NORTHUMBERLAND – CONVEYANCE OF PRISONERS – MORPETH QUARTER SESSIONS BROADSIDE – 1820

Rare early nineteenth-century Northumberland judicial broadside issued by the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace held at Morpeth on 1 May 1820 during the reign of George IV, regulating the official charges payable for the conveyance of prisoners within the county.

The document was printed by Edward Walker of Newcastle and issued under the authority of the Clerk of the Peace, “THORP”, whose engraved seal of the County of Northumberland appears prominently at upper left. The broadside sets out revised payment scales for constables and others responsible for transporting prisoners, following what the court described as “great Irregularity in the Charges” previously claimed for prisoner conveyance.

The printed schedule details precise sums payable according to distance travelled and number of prisoners conveyed, including specific reference to routes between Newcastle and Tynemouth. Such surviving administrative broadsides provide valuable evidence for the operation of county justice, policing, and penal administration in the period immediately following the Napoleonic era.

Documents of this kind were produced for practical official use and were ordinarily discarded after circulation to magistrates and petty sessions clerks. Survival rates are consequently very low. Research has located no institutional copy in major catalogues including Library Hub Discover, WorldCat, or the British Library, and the present broadside therefore appears to be apparently unrecorded institutionally.

An important and highly evocative survival of Georgian Northumberland legal and administrative printing, combining strong typographical appeal with significant research interest for historians of policing, local government, and criminal justice.

Single printed broadside. Newcastle: Printed by Edw. Walker, 1820. Sheet size approximately 22.9 x 18.2 cm.

Condition: Light horizontal fold mark and minor age toning consistent with original use; overall an unusually clean and well-preserved example.

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