Catalogue description Palatinate of Lancaster: Court of Chancery, Preston District Registry: Accounts Ledgers

This series contains accounts ledgers of the Preston District Registry. There are seven volumes from July 1873, not their original starting point, to October 1970. These are the only Lancashire District Registry accounts ledgers hitherto transferred to the Public Record Office. Much of their interest derives from funds administered by the Chancery Court in trust, but it would be necessary to turn to related records to make anything of them.

The ledgers owe their existence to 'cash in court', that is, funds administered by the court in trust, which are detailed in these ledgers, with an index to each entry. The Principal Registrar was responsible for the accounts by virtue of his office. The funds involved belonged to the the suitors of the court, and the ledgers stated when and in whose names they were deposited or invested, and whose accounts they were.

The court acted under its fiduciary powers of equitable jurisdiction to safeguard the rights of inheriting minors, beneficiaries of disputed wills, claims of creditors on impoverished estates encumbered by debt, the sale of a testator's business or effects, liabilities or otherwise of partners in business or wound up companies. It superintended, if necessary, the sale of effects, the realisation of assets, the listing of creditors' claims, and the distribution or partition of an estate. Lapsed charitable institutions such as hospitals, and borough corporations might also look to the court to solve problems of asset disposal.

Pagination is not invariably numerical. For example, PL 40/1 has a series from A to T following page 227. Some of the accounts in this volume, which dates from July 1873, have been carried forward: opposite page A, just referred to, is an index tying page references in this ledger to older ledger references such as 1/84, 2/87, and 3/179. This suggests that there were at least three earlier ledgers. If there were no more than that, the court must have had much less business in its first 20 years, as the volume is given over to very few years, apart from some later additions. The fact that PL 40/1 is numbered volume 4, however, seems to justify the supposition.

The Principal Registrar was responsible for these accounts ex officio. Page A, referred to above, bears the heading 'An account of the funds of the suitors of the Court of Chancery for which the late Peter Catterall became accountable in virtue of his office as Principal Registrar, and when and in whose names the same were deposited or invested and upon what particular accounts they were held'. This summarises the contents of the ledgers; more useful information than these 'cash in court' computations afford can be found in related series from the cases that initiated the accounts.

Each of these ledgers have their own alphabetical indexes to the accounts detailed.

Lancashire Chancery Court, Preston District Registry, 1875-1971

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