Series
Lord Chancellor's Office: Committee to Enquire into Poor Persons Rules 1919
Catalogue reference: LCO 32
What's it about?
LCO 32
Minutes, drafts of report, list of poor persons cases and miscellaneous statistics from the Committee to Enquire into Poor Persons Rules.
Full description and record details
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Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
- LCO 32
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Title (The name of the record)
- Lord Chancellor's Office: Committee to Enquire into Poor Persons Rules 1919
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Date (When the record was created)
- 1918-1919
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Description (What the record is about)
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Minutes, drafts of report, list of poor persons cases and miscellaneous statistics from the Committee to Enquire into Poor Persons Rules.
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Related material (A cross-reference to other related records)
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Records of the Poor Persons Department are in
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Held by (Who holds the record)
- The National Archives, Kew
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Legal status (A note as to whether the record being described is a Public Record or not)
- Public Record(s)
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Language (The language of the record)
- English
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Creator(s) (The creator of the record)
- Committee to Enquire into Poor Persons Rules, 1919-1919
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Physical description (The amount and form of the record)
- 8 files and volumes
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Administrative / biographical background (Historical or biographical information about the creator of the record and the context of its creation)
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The Poor Persons Rules 1913 relied upon the willingness of barristers and solicitors to undertake the work involved without remuneration. The outbreak of the First World War resulted in a large increase in poor persons petitioning for divorce under the rules and the taxing masters adopted the practice of allowing the payment of solicitors' out of pocket expenses in these cases including clerk's time and office overheads.
The voluntary nature of the scheme and the difficulties encountered by people in finding the sums needed to meet their costs resulted in the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry under the chairmanship of Mr Justice Lawrence to enquire into the administration of the Poor Persons Rules. Following the Committee's report in October 1919 new rules were introduced which confined recoverable costs to actual out of pocket expenses only.
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Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C10270/
Catalogue hierarchy
This record is held at The National Archives, Kew
Within the department: LCO
Records of the Lord Chancellor's Office and of various legal commissions and committees
You are currently looking at the series: LCO 32
Lord Chancellor's Office: Committee to Enquire into Poor Persons Rules 1919