Catalogue description Assizes: Oxford Circuit: Miscellanea

This series contains a selection of Oxford Circuit miscellanea.

Only a few of these documents date from before 1800. They include: grants of the office of the clerk of assize for the Oxford circuit; agreements and appointments relating to the offices of deputy clerk of assize and associate of nisi prius; a copy of a brief in Fleetwood v Chaplin (c 1794) for non assumpsit; resolutions of the grand jury of Hertfordshire concerning the fees of the clerk of assize of the Home circuit (1786) and a printed pamphlet arising therefrom.

There is a small collection of correspondence (1799 to 1813), concerning fees due to the clerk of assize of the Oxford circuit, mainly between Benjamin Pugh, deputy clerk and later clerk of assize for the Oxford circuit, and James Payn, treasurer of Berkshire.

The remaining documents consist almost entirely of returns and draft returns (c 1832 to 1890) to Parliament, the judicature commission, the home secretary, the lord chancellor and other offices of central government. They include returns of nisi prius, prosecutions and sentences in cases of attempted murder, child murder, assaults on children, forgery of bank notes, contempt of court and bribery in elections to the House of Commons, as well as the duration of the circuit, costs of prosecution and a variety of other aspects of circuit business. The returns are sometimes accompanied by correspondence, mostly of a formal nature.

Additionally, there are printed lists of judges on the Oxford circuit and the number of causes tried before them, 1780 to 1849; details of damages awarded c 1882 to John Bradley and Edward Dudley; an undated list of expenses in R v Caulicott; and a statement of the allowances made to prosecutors and witnesses to the Oxford circuit in 1835.