sessions and Summary Jurisdiction; Administration; Clerk of the Peace; Treasurer; and Enrolment, registration and deposit.

No restrictions

Some of the records were transferred from R. T. P. Williams' collection in June 1979 and deposited on behalf of her late father, Major Francis Jones, in September 1994.

Compiled by Annette Strauch for the ANW project. The following sources were used in the compilation of this description: Pembrokeshire Record Office, Haverfordwest Quarter Session, catalogue; Jones, Francis, Treasury of Historic Pembrokeshire (Newport, 1998).

Hard copies of the catalogue are available at Pembrokeshire Record Office and the National Register of Archives.

Usual copyright regulations apply

All records have been retained. The records were in a confused arrangement and have been reaaranged according to the classification used for the Pembrokeshire Quarter Sessions records.

The records of the Court for the Town and County of Haverfordwest for 1799-1900 were found in the Offices of Clerk of the Peace of Haverfordwest, Shire Hall, Haverfordwest, along with records of the Quarter Sessions for the County of Pembroke.

Accruals are not expected