Quarter Sessions - Courts of Quarter Sessions in Upper Canada

Courts of Quarter Sessions in Upper Canada

A Court of Quarter Sessions was held four times a year in each district to oversee the administration of the district and deal with legal cases in the Province of Upper Canada (later Province of Canada West after 1841). It was created in 1788 and remained in effect until 1849 when local governments and courts were assigned to county governments to replace the district system created in the 1780s.

List of Quarter Session courts in Upper Canada and later in Canada West:

  • Lunenburgh District 1788–1792 – sat at New Johnstown (present day Cornwall, Ontario)
    • Eastern District, Upper Canada 1792–1849
      • Johnstown District, Upper Canada 1798–1849 – carved out from Eastern District
        • Bathurst District 1822–1849 – carved out from Johnstown District
          • Dalhousie District 1838–1849
  • Mecklenburg Distrcit 1788–1792 – sat at Kingston (now Kingston, Ontario)
    • Midland District, Upper Canada 1792–1849
      • Prince Edward District, Upper Canada 1831
      • Victoria District, Upper Canada 1837
  • Nassau District 1788–1792 – sat at Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) and later at York, Upper Canada (later Toronto)
    • Home District 1792–1849
      • Niagara District 1798–1849
      • Gore District, Upper Canada 1816–1849
        • Wellington District 1838–1849
      • Simcoe District, Upper Canada 1837
  • Hesse District 1788–1792 – sat at Sandwich (now Windsor, Ontario)
    • Western District, Upper Canada 1792–1849
      • London District, Upper Canada 1798–1849
        • Brock District, Upper Canada and Talbot District, Upper Canada 1837–1849
        • Huron District, Upper Canada 1838–1849

Read more about this topic:  Quarter Sessions

Famous quotes containing the words courts of, courts, quarter, upper and/or canada:

    Courts of law, and all the paraphernalia and folly of law ... cannot be found in a rational state of society.
    Robert Owen (1771–1858)

    In the U.S. for instance, the value of a homemaker’s productive work has been imputed mostly when she was maimed or killed and insurance companies and/or the courts had to calculate the amount to pay her family in damages. Even at that, the rates were mostly pink collar and the big number was attributed to the husband’s pain and suffering.
    Gloria Steinem (20th century)

    A quarter of an hour is worth a thousand pieces of gold.
    Chinese proverb.

    “All men live in suffering
    I know as few can know,
    Whether they take the upper road
    Or stay content on the low....”
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.
    Robertson Davies (b. 1913)