The Minor Family of Somerset

Name Suffix:<NSFX> of Manningham
will proved June 1768, aged 72 at death.
ANEIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MAGISTRATE AS DETECTIVE: Samuel Lister o
f Little Horton byJohn Styles MA.
not found who he is related to yet. 9/16/01
This paper firstappeared in 1982 in issue 47 p 98-117 of the se
cond series of THE Bradford ANTIQUARY the journal of the Bradfor
d Historical and Antiquarian Society.
eighteenth-century social history has many dark corners, but th
e county magistracy does not, at first sight, occupy one of them
. The distinctive blend ofjudicial, plice and administrative f
unctions which characterised the work ofthe eighteenth-centur
y justice of the peace has been remarked upon by many historian
s Few general surveys of the Georgian era fail to acknowledge th
e crucial role of the county magistrate in shaping and directin
g provincial life.However, the orientation of research into th
e eighteenth-century magistracyhas been decidedly skewed. Wher
eas the social composition of the bench andthe magistracy's adm
inistrative functions have attracted considerable attention, the
re has been little systematic study of the ways in which magistr
atesperformed their responsibilities under the criminal laws.
This account of theactivities of Samuel Lister of Horton House
, a justice of the peace for theWest Riding of Yorkshire betwee
n 1751 and 1769, examines some of these neglected aspects of a m
agistrate's execution of his office. Its concern is not, howeve
r, with the whole range of those infractions which in the eighte
enth century were labelled, rather loosely as crimes. It focus
es specifically onthe magistrate's role in the investigation an
d prosecution of serious offences: in particular those indictabl
e offences against property which were the concern of tile Assiz
e courts - serious and aggravated thefts, forgery, counterfeitin
g.
Samuel Lister of Horton House at Little Horton in the parish o
f Bradford, about a mile from the town of Bradford, was born i
n 1714 into a minor gentry family long-established in the locali
ty. Like the sons of several such families in the West Riding o
f Yorkshire, in the early eighteenth centuryhe trained as an at
torney. He practised in that capacity from 1738 to 1751,but th
en gave up his practice in order to act as a justice of the peac
e for the Riding. Although it was not uncommon for attorneys t
o be inserted in the Commissions of the Peace, they were barre
d from acting as magistrates as long as they continued to practi
se. Lister's name was inserted in the West Riding Commission i
n 1749. His father had been a prominent figure on the WestRidi
ng bench and, as was often the case when the son succeeded fathe
r as amagistrate, Samuel Lister began to act only after his fat
her had discontinuedjusticing. Lister took the oaths of offic
e in July 1751. His father died the next year and Samuel succee
ded to the family estates at Horton and at Ovenden, five miles t
o the south-West in Halifax parish.
The huge adjoining parishes of Halifax and Bradford were at th
e heart of the West Riding woollen textile district. This was t
he most heavily populated portion of the riding and, according t
o Defoe, 'one of the most populous parts of Britain, London an
d the adjacent parts excepted. Between the principal market tow
ns, Leeds, Wakefield, Halifax, Huddersfield and Bradford, settle
ment was scattered acrossall except the highest hills. This ki
nd of area, densely populated, industrial and dotted with towns
, none of which, apart from Leeds, enjoyed corporateself-govern
ment with its own justices, generated a disproportionate amoun
tof business for the county magisracy. Yet throughout the eigh
teenth centurythis district and those like it in other parts o
f the country were characterised by a relative shortage of resid
ent acting justices.
This shortage reflected in part the reluctance of local men name
d i