The Church Courts exercised great power over rural life until 1860. They dealt not only with church affairs, but with matters affecting the whole life - marriage, -slander, drunkenness, schools, witchcraft, trading on Sundays and failing to observe Holy Days. Offenders were brought to the notice of the Church Court by a presentment made by the churchwarden, and the Court possessed the power of enforcement.......

Sir Thomas Phillips of Broadway.

'The worlds greatest book collector' In 1843, Sir Thomas, himself a magistrate, was fined at the local sessions for assaulting a tax collector. Shortly afterwards he was invited to appear in an engraved portrait group of Worcestershire Magistrates, by Richard Dighton. He wrote....

The chief agents of local government were the Justices of the Peace. They were unpaid, local gentlemen with considerable power and position. They dealt with all aspects of daily life, from crime and its punishment, through the endless disputes over poor relief, bastardy, unlawful gaming and drunkenness, to the licensing of  alehouses and the state roads and bridges. From Tudor times they played the central..... 

The top hat and swallowed-tail jacket were disregarded in favour of a helmet and tunic like those worn today. Re-equipment started in 1864, but not completed until the following year. The original uniform was chosen to be as .... 

In 1838, the old Militia Depot on the corner of Queen Street and St Nicholas Street was converted into a proper police headquarters. It had police hoses for an inspector and a constable, but parts were let out to tradesmen as a warehouse. There was little sanitary arrangements, and not until the second Cholera scare in 1849 were water closets erected in the depot. It appears that County prisoners were brought....

Under the Worcester Improvement Act of 1823, which dealt with the lighting, paving and watching of the City, eight watchmen were appointed to work in parishes, all operating from the Watch House which was adjoined to City Gaol in Union Street, under the direction of the Gaol Governor, William Griffiths, who regarded his post......

That some attempt was made to clear the City of undesirables is shown in a report of 1822: 'Police made a raid at an early hour and visited certain obscure lodging houses in the City, and apprehended .... 

In most towns, night-man, known as 'Charlies', with warning rattles, kept an effective watch. They were often old, and always poorly paid, and there were complaints that when trouble started they were quick to avoid it and go to the other way. In rural districts the public .....

Crime in the first half of the 19th century was a very grave problem. The Watch, though called the Police, consisted of parish constables under the occasional direction of a magistrate. There was no police force in the modern sense of the word until the 1830s, and crime most went unpunished. The authorities....

It is recorded in the registers of Rushock Church of 1660, that Joan Bibb, at the instigation of the person, The Rev. William Shaw, was ordered to be tried and thrown into a pond as a witch, to prove...

Perhaps the most remarkable local survival of 'legal custom' was at Red Marley D'Abitot, a Worcestershire village before its transfer to Gloucestershire. William Lygon, the first Earl Beauchamp, was riding through his constituency in the 1820s, when he ......

The legal power of the Judge was great, and some let this be known clearly, Judge Hawkins, for instance was a tyrant in his court, and always refused to have any window open. The Mayor of Worcester was visibly... 

With the passing of the Courts Act of 1971, a form of justice which had existed for some 800 years, came to an end with the abolition of the Assizes. Usually twice a year, the Queen's Judge's set out from London and took the ...... 

With the passing of the Courts Act of 1971, a form of justice which had existed for some 800 years, came to an end with the abolition of the Assizes. Usually twice a year, the Queen's Judge's set out from London and took the ...... 

Version of the escape published in Berrows Worcester Journal 31.3.1951 which reads as follows:

'On one occasion a prisoner escaped from the prison. He climbed down from his cell by means of a rope of knotted blankets, and broke into the Governor's house and stole some of his silver. Years after, my grandfather met the man again, and got the whole story out of him...