Catalogue description BILLS OF SHERIFFS' CRAVINGS

These are sheriffs' bills of cravings, that is, annual claims for reimbursement of money spent during their official engagements, such as magistrates' wages, judges' lodgings, courtroom furniture, messengers' payments, conveyance of criminals to trial, burning or whipping some of them and 'dieting' others until they were transported. The first two books cover 1724-1733, the third 1800-1806. For the years 1746 to 1785, see T 64, for the original bills and T 90 for the entry books 1733-1822, T 20 for 1823 to 1959. The bills are invariably reduced by the Exchequer (see the left hand column of each craving bill) to below a ceiling, itself reduced, fixed by the judge who took the under sheriff's oath in London (Lincoln's Inn, Chancery Lane). Disputes arose, and it was useful to have standard allowances fixed in auditing these cravings (see, for a later period, E 197/2, E 197/4 and E 197/6).

The signature of the Chancellor secured the sheriff's reimbursement, as adjudicated, for the previous year ending at Michaelmas (29 September). So the claims for Richard Perry, sheriff of Dorset, for 1728 had to be made by his widow and executor Susannah when he died before his craving was made (E 197/33, p 48).

The books are indexed by shrievalty and almost reliably. In E 197/32, the index errs only once: the sheriff of Derbyshire's craving for 1727 is on page 255, not 258: incidentally, pages numbered 256 and 257 are lacking. The same book seems to cover the years 1723 to 1727, but there is a laggard bill for Warwickshire in 1722 (p 24), which is reported after that for 1723 (p 8). Those for the year 1727 are split between E 197/32 and E 197/33, only Cheshire, Cornwall, Derby, Devon, Cambridge and Huntingdon, Rutland, Stafford and Yorkshire appearing in E 197/32. Even so, E 197/33 contains two dawdling cravings for 1726, Somerset (p 17) and Westmorland (p 30). Missing in E 197/32 are the 1723 cravings for Cornwall, Derbyshire, Essex, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Kent, Lincolnshire, Monmouthshire, Northumberland, Oxfordshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Shropshire, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex, Worcestershire and Yorkshire. The city of York is not represented until 1727 (E 197/32, p 255) and next in 1729, followed by 1731, 1732 and 1733. Kingston upon Hull appears in 1730 and 1731. Monmouthshire, then in England, is the only Welsh county represented. The index for E 197/33 inserts the Buckinghamshire craving for 1731 (p 242) both under 'Bucks' and 'Berks', and the Devon entry for 1733 (p 359) under 'Dorset' as well as Devon. Surrey's craving for 1728 (p 84) is omitted from the index, and Monmouthshire's is on p 68, not 67. The Warwickshire craving for 1730 is duplicated (pp 162 and 179), though the latter is not indexed. E 197/34 has no index, but arranges the countries alphabetically and the cravings for the years 1800 to 1806 together. The city of Bristol has one craving only, for 1803, inserted among the Bedfordshire ones.

This book reflects a notable increase in the amounts craved, swollen in wartime by the expense of distributing proclamations. Gaol expenses include, as they seldom did in the 1720s, and 1730s, the names of the prisoners involved. This was clearly intended as a check-point, as annotations opposite them indicate that proof of the claim was sometimes lacking.

For further sheriffs' bills of cravings see

T 207