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Hierarchy Browser Number8001/3/4
TitleWorcester City Quarter Sessions Police and Gaol Records
DescriptionThese records are part of the Quarter Sessions series. Reports and minutes from various committees, accounts and financial papers, documents relating to prison property, some staff and prisoner records, and prison rules and regulations. With some documents relating to prisons and the legal system in general, such as newspapers and circulars. There is some evidence that the earlier records of the county gaol were disposed of by a former governor.

Worcester Police was established in an 1823 Act, which appointed Watchmen and operated out of and under the supervision of the City Gaol. The Militia Depot building on St Nicholas Street was altered to serve as a headquarters for the police in 1838. It was declared unsuitable in the 1860s and in 1861 a new building constructed in Copenhagen Street.

Property in Grey Friars was purchased for £541 for use as the City Gaol after the dissolution of monasteries in 1539, and another gaol was rebuilt on same site in 1824 at a cost of over £12,500. The County Gaol in Salt Lane/Castle Street was completed 1813 to replace House of Correction that had been near Cathedral. The two were amalgamated in 1867 by the Worcester Prison Act, and the City Gaol buildings were sold to William Laslett who converted them into almshouses. The prison was finally closed in 1928 and prisoners transferred to Gloucester, or Birmingham.
Date1689-1967
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