Catalogue description General and miscellaneous records of the Treasury Solicitor and HM Procurator General

The Prize Department of HM Procurator General was established at the beginning of the First World War to carry out the functions of that Office in respect of prize matters. The Department had general control of all prize matters and was responsible for advising the various government departments and committees concerned with prize and blockade questions and the officers representing the Crown in prize matters overseas. The Department also dealt with references from overseas prize courts.

The Prize Department was charged with the examination of all claims for the release of captured property and for damages arising out of the exercise of belligerent rights at sea, with the seizure of goods or attachment of money where no other authority would take the necessary action and with the preparation of affidavits of seizure of goods seized in London. In the other parts of the United Kingdom solicitors were normally appointed to act as agents for HM Procurator General. The Department also took charge of the preparation of legal documents necessary to the prosecution of prize cases on behalf of the Crown, and issued instructions for the institution of proceedings. All litigation was carried out by the Law Courts Branch of the Treasury Solicitor's Department under the general instructions of the Prize Department. Litigation included all proceedings in the Prize Court for decrees of condemnation and interlocutory proceedings arising from them; appeals to the Privy Council from decisions of the prize courts in London or overseas; the defence of claims against the Crown for damages; and the representation of the Crown on applications for prize bounty by officers and men of ships of the Royal Navy.

The Prize Department was directly responsible for proceedings before the Naval Prize Tribunal. This Tribunal was established under the Naval Prize Act 1918 to determine questions relating to naval prizes and to the administration of the general Naval Prize Fund into which proceeds of sale of prizes found to be droits (rights) of the Crown were paid in place of the older practice of making grants of naval prize to individual captors.

The Tribunal was primarily concerned to distinguish between droits of the Crown which were paid into the fund for distribution between the Fleet, and droits of the Admiralty which were paid into the Exchequer. The Prize Department provided the clerk to the Tribunal and undertook, on behalf of the Admiralty, the preparation of a list of droits of the Crown. The secretary of the Prize Department represented the Exchequer before the Tribunal in chambers or in non-contentious cases. He was also responsible for the preparation of certain test cases agreed by the Admiralty and the Treasury and in such cases acted for both sides. Test cases were heard in open court; the Attorney General appeared for the Exchequer, while the Solicitor General, and later the Judge Advocate of the Fleet, appeared for the Fleet.

The Prize Department also included the Procurator General's Intelligence Branch, formed in 1915 to assemble information concerning contraband cargoes seized as prize. This information was used as evidence in prize proceedings, and was based upon information gathered by the War Trade Department and later the War Trade Intelligence Department for use of the Contraband Committee. The Intelligence Branch was responsible for collecting and collating wireless messages, cables and letters intercepted by the censors, diplomatic and secret service reports, statistics and other general information to yield evidence relating to the cargoes of ships. The Prize Department sent an observer to the meetings of the Contraband Committee from the end of 1915 in order to keep the HM Procurator General advised of the ground on which the Committee acted in detaining ships in order that he could justify and maintain seizures of such vessels. The observer was also responsible for advising the Committee of the views of HM Procurator General.

The Prize Department was dissolved in 1923 though prize business continued for some years.