The legal system in eighteenth-century England has generally been viewed as an instrument of class justice, imposed by magistrates drawn from the gentry and aristocracy, and weighing harshly on the labouring and servant classes. The rare survival of the justicing notebooks of Thomas Dixon of Riby, as a working farmer an unusual recruit to the magistrates' bench, make it possible to draw a more nuanced picture. The only Lincolnshire magistrate to leave records of his work "out of sessions", his books detail those cases he heard and resolved alone, often "in my house at Riby", between his appointment in 1787 and his death in 1798; they provide an illuminating glimpse of the justice system in operation at its lowest level, where stealers of ducks and absconding servants were brought before a country justice - and reveal procedures frequently not found in other published accounts. The detail furnished by these volumes is amplified with extracts from other records, including those of quarter sessions and parish constables. Edited by B. J. Davey.
The second part of the volume presents papers from an arbitration of 1838 between the licensee of a remote beer house ("The Blackamoor's Head") and the son of the local squire, with the former pressing the latter for repayment of a debt. The near-verbatim evidence describes the behaviour of the "bankers" - the local term for navvies - engaged in deepening the adjoining river. The inn also provided hospitality to drovers who stopped overnight with their beasts en route from Scotland, and their bills provide rare quantitative evidence of the final years of this trade. Edited by R. C Wheeler.
The second part of the volume presents papers from an arbitration of 1838 between the licensee of a remote beer house ("The Blackamoor's Head") and the son of the local squire, with the former pressing the latter for repayment of a debt. The near-verbatim evidence describes the behaviour of the "bankers" - the local term for navvies - engaged in deepening the adjoining river. The inn also provided hospitality to drovers who stopped overnight with their beasts en route from Scotland, and their bills provide rare quantitative evidence of the final years of this trade. Edited by R. C Wheeler.
Volume 102
The Country Justice and the Case of the Blackamoor’s
Head: The Practice of the Law in Lincolnshire, 1787-1838
Editors
Part I: The Justice Books of Thomas Dixon of Riby, 1787-1798 edited by B.J. Davey
Part II: Papers in the Case of Thorold v. Catton, 1830-1838 edited by R.C. Wheeler
Publication Date
2012
Size
235 x 155 mm
Language
English
Publisher
A Lincoln Record Society publication published by the Boydell Press an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA
Website: www.boydell.com
Printed & bound
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Papers used by Boydell & Brewer Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests (confirmed as acid free paper)
ISBN
978-0-901503-94-7
Content
Contents, 1 page
List of Illustrations, 1 page
Preface, 1 page
Abbreviations, 1 page
Title Page Part I, 1 page
Introduction, 32 pages
Editorial Note and Conventions, Acknowledgements, 1 page
The Justice Books of Thomas Dixon of Riby, 1787-1798, 74 pages
Maps and Illustrations, 11 pages
Title Page Part II, 1 page
Introduction, 13 pages
Editorial Conventions, 1 page
Papers in the Case Thorold v. Catton, 1830-1838, 50 pages
Index of Persons and Places, 8 pages
Index of Subjects, 3 pages
The Country Justice and the Case of the Blackamoor’s
Head: The Practice of the Law in Lincolnshire, 1787-1838
Editors
Part I: The Justice Books of Thomas Dixon of Riby, 1787-1798 edited by B.J. Davey
Part II: Papers in the Case of Thorold v. Catton, 1830-1838 edited by R.C. Wheeler
Publication Date
2012
Size
235 x 155 mm
Language
English
Publisher
A Lincoln Record Society publication published by the Boydell Press an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA
Website: www.boydell.com
Printed & bound
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Papers used by Boydell & Brewer Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests (confirmed as acid free paper)
ISBN
978-0-901503-94-7
Content
Contents, 1 page
List of Illustrations, 1 page
Preface, 1 page
Abbreviations, 1 page
Title Page Part I, 1 page
Introduction, 32 pages
Editorial Note and Conventions, Acknowledgements, 1 page
The Justice Books of Thomas Dixon of Riby, 1787-1798, 74 pages
Maps and Illustrations, 11 pages
Title Page Part II, 1 page
Introduction, 13 pages
Editorial Conventions, 1 page
Papers in the Case Thorold v. Catton, 1830-1838, 50 pages
Index of Persons and Places, 8 pages
Index of Subjects, 3 pages