Shropshire Quarter Sessions, List of Jurors for 1869

[mezentia]

The clip is taken from a Quarter Session document for 1869 that lists the Coroners, Superintendents of Police, and Jurors for the County of Shropshire.

In the lists of jurors, can anyone please offer suggestions for:

a. The subscribed writing under entry 35 for William Thomas of Chetwynd.
b. The meaning of the letter or symbol in the third column. There is no heading for the column.

There is no image of this document online, the one attached if from my own photo taken at the Shropshire Archives. The document itself was very large and I had to take up to 9 separate photos to get it all! There is a second column of names in the same format as that in the image, but the untitled column in this case contains only the symbol/letter, with no number alongside. The numbers, where they occur, are sequential, except for that in my example, which is a duplicate, the only number to be so duplicated.

I have that the comment for John Venables, number 36, is "On trial in London".
 

[emeltom]

I think something may be missing.

[Bookbox]

a. William Thomas is Permanently incapable of attending as a Juror

b. I would suggest the symbol is a J, for the Latin Juratus = ‘sworn’. It's hard to say without seeing the whole page. Would that be consistent with the rest of it?

[mezentia]

My interpretation of the symbols was J, and my thought on why it is there is that the individual had previously been seleceted as a juror before this list was prepared. Why the number, though is still to be worked out.

[mezentia]

The two columns of Jurors have slightly different headings, which I have only just noticed. The first column is headed

The Names of the Jurors to enquire for our Sovereign Lady the
Queen and the Body of the County.

The second column is headed

The Names of the Jurors to enquire between or Sovereign Lady the
Queen and the Prisoners indicted.

This clearly differentiates between the two sets of Jurors, and probably accounts for the first column having numbers followed by a J, and the second coulmn having only a J. It still doesn't help determine the meaning of the numbers, however.

The second column seems to indicate that the Jurors are involved in criminal cases, and because of the reference to the "Body of the County", might these jurors be involved in inquests on the death of a person?

However, I know from checking other Quarter Session records that at least one fellow mentioned in the second column was also involved in at least three inquests as to the death of people.

To add to the puzzles this document raises, the very bottom of the list has this:

A note at the bottom of the document states that “Each of the Jurors aforesaid is separately attached by pledges To Wit Job Doe and Richard Roe”

[Galium]

Since 1948 in the UK  grand juries are no longer used to investigate and decide whether someone should be prosecuted (other countries, such as the US still have them).

https://www.britannica.com/topic/grand-jury

It could be that the two different jury headings reflect the different kinds of jury.