Catalogue description Registrar of the High Court of Delegates, and Registrar of Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Causes of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: Muniment Books

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Details of DEL 9
Reference: DEL 9
Title: Registrar of the High Court of Delegates, and Registrar of Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Causes of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: Muniment Books
Description:

Muniment books of the High Court of Delegates and from 1833 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council used to register three main types of documents:

  • Copies of exhibits delivered out of the custody of the registrar.
  • Grants of wills proved and grants of administration issued.
  • Copies of documents relating to the conduct of business and the appointment of officials, including letters patent appointing registrars and orders in Council.

The documents registered relate mainly to testamentary causes and there is a high incidence of wills recorded, but other documents, tendered as evidence, include petitions, letters, land conveyances, bonds, Chancery bills, articles of agreement in maritime affairs, financial accounts and letters. Exhibits are sometimes accompanied by receipts written by the exhibitants or their proctors acknowledging the return of documents. In some instances receipts for sums of money or bequests ordered to be paid out of funds deposited in the Court are also recorded.

All volumes have original indexes.
Date: 1652-1859
Arrangement:

Whilst in the custody of the Principal Probate Registry of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice, the volumes were mostly rebound and some of their original indexes were amended, and manuscript notes in the hand of G R Rodman, an official of the Principal Probate Registry, were written on the documents or on papers left between the leaves of some of the volumes.
Related material:

Indexes are in

DEL 11
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Physical description: 10 volume(s)
Immediate source of acquisition:

In 1962 Supreme Court of Judicature
Custodial history: The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council's responsibility for appeals in English and Welsh probate causes was transferred to the House of Lords when the Court of Probate was created in 1858. The records in DEL 9 were transferred to the Court of Probate's registry, on account of the high incidence of records relating to probate among them. They were inherited from that registry by its successor, the Principal Probate Registry of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice.
Publication note:

An index to testamentary exhibits registered in DEL 9 is in The Genealogist new series XI and XII .

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