Catalogue description Palatinate of Lancaster: Court of Chancery, Manchester District Registry: Registrar's Orders

This series contains Registrar's orders for the Manchester District Registry from October 1857 to January 1877. The orders concern interlocutories made by a solicitor's application on behalf of a party involved in the action.

The orders are made by the District Registrar to activate cases in his jurisdiction, and have a variety of objectives to activate cases. They secure more time for evidence; procure documents in 7, 10 or 14 days; fix a date by which affidavits are to be filed, or exceptions filed to answers (where the plaintiff takes exception to a defendant's answer to his complaint).

Other orders give defendants more time to act or plead, answer or 'demur not demurring alone' to the plaintiff's complaint; require the defendant to pay his own costs; or provide time for the plaintiff to file interrogatories (abbreviated to 'interries') for the examination ('exmon') of the defendant. Orders often contain references to decrees of the court which supply further information about the case. Although the orders are not always in strict chronological sequence, they are never far out of sequence. If an application is made by the defendant's solicitor, the latter's name is often supplied.

Each of the volumes starts with an alphabetical index of the cases, by plaintiff, to which the Registrar's orders that follow apply. Pagination is by stamped numbers on each side of a page. The starting date of PL 42/2 is 29 Aug 1873 (Bennett v The Union Bank). The annexed order illustrates the abbreviations conventionally used in recording orders: for 'solr', read 'solicitor'; for 'plt', read 'plaintiff'; for 'deft', read 'defendant'.

The order of 29 Aug 1873 is here given as a specimen, the abbreviations being expanded: Upon the application of the solicitor for the plaintiff and with the consent of the solicitors for the defendant I do order that the time for closing evidence in this cause be enlarged until the 2nd day of November 1873. And that the fortnight during which any witness who has made or may make an affidavit is to be subject to cross-examination be also enlarged for 14 days from the said 2nd day of November 1873. And I do order that the costs of this application be costs in the cause. (signed) A Wilbraham District Registrar.

Lancashire Chancery Court, Manchester District Registry, 1875-1971

Palatinate of Lancaster, Chancery Court, Manchester District Registry, 1857-1875