PAPERS OF THE VICE-ADMIRALTY COURT FOR SUSSEX

The High Court of Admiralty and the county vice-admiralty courts were all administered by civil lawyers until the nineteenth century. Almost all the civil lawyers in England and Wales were practising in the ecclesiastical courts, and so the High Court was staffed by members of Doctors' Commons and the vice-admiralty courts by the officers of diocesan or archidiaconal courts. It is for this reason that a group of seventeenth century vice-admiralty papers for Sussex have been preserved amongst the records of the bishops of Chichester. Normally the records of the ecclesiastical and the admiralty courts were kept completely separate and it is probably because of a mistake by Richard Bragge that this bundle has been preserved. He is known to have been employed in the registrar's office at Chichester as early as 1629 and after the Restoration he was deputy registrar of the diocese. He also signs many of the later mandates in this group as deputy registrar and many of the brief notes are addressed to him.

The procedure of the admiralty courts followed that of the ecclesiastical courts as closely as the differing subjects allowed. There were two main types of cause; the instance cause in which a civil action was brought between two private parties and the office cause which was begun in the Lord High Admiral's name. These two types corresponded to the instance and detection causes in the ecclesiastical courts. There was also a form of admiralty visitation and many of the documents in this group are concerned with this.

All mandates of the Sussex court were issued in the name of the Lord High Admiral. From 1638 to 1640 this was Algernon 10th Earl of Northumberland, from 1663 to 1678 James Duke of York, from 1676 to 1682 Charles II, and in 1686 James II. The Lord High Admiral appointed a commissary for the vice-admiralty court who, throughout the period covered, appears to have been the vicar-general and official principal of the diocese. He acted either in person or by a surrogate. Before 1642 the surrogates were generally clergymen, but after the Act preventing clergy from exercising temporal jurisdiction was passed (16 Chas. I, c.27) they were apparently laymen. The effects of this Act are mentioned in no. 24. Although it was repealed in 1660 (13 Chas. II, stat. 1, c.2) eighteen years of lay surrogates (for the admiralty courts continued to function throughout the Interregnum) appears to have established the custom. One surrogation has been preserved amongst these records. No information about the vice-admiralty registrar is preserved here, but he was probably appointed by the Lord High Admiral, following the practice of ecclesiastical courts. The marshal of the court was John Souter and his position would be equivalent to the apparitor's.

Of the instance causes only the attachments for ships and seamen, or the notes from which the attachments were prepared, have survived. These attachments were issued in the name of the Lord High Admiral and were returnable to the court of the commissary of his surrogate at the town hall at Brighton or Chichester. They are similar in appearance and form to ecclesiastical citations.

Office causes are better represented by attachments, depositions and affidavits. Much of the business, like that of the visitations, was concerned with salvage. If claimed it was presumably restored to the owner on payment of a reward to the finder; otherwise it was usually sold to the finder at a price which included his reward. The depositions (no. 134) are concerned with a wreck of Cakeham which was plundered by the inhabitants of Westbourne in 1676.

Visitations were apparently annual during the period and were usually held in the autumn or winter months. A citation for all seamen and fishermen to appear before the commissary was issued, in the Lord High Admiral's name, to the constables of all the littoral Hundreds. The constables were to cause the tithingmen to make a return of all the seamen and fishermen and to warn them to appear in the townhalls of Chichester, Brighton or on one occasion (no. 6) Arundel sessions house. It seems certain from the returns that, despite the form of the citation, all the seamen did not attend the visitation, but only sufficient to form a Hundred jury. It is possible that one man attended for each boat, since the majority were fishermen. The presentment was generally by the Hundred and was concerned with all manner of admiralty offences. The fine for the non-attendance of a juror was 6s. 8d.

It is unfortunate that the Act Book which ought to accompany these records has disappeared, since the number of seventeenth century vice-admiralty records which have survived is extremely small. Amongst the Admiralty records in the Public Record Office there are only records for Lancashire and Cheshire (1636-1639), and Jamaica (1662 & 1663) for this period (Giuseppi, vol. I, p.291). Further information about the administration of admiralty courts can be found in the Bulletin I. H. R., vol. XXII, pp. 139 - 151