1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910460092403321

Autore

Craven Paul <1950->

Titolo

Petty justice : low law and the sessions system in Charlotte County, New Brunswick, 1785-1867 / / Paul Craven

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, [Ontario] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : Published for the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History by University of Toronto Press, , 2014

©2014

ISBN

1-4426-2177-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (562 pages)

Collana

Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History

Disciplina

347.715/33

Soggetti

Justice, Administration of - New Brunswick - Charlotte - History

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Foreword -- Preface -- Chapter 1. Introduction: High law, low law, not law -- Chapter 2. The trials of David Owen, 1787-1803 -- Chapter 3. High noon at Campobello: St Andrews and the islands in the 1820s -- Chapter 4. The empire strikes back: Executive action, 1824-32 -- Chapter 5. In the woods: Low law and the Crown Land Office -- Chapter 6. ‘Unconnected with mercantile pursuits’: The justice business, 1840-1 -- Chapter 7. Hatheway’s civil docket, 1847-67 -- Chapter 8. Hatheway’s crown docket, 1847-67 -- Chapter 9. Called to account: Justices, assemblymen, and ratepayers -- Chapter 10. Three ships: Poverty, paternalism, and politics atmid-century -- Chapter 11. The temperance magistrates: License and prohibition -- Chapter 12. The sessions system in decline -- Appendix A. Reference tables -- Appendix B. Commission of the Peace, 1845 -- Appendix C. Sources cited -- Bibliography -- Index of Names -- Topical Index -- Backmatter

Sommario/riassunto

Until the late nineteenth-century, the most common form of local government in rural England and the British Empire was administration by amateur justices of the peace: the sessions system. Petty Justice uses an unusually well-documented example of the colonial sessions



system in Loyalist New Brunswick to examine the role of justices of the peace and other front-line low law officials like customs officers and deputy land surveyors in colonial local government.Using the rich archival resources of Charlotte County, Paul Craven discusses issues such as the impact of commercial rivalries on local administration, the role of low law officials in resolving civil and criminal disputes and keeping the peace, their management of public works, social welfare, and liquor regulation, and the efforts of grand juries, high court judges, colonial governors, and elected governments to supervise them. A concluding chapter explains the demise of the sessions system in Charlotte County in the decade of Confederation.