Staff
The Quarter Sessions in each county were made up of two or more justice of the peace, presided over by a chairman, who sat with a jury. County boroughs entitled to their own Quarter Sessions had a single Recorder instead of a bench of justices.
Every Quarter Sessions had a clerk called the clerk of the peace. For county Quarter Sessions, this person was appointed by the custos rotulorum of the county – the Justice of the Peace for the county charged with custody of its rolls and records. There was a large fee income for the clerk, and he was usually a friend or relative of the custos. The clerk rarely discharged the duties of the office himself, but appointed a solicitor to act as his deputy in return for a share of the fees. After 1852, payment by salary was gradually brought in instead of fees.
In some counties there were multiple Quarter Sessions, quite apart from the urban areas: for example, Yorkshire had its North Riding, West Riding, and East Riding; whilst Northamptonshire's Soke of Peterborough was administered separately. These divisions were carried on to the administrative counties that county councils covered.
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Famous quotes containing the word staff:
“For the first fourteen years for a rod they do whine,
For the next as a pearl in the world they do shine,
For the next trim beauty beginneth to swerve,
For the next matrons or drudges they serve,
For the next doth crave a staff for a stay,
For the next a bier to fetch them away.”
—Thomas Tusser (c. 1520–1580)
“... all my letters are read. I like that. I usually put something in there that I would like the staff to see. If some of the staff are lazy and choose not to read the mail, I usually write on the envelope “Legal Mail.” This way it will surely be read. It’s important that we educate everybody as we go along.”
—Jean Gump, U.S. pacifist. As quoted in The Great Divide, book 2, section 10, by Studs Terkel (1988)
“In public buildings set aside for the care and maintenance of the goods of the middle ages, a staff of civil service art attendants praise all the dead, irrelevant scribblings and scrawlings that, at best, have only historical interest for idiots and layabouts.”
—George Grosz (1893–1959)