Records of Equity Side: The Clerk of Records and Writs

Records of the Clerk of Records and Writs appointed in 1842.

Pleadings are in C 14, C 15, C 16 and C 18

Administration and other summonses are in C 17

Cause books are in C 32

Leases and mortgages, etc, are in C 45

Records upon outlawries are in C 88

Copies of private acts of Parliament and legal records brought into Chancery on certiorari are in C 89

Surveys of church livings are in C 94

The Chancery orders formerly assigned to C 34 and C 35 have now been destroyed.

• Chancery, Office of the Clerk of Records and Writs, 1842-1875
• Supreme Court of Judicature, Chancery Division, 1875-1875

When the six clerks were abolished in 1842, it was provided that their remaining duties should be transferred to a Clerk of Records and Writs. Thenceforward pleadings, depositions and other equity proceedings were filed together, and the whole procedure was undertaken by a subordinate staff of twenty-one clerks, in contrast to the large number who had preceded them.

This change was effected despite the addition of extra duties to the office as a result of the abolition of other clerkships in 1842; for example, the registrar of affidavits and the subpoena office. The Clerk of Records and Writs was transferred to the Chancery Division of the Supreme Court of Judicature in 1875.