Catalogue description Surveyor General of Crown Lands: Entry Books of Reports on Crown Leases

This series contains three entry books of reports on Crown leases made in the eighteenth century. The original petition to the Treasury requesting a revision of a lease may usually be found transcribed also.

The petition was referred by the lords commissioners of the Treasury to the surveyor general of Crown lands for a report. The reports describe the property and lease, and contain, occasionally, a plan. The report was duly considered by the lords commissioners who then requested the surveyor general to send to the appropriate auditor for a particular of the premises and make a constat (a detailed record of the terms and considerations of a lease), or to rate the premises, in order for a new lease to be passed.

Copies of the lords commissioners' instructions as described above are normally in the entry books, though later in the century the text of the commissioners' final order to the surveyor general is replaced by a note that a Treasury warrant for a constat or particular has been issued. The petitions for the revision of leases were generated for a number of reasons, including deterioration of the property, a request for an additional term, or the death of the tenant.

The third volume ends abruptly in June 1786. The second and third volumes are indexed by the name of the petitioner.

After 1797 these reports were (pursuant to 34 Geo. III, c.75, s.21) printed in the Reports to Parliament made every third year, later annually, by the Surveyors General and their successors.

Surveyor General of Woods and Forests, 1715-1810