Chancery: Petty Bag Office: Miscellaneous Papers, Exhibits etc

C 217

c1509-1910

Working documents, office copies and a little correspondence of successive clerks of the Petty Bag, plus exhibits in bankruptcy suits, patent specifications, lunacy proceedings, printed statutes, writs and returns, and appointments of escheators and other officers.

Also found are three groups of draft commissions of escheat, of the land and property of those dying without known heir, of aliens, and of convicted felons. The series also includes a merchant adventurer's entry book from 1547-1553, a 'History of the Troubles and Tryall of Arch[bishop] Laud', and some eighteenth-century cloth samples. The bankruptcy exhibits include business papers relating to soapmakers, builders, outfitters, general merchants and brewers.

The early part of this series is in relatively good order, but the later part is highly miscellaneous, and looks like the physical detritus of the Petty Bag Office. Some of the miscellaneous papers are in a state of disorder and considerable dirt. They appear to have been bundled or boxed almost at random: while some bundles of like matter are neatly tied together, they were not treated as sub-series, nor placed in consecutive boxes.

Public Record(s)

English and Latin

188 bundles, rolls and volumes

Topics

Litigation

Mental illness

Trade and commerce

Conflict

Debt