Catalogue description Lord Chancellor's Office and Lord Chancellor's Department: Registered Files

Correspondence and papers of the Lord Chancellor's Office and the Crown Office (until 1921) relating to the administrative, ecclesiastical, judicial and parliamentary powers and duties of the Lord Chancellor.

Subjects covered include the administration, organisation and staffing of the various courts, commissions, including the Porter Committee on the Law of Defamation, tribunals, and government departments for which he is or has been directly or indirectly responsible; constitutional questions; the drafting and interpretation of legislation; regulations and Supreme Court rules; emergency and wartime legislation, committees of inquiry; patronage and other ecclesiastical matters; the House of Lords; parliamentary elections; the legal profession; legal aid; the grant and issue of warrants, patents, orders; honours; visitorships; colonial and commonwealth matters; private international law; and enemy war crimes.

Some papers relate to matters of concern to the Lord Chancellor as a member of, and legal adviser to Cabinet.

Includes records relating to the Trustee Securities Committee (Lawrence Committee)( LCO 2/1043-1047), the County Court Rule Committee and the Supreme Court Rule Committee.

For papers on the Committee of Defamation see LCO 13

Lord Chancellor's Department, Crown Office, 1972-

Lord Chancellor's Office, Clerk of the Crown, 1875-1972