Catalogue description Chancery: Crown Office: Long Account Books

This series consists of nine large account books in which fees received for a variety of letters patent or similar instruments were recorded, and their apportionment among Chancery and other officers of state laid out in appropriate columns across adjacent pages.

The record is from March 1783 to June 1870, with one apparent gap early in 1800, and is set out quarterly. The annual intake is not computed, and varies according to the accidents of business. The clerk of the Crown, in attendance on the lord chancellor, was in charge of the Crown Office where the accounts were made up, and a leading beneficiary of the fees received, for commissions in the royal service, pardons, writs of summons to the Lords and of election to the Commons, returns to which were 'filed' by him.

Until 1835 the accounts were swollen by business done for the hanaper, salary, and other disbursements but thereafter were reduced to a page per quarter year.