Catalogue description High Court of Admiralty: Prize Court: Prize Papers

The High Court of Admiralty Prize Court only existed in wartime, being revived by commission as needed. As a result, the papers are largely arranged by war as follows:-

• the Anglo-Spanish War, 1st Anglo-Dutch War, 2nd Anglo-Dutch War, 3rd Anglo-Dutch War;
• the Nine Years War;
• the War of the Spanish Succession, and the War of the Quadripartite Alliance;
• the War of the Austrian Succession;
• the Seven Years War;
• the War of American Independence / American Revolutionary War and the 4th Anglo-Dutch War: uniquely, these include the case papers for prize cases handled by the British New York Vice-Admiralty Court;
• the French Revolutionary War;
• the Napoleonic War and the War of 1812;
• the War of 1815.

Prize Papers for the Crimean War / Russian War are in HCA 33.

Digitisation in the Prize Papers Project will start with the the War of the Austrian Succession, where the papers have been newly catalogued by TNA in 2018-2021.

Sorting and cataloguing is taking place on the Anglo-Spanish War, 1st Anglo-Dutch War, 2nd Anglo-Dutch War, 3rd Anglo-Dutch War and the Nine Years War.

An interim project to identify only the details of captures in the the War of American Independence / American Revolutionary War and the 4th Anglo-Dutch War is taking place, supported by the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation.