Description:As Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire, Granville, Earl Gower was responsible for overseeing the maintenance of law and order in the County.
A notable document amongst the papers relating to Earl Gower’s Lieutenancy is a letter addressed to Earl Gower and a petition addressed to the King, made by a group of men imprisoned in Stafford Gaol.
The letter to Earl Gower, dated 13th September 1762 requests that Granville pass the enclosed petition to the King. It reads ‘we humbly beg the favour of your Lordshipp to deliver the inclosed Petition to his Majesty at the Christning of the Prince, or at any other time when your Lordshipp shall think most proper’. The prisoners add that Gower’s undertaking this duty ‘will lay us, our familys, & friends under the greatest obligation’. They sign the letter as ‘Your Lordshipps poor distressed & most humble servants’.
The enclosed petition is entitled ‘The humble Petition of the several persons whose names are hereunto subscribed being now poor Prisoners confined for debt in the County Gaol of Stafford’.
The aim of the petition was to encourage the King ‘to take their miserable case into your Royal consideration & exert in favour…& to grant to your Majesties poor Petitioners such Relief as your Majesty in your Royal wisdom shall think fit’.
In order to encourage the King to provide them with ‘Relief’, the prisoners' petition is written in a persuasive manner, emphasising their unjust imprisonment and consequent suffering. The petition describes the prisoners as ‘poor humble petitioners’ who have ‘by unavoidable losses, & misfortunes, & others by the oppression of cruel, & designing men…been deprived of all or most of their property, & rendred incapable of paying their debts’. The Petition evokes sympathy for the prisoners by describing their poor condition, stating that they are ‘starving’.
The Petition also offers many compliments to the King, including a long passage celebrating the King’s ‘happy Accession to the Throne’ which added ‘Lustre to the Diadem’. The petition also commends the King on his ‘happy Marriage with a Protestant Princess of an illustrious House & the most shining vertues’ and ‘The Birth and Christening of the Prince of Wales’. It is significant that these events are highlighted with large lettering in the Petition.
The Petition concludes by again emphasising the suffering of the prisoners. They complain about ‘being deprived of that sweet blessing Liberty the glory of the English name & nation’. The petition requests directly ‘that your Majesty will be pleased to restore to your Majesties poor humble petitioners the most inestimable blessing (Liberty)’.
The Petition demonstrates how the legal system worked in the middle of the eighteenth century. Prisoners were kept in a County gaol under the jurisdiction of the Deputy Lieutenants and Lieutenants of the County. With no formal process of appeal, prisoners were forced to petition for their release. In this case, the prisoners took advantage of the prominent political and social position of the Lord Lieutenant of the County, Earl Gower, asking him to present their cause to the King in person.