Commissioners of Supply minutes

In the 18th century the minutes of the commissioners begin with lengthy sederunts, mainly of the substantial landed gentry of the county. The newly appointed commissioners would swear the oaths of allegiance and adjuration (to weed out any Roman Catholics or Jacobites) and would then elect a preses (or chairman). They would also appoint a collector of the cess, or land tax, with an annual salary. They might need to deal with objections to individual commissioners, for example on the grounds that they were wrongly designated in the commission, or that they had sold part of their lands and were no longer worth the required minimum sum per annum. Thereafter their business would be almost exclusively with the collection of the cess and in particular its allocation, for example where a property had been divided, and to a lesser extent with roads and bridges. They will occasionally be found carrying out other statutory duties, for example pressurising the heritors of a parish into appointing (and paying) a parish schoolmaster. In the 19th century they acquired other roles, especially the collection of rogue money and county policing, and diseases of animals. They would be required to appoint members to various other bodies, such as Prison Boards. They also acted as a sounding-board for local opinion and petitioned parliament in favour of or against proposed measures. These might be bills with local, or local government implications, but might be quite general.

Use of Commissioners of Supply Minutes

For researchers the main areas of interest are the history of local taxation, roads and bridges, policing, etc., within an individual county, but they have a more general interest in showing the views of the governing class on a wide range of issues. They are of some family history interest, at least for individual commissioners, but for the wealthier lairds, who formed the great majority of the commissioners, there are also many alternative sources.