| Description | Papers mainly concerned with recommendations and appointements of persons to serve on the Commission of the Peace. The prevailing theme of the papers is the serious deficiency of acting magistrates in the various divisions of the county; a memorial to the Lord Lieutenant in 1847 from the chairman of the Anglesey Union states that there are only 3 magistrates in the 2nd Petty Sessional Division consisting of 37 parishes. Of these one is a member of Parliament, absent for the best part of the year (445). Holyhead raises a similar cry in 1853 (495). The appointment of clerical magistrates, unavoidable owing to the lack of qualified laymen, gives rise to some controversy; by 1854 there were 10 clergymen to 7 laymen on the Bench (488, 489, 508). Attention is also drawn in 1850, and again in 1853, to the case of Dr Robert Briscoe Owen, whose appointment to the Commission is strongly opposed, on moral and other grounds by Sir Richard Williams Bulkeley (462, 480, 483, 484) |
| AdminHistory | Dr Robert Briscoe was a retired surgeon of the Indian Army. He came of an old-established Llangefni family - the Owens of Pencraig and was a brother of Dr H. Davies Owen, Rector of Pentraeth. |