54 Northern Circuit, Lord Mansfieldand Baron Smythe. 1758 July 8, York, at the Guildhall July 8, York, York Castle July 18, Durham, at the Castle July 24, Newcastle on Tyne, at the Guildhall July 24, Northumberland, at the Guildhall July 29, Cumberland, at the City of Carlisle August 4, Westmorland, at Appleby August 9, Lancashire, at the Castle of Lancaster The circuit assignments required royal endorsement, as is indicated in the following note in Lloyd’s Evening Post, February 3, 1776: “Yesterday the Lord Chancellor was at Court, and laid before the Kingthe appointment of the Judges for the ensuing Lent Assize, which was approved of and signed by his Majesty The information contained in the summer assize calendars was not inviolate, but, as with the Westminster Hall and Guildhall sitting schedules, it was generally accurate. For the Lent assizes, there was one consistent inaccuracy. The two Chief Justices and the Chief Baron invariably appeared in the Lent assize schedule laid before the King and subsequently published, but as a rule they did not go. This was true, at least, if Parliament was in session; as noted in the London Chronicle, March 1—3, 1764: “Three Serjeants are commissioned to go the Lent assizes in the room of the Lord Chief Justices and the Lord Chief Baron, who are to attend the House of Peers”.In Lord Mansfield’s case, a variety of evidence indicates that he never traveled the Lent assizes as a judge. This may have been traditional for the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, rather than being due to Mansfield’s unusually heavy involvement in politics; in January 1755, Dudley Ryder recorded in his diary advice fromone of his clerks that “C. J. Lee never went any part of the winter circuit”.’’ Ryder’s diary gives additional particulars about the management of the circuits. He was advised by another clerk that the Chief Justice, if he pleases, goes “first on the plea side at Hertford, then in Essex on the Crown side where [there are] a good many prisoners, then at Kent on the plea side where [there is] but little business, then on the Crown [side] at Sussex, where [there is] but little business, then at Kingston on the criminal side where [there is] a good deal of business”; further, “[t]hat the Midland Circuit has little business of any side For a full description of the business of preparation for the circuits, see Cockburn, J. S., A History of English Assizes 1S78—1714, 1972, pp. 49—62. I have located similar notices in the newspapers, although sometimes describing only one or two of the Chiefs, for the Lent assizes for 1766, 1770, 1775, 1778 and 1782. Ryder Diary, 21 January 1755.
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