FOR hundreds of years, individuals – all male, unpaid and with no requirement for legal training – were rubber-stamped as JPs onto the Commission of the Peace, to run local government and sit in judgement in the lower courts. The only condition was that they owned freehold land of a certain value (latterly £100), and had the approval of the Chancellor (in practice the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire) who awarded a dedimus potestatem writ (meaning ‘we have given the power’). Lists of hundreds of JPs who were appointed to the Commission are held in the Hampshire Record Office under headings such as ‘Our most dear Cousins and Councillors’. The one for 1836 covers seven large sheets and represents the great and the good of the county.