| Admin History | New Windsor possessed both a borough court of record and a court of quarter sessions, both of which dated from medieval times.
The court of record was certainly in existence by the mid-fourteenth century, and was probably much older. The grant of a borough court was implicit in the grant of the status of `liber burgus' to Windsor in the charter of 1277 (see S. Bond, `The Medieval Constitution of New Windsor', Berkshire Archaeological Journal, vol. 65 p. 24). The court was held every three weeks before the mayor and bailiffs. By the mid-eighteenth century it had fallen into desuetude. The 1834 report on the Corporation (quoted in Tighe and Davis, ii, 624-631) notes that `this court which was much frequented until the beginning of the last century, is now wholly fallen into disuse, not having been holden within living memory'.
The court of quarter sessions dates from the charter of 1439 which established the mayor and bailiffs as justices, and empowered them to determine such matters as would otherwise be determinable by the justices of the peace for the county. The grant was confirmed in the charter of 1603. From this date the court was presided over by the mayor and the justice of the peace (there was only one, who was normally the outgoing mayor), assisted by the recorder. A new grant of quarter sessions was received in 1836, which appointed the Recorder as a justice of the peace, and a new commission of the peace was issued in the same year appointing a further six justices, one of whom was to be the mayor. The court was abolished in 1971. |