Law and authority in Upper Canada: The Justices of the Peace in the Newcastle District, 1803--1840

In frontier Ontario, the system of criminal justice administration relied heavily on the services of appointed magistrates who were untrained in law. Justices of the Peace performed many duties that would later become the responsibility of professional police and legally-trained officials. Despite the importance of the roles they performed, magistrates been the subject of few detailed studies, and those tend to examine only a particular aspect of their activities. This study explores more generally the functions that magistrates performed in criminal justice administration and the meanings of those roles in the broader social context.; Using the court records of the Newcastle District, this dissertation describes and analyzes the activities of the magistrates at the pre-trial stage, in matters over which they had summary jurisdiction, and at the intermediate court of Quarter Sessions. It shows that justices actively carried out their responsibilities, and they did so in ways which demonstrated knowledge about the law and the effects that their actions had on others in their communities. Evidence suggests that magistrates acted to mitigate the effects of the criminal law on those who came into contact with the justice system.; This study also sheds light on aspects of the social and political history of Upper Canada. Settlers in frontier Upper Canada were remarkably litigious. Their willingness to use the criminal justice system and the services that magistrates performed within that system suggests a degree of popular legitimacy that some historians have argued was lacking in the upper courts. That the authority of most magistrates was viewed as legitimate might explain why most people did not become so alienated from the regime that they participated in the rebellion in 1837.