Catalogue description Palatinate of Lancaster: Court of Chancery, Liverpool District Registry: Entry Books of Decrees and Orders

The records in this series record the decrees and orders of the Liverpool District Registry from August 1853, when district registries were first established at Preston and Liverpool, until November 1970. Liverpool's commercial standing is increasingly reflected in the number of partnership and company lawsuits on which the Registry adjudicated.

The cases concern problems of inheritance and distribution created by unsatisfactory wills, and trusteeships and minorities, where the Chancery Court has taken on an equitable role in administering contentious assets. Many of the actions relate to business partnerships, the problems of their dissolution, of partition of stock, of companies winding up. There are cross references to the Liverpool cause books. Many of the early entries concern cases which turn on disputed wills, the rights of minors, families left in debt, and the like.

These entry books, including in each case an index arranged by plaintiffs' surnames, report in outline the procedure in each case that came before the court and what decree or order was made on it. The date and names of plaintiffs and defendants head each entry, followed by the plaintiff's method of process and its filing, in the form of a bill of complaint, by the District Registrar. The order made after the hearing of the case appears in full and concludes with the words 'By the court'. The cases involved can often be traced in the cause books from references supplied with entries in this series. The orders of the court are not to be confused with the Registrars' orders to regulate the proceedings in it.

Lancashire Chancery Court, Liverpool District Registry, 1875-1971

Palatinate of Lancaster, Chancery Court, Liverpool District Registry, 1853-1875