C 2231740-1864Chancery: Petty Bag Office: Reports of Commissioners on Courts of Justice
Reports, received by successive lord chancellors, of various commissions of inquiry into aspects of the administration of courts and other matters.
The report is usually preceded by the royal commission outlining the purpose and scope of the inquiry and naming the commissioners. The procedures adopted by the commissioners are then described with reference to the objects of their inquiry, and recommendations made to ameliorate the state of affairs which prompted the investigation.
The object of the earliest reports concerned the offices and fees of the courts of Chancery (1740 and 1816), King's Bench (1818), Common Pleas (1819), the Exchequer (1822), the ecclesiastical courts (1823), and the Admiralty, Delegates and Prize Courts (1824).
Later reports targeted the practice of the courts; the process, practice and system of pleading; the state of the county courts; and the state of the law.
Oddments include a report on the Fleet, Marshalsea and Palace Court prisons of 1818, and a report on the accountant general's department in Chancery of 1864.