Catalogue description Office of the Commissioners of Crown Lands and The Crown Estate Office: Legal Branch: Solicitor's Registered Files

From the establishment of the office of the Commissioners of Crown Lands in 1925 to 1950 legal advice and solicitors' services were provided to the commissioners by the Treasury Solicitors. In April 1950 management of Crown foreshores was transferred to the commissioners from the Ministry of Transport and at that time it was decided that the commissioners should have their own solicitor. A Legal Branch was established, which conducted business relating to all Crown properties, including the purchasing of leases, freeholds and properties of all sorts, grants of easement, conveyances of reclaimed land, the issuing of licenses, shooting and fishing rights, claims to foreshore rights, and questions of liability relating to The Crown Estate.

Initially the head of the Legal Branch was not an employee of The Crown Estate: the first post holder was also the Legal Adviser and Solicitor to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (from 1955, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who acted as solicitor not only to The Crown Estate, but also to the Forestry Commission and the Tithe Redemption Commission. He was based in an office in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries building in Whitehall, although Legal Branch staff were located at The Crown Estate offices in Cambridge Gate.

Following the Crown Estate Act 1956, a part-time deputy solicitor was appointed on the establishment of The Crown Estate, and he gradually assumed control of work previously performed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food solicitor, until by 1958 all legal work for The Crown Estate commissioners was carried out in house and the link to the Ministry was broken.