Catalogue description Records of the Office of the Lord Chancellors' Visitors

Apart from the period in which the Court of Wards was responsible for the custody of the persons and estates of those considered to be of unsound mind, the crown's jurisdiction in lunacy was committed to the Lord Chancellor, assisted by Chancery masters, to whom commissions de lunatico inquirendo were addressed, and the Clerk of the Custodies of Lunatics and Idiots, who was responsible for making out and enrolling grants of custody. On the abolition of the latter office in 1832 a Secretary of Lunatics was appointed.

In the same year the Lord Chancellor was given responsibility for the appointment of Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy and under an act of 1833 he appointed visitors to visit those persons of unsound mind whose property and affairs fell within the jurisdiction of the Chancery masters. These arrangements for visiting were continued when, in 1842, the duties of the Chancery masters in such suits passed to Commissioners in Lunacy, re-named Masters in Lunacy in 1845.

Under the Lunacy Act 1890 the Office of the Master in Lunacy was constituted the Management and Administration Department of the Supreme Court of Judicature and the Chancery visitors were formed into a separate office. The duties of the visitors included investigation and inquiries into the care and treatment, mental and bodily health, and arrangements for maintenance and comfort of the persons they were directed to visit.

In 1947 the Management and Administration Department was re-styled the Court of Protection. Under the Mental Health Act 1959, the visitors were given the duty of investigating the capacity to manage and administer their property and affairs of those persons whose suits fell within the jurisdiction of that court.