Catalogue description Court of King's Bench, Crown Side, and Supreme Court of Judicature, High Court of Justice, King's Bench Division: Pleadings

An apparently random collection of a few pleadings filed in crown cases in the Court of King's Bench, mostly of the mid to late nineteenth century, giving a very patchy chronological coverage but including some year bundles.

They include pleas in answer to indictments or informations, demurrers to indictments or the return of a mandamus; joinders to demurrers or to writs of error; replications by the prosecutor; rejoinders by defendants; traverses by defendants to returns of writs of mandamus; disclaimers by defendants; and special cases.

With a few exceptions they are very formal documents, and serve mainly to illustrate the technicalities of pleading by filing papers in court. None later than 1906 seem to have survived.

King's Bench Division depositions in crown cases are in:

J 17/650

J 17/706

At least one of the draft writs, the writ of restitution for Shropshire dated 19 November 3 George IV, was used by Richard Gude, a former clerk in court of the Crown Office, as an example in the formulary included in his account of Crown Office practice ‘The Practice of the Crown Side of the Court of King's Bench’ (1828), II, pp 634-635.