Catalogue description Chancery and Lord Chancellor's Office: Crown Office: Original Letters Patent, etc.

This series consists of some 130 letters patent on parchment prepared for the clerk of the Crown in Chancery. A few of them have papers annexed.

They may have been drafts, precedents, part of the Crown Office archive, or not paid for; the precise reason for their retention is not clear.

The records include commissions to provide judicial substitutes in the Court of Chancery in the absence of the lord chancellor. There is a collection of charters of incorporation of banks, boroughs, colleges, companies, hospitals, institutes, schools, societies and universities. There is also a draft patent of 1914 granting licence to build a factory.