Bundle of Home Office Circular Letters and Other Papers

Scope and Content

The bundle contains circular letters from the Home Secretary to George Harry Grey (1765-1845), 6th Earl of Stamford, as Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Cheshire. There are also letters from Lord Stamford to the Home Secretary, and correspondence between Lord Stamford and Henry Potts, Clerk of the Peace, and others within the county. Topics discussed include: the raising of additional forces for the preservation of peace within the county after the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 (EGR4/2/3/1/5-19); the enforcement of Acts of Parliament introduced in 1819 to prevent the training of persons in the use of arms, to authorize Justices of the Peace to seize arms, and to prevent seditious meetings and assemblies, and correspondence concerning the distribution of copies of Acts within the county (/20-31); county corn inspectors, 1820-1 (/32-41); a return of persons prosecuted for public libel, blasphemy and sedition, 1821 (/42-45); Acts of Parliament relating to gaols, bridewells and houses of correction, 1823-4 (/46-51); arrangements for Insolvent Courts, 1824 (/52-53); quarantine laws, 1826 (/54-55); and the securing of the arms of the Royal Regiment of Cheshire Militia, 1830 (/56-58).

In addition, there is a circular letter to George Harry Grey (1737-1819), 5th Earl of Stamford, and correspondence relating to the control of blasphemous and seditious pamphlets in 1817, when the 5th Earl was Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire (EGR4/2/3/1/1-4).