| Description | Registers, (including court, juvenile court, licencing and occasionally adoption), minute books, and related papers of the Petty Session Divisions and Magistrates' Courts of Alcester, Atherstone, Blockley and Brailes, Burton Dassett and Kineton, Coleshill, Coventry, Henley in Arden, Kenilworth, Kirby, Leamington Spa, Nuneaton, Rugby, Shipston-on-Stour, Solihull, Southam, Stratford-upon-Avon (County and Borough), Warwick (County and Borough) and Mid-Warwickshire, 1825-1994 [Please note: we hold the adult courts only up to 1991]. |
| AdminHistory | The Petty Sessions were courts of summary jurisdiction (criminal matters being concluded before two or more magistrates or justices of the peace without trial by jury) and dealt with matters of petty crime, bastardy examinations and, latterly, licensing. No records from the 17th and 18th centuries are known to have survived for Warwickshire. In 1971, legislation was passed ending the Petty Sessions in favour of the Magistrates' Court system. |