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

DEL 3

1564-1735

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.

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

For the gap in personal answers between 1656 and 1667 see HCA 13/141

Public Record(s)

English

24 volume(s)

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.

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.