Catalogue description Registrar of the High Court of Delegates: Personal Answers and Depositions

Search within or browse this series to find specific records of interest.

Date range

Details of DEL 3
Reference: DEL 3
Title: Registrar of the High Court of Delegates: Personal Answers and Depositions
Description:

Personal answers by respondents replying to the libels of appellants, and depositions taken by examination in London which were kept in book form by the Registrar of the High Court of Delegates.

The series contains two bundles of unbound depositions covering 1636/[7] and 1640-1735.
Date: 1564-1735
Arrangement:

Depositions relating to a particular cause are not always together because the records are in chronological rather than cause sequence.
Related material:

For the gap in personal answers between 1656 and 1667 see HCA 13/141
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

High Court of Delegates, 1533-1833
Physical description: 24 volume(s)
Custodial history: The majority of the records which now form the series DEL 1 to DEL 8 were transferred to the Public Record Office at various dates between 1863 and 1923. They came from the registry of the High Court of Admiralty and its successor, the Admiralty registry of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court.
Administrative / biographical background:

The appellant having tendered a libel comprising a series of allegations, the respondent was required to supply personal answers to each of the allegations in turn. Personal answers were taken usually by an examiner or before a commission, paralleling the procedures followed when taking evidence; on very rare occasions they might be given in open court.

Once the preliminaries had been completed, the main, proof, stage of the cause would be reached. Two sorts of evidence came before the judges-delegate: exhibits (i.e. documents) and depositions, i.e. written 'witness statements' being replies to a series of questions.

Have you found an error with this catalogue description?

Help with your research

How to look for...