INTRODUCTION.

I. The Nottingham records of the period of this volume are very numerous, more numerous indeed than has been the case in any period previously dealt with in this publication. This wealth of material has therefore been subjected to a process of selection, and the matter here presented must be regarded simply as extracts. The editor has kept three objects before him in making his selection. His desire has been to retain all documents which threw any light on to the development of municipal offices or institutions, or which bore in any degree upon the life of the nation at large during these most important years, or which from their quaintness threw sidelights upon the life of our fellow-townsmen in a past age.

It must always be remembered that such a book as this is not intended to be a history of the town of Nottingham, but only a store-house of facts from which historians of the future may obtain their materials and use them according to their individual fancies. The editor has therefore refrained from deducing from the material what seems to him to be the history of the first half of the 18th century. His task has been to collect the facts and not to arrange them in the form of any connected history. A real history of Nottingham drawn from her municipal papers yet remains to be written. It is to be hoped that this task will be carried out before long, but this introduction is not the place in which to present such a connected story.

The fire at the office of Mr. Morris, the Town Clerk, on the night of February 7, 1723/4, was a disaster of incalculable dimensions for we cannot estimate what valuable papers were then destroyed. For the years under consideration here the loss was great and the material belonging to the years immediately preceding the fire has

been reduced to a regrettable minimum. The missing documents, both those burnt and those of later years which have been abstracted or mislaid, are noted in the text and no separate tabulation here is necessary. With the exception of the Chamberlains' Accounts and Vouchers all the documents are in book form and are, in consequence, in a good state of preservation. The Chamberlains' papers however were made up into bundles, and this method of preservation, often carelessly carried out, has resulted in the partial destruction of many papers. However, considerably over ten thousand papers have survived and it has been no small labour to peruse all these. Not infrequently it has been necessary to smooth out and cleanse a paper before it could be read. However, the work has proved worthy of the labour expended on it, for much of great value has been discovered and put on record. But it would be well if these papers could be placed in expert hands and bound into books so that no further destruction can take place. Perhaps the most scanty of all collections are those of the records of the doings of the Mickleturn Jury. For some reason these have not been well preserved and many regrettable gaps occur in the series. It should be noted that the first insertion of any class of document in this volume is the first time when any such papers occur, e.g., there are no Chamberlains' Rentals before 1713 nor Minutes of the Mickleturn Jury Presentments before 1741.

II. The present editor has followed the system of arrangement adopted by his predecessors. The original spelling and punctuation have been preserved, and where a word was abridged the letters lacking have been inserted in italics. So little matter in Latin remains that it was not thought necessary to separate it from the rest of the documents, and it has therefore been inserted in its true chronological position-a translation being provided in the foot

notes.

The editor has made one or two innovations which have seemed to him to increase the usefulness of the volume. In addition to an Index of Streets he has provided separate Indices Rerum and

Nominum. A complete list of the burgesses made during these years will also be found. This last includes many names which are still familiar to residents in Nottingham and it should prove of great assistance to students of genealogy and others who take an interest in their ancestors.

III. Former editors have had occasion to remark on the scantiness of material bearing on great national events. The townsmen of the first half of the 18th century took a keen interest in what was happening outside their own narrow sphere of existence. They were always ready to ring the church bells when any great victory was reported. Probably no period of English history has seen so many glorious victories as this did, and as we read the records of bell-ringings we can understand Horace Walpole's remark in 1759, 'We are forced to ask every morning what victory there is for fear of missing one.'

No record of a national victory has been omitted because the editor wishes to emphasize the importance of the period under consideration. It is doubtful whether the average Englishman realised the importance of the age in which he was living, an age when, to quote Professor J. R. Seeley, 'We seem to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.' The period before us is the first half of that second Hundred Years' War with France, during which we won from her the supremacy in the New World and established our position in Canada and India.

Two national events closely connected with each other stand out prominently. The Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 are both noted in these records, and though, unfortunately, the Hall book for 1715 is lost, a large amount of information relating to the rising of 1745 remains. The proximity of Derby, which was reached by the rebels on December 4th, 1745, caused a great alarm in Nottingham, and it is believed that the information supplied in these papers will prove of considerable interest. We read how Nottingham prepared itself for attack by guarding all approaches to the town. Possibly the international character of the guards

bears witness to the distrust which must have existed in the country, and we have certain evidence that the Jacobites had sympathisers within the town itself.

So numerous and frequent are the entries relating to the troops which passed through Nottingham during these troublous times that perhaps it will be of interest to know that more than a half of the English army which took part in the campaign against the Young Pretender passed through this town at one time or another. We would advise readers who wish to know more about the English army at this time to refer to the volume entitled 'Itinerary of Prince Charles Edward,' published by the Scottish History Society.

IV. In the Introduction to Volume IV of this series the editor discussed at some length the long-standing dispute between the Common Council and the commonalty of the town. In the volume before us we have another phase of this dispute. The Corporation was a close body and resented any attempt to infringe its supposed rights. Until 1728 a loophole by which entrance to the Corporation might be obtained existed in the Junior Council, for election to which all burgesses were eligible; but after that year the Junior Council was suppressed and the Corporation became as close as it was possible for it to be. Entrance to it was obtained through the office of Chamberlain. These two officials were generally chosen by the Mayor, either directly or indirectly,—in any case they could generally be relied upon to act in the interest of the Corporation. After their year of office they not infrequently were chosen as Sheriffs and then on their retirement from office became, ipso facto, members of the 'Cloathing.' When a vacancy occurred, owing to the death or resignation of a councillor, one of the 'Cloathing' was chosen to fill it and so the commonalty of the town were practically cut off from all share in municipal affairs. Now and then we hear of opposition from within the Council, but it appears to have done but little good owing to the smallness of its numbers. It was not until 1749 that the opposition found themselves sufficiently powerful to commence a suit against the Corporation for the restitution of

the body known as Junior Councillors.

This volume contains a great deal of interest bearing on the struggle against the close corporation.

Two other points which are worthy of note are that in spite of the Test and Corporation Acts remaining in force the annual Indemnity Bill enabled Dissenters to hold office, and we find that the Corporation of Nottingham included many Dissenters. The other point which is noticeable is the attempt of the Corporation to influence parliamentary elections. In 1753 a committee was appointed for the purposes of exerting the Interest of this Corporation against the next Election for such Representative or Representatives to be chosen as are in the Interest of this CorporaOut of a meeting of twenty only four dissentient voices were raised. But the opposition in the town must have been stronger than that in the Corporation, for one Whig and one Tory member were elected.

tion.'

V. In order to facilitate the identification of the Streets of Nottingham and thus give the student of our history some idea of what Nottingham was like, a map of the town has been included. This is the map which appeared in Deering's History when that book was published posthumously in 1751. It is the work of Badder and Peat, and though in one or two instances it appears to lack exactitude, yet it serves to show what Nottingham was like. No contemporary map of the fields of the town exists, but the editor has been enabled by the possession of a map of slightly later date to identify most of the place-names occurring in this volume. Those which still remain to be located have been marked unidentified, and should any reader be able to throw any light on the locality of any place so marked the editor would be very grateful.

VI. It remains now to thank those who have helped in the preparation of this volume. It is impossible to name all those to whom the editor has applied at one time or another for assistance and advice, but to one and all he tenders his grateful thanks. To Mr. James