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Series
Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, later Supreme Court of Judicature: Divorce...
Catalogue reference: J 77
What's it about?
J 77
Files of papers arising from petitions for divorce, judicial separation, declarations of legitimacy, applications for protection of a wife's earnings, etc, in the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes and Probate, Divorce and Admiralty...
Full description and record details
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Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
- J 77
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Title (The name of the record)
- Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, later Supreme Court of Judicature: Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Files
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Date (When the record was created)
- 1858-2002
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Description (What the record is about)
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Files of papers arising from petitions for divorce, judicial separation, declarations of legitimacy, applications for protection of a wife's earnings, etc, in the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes and Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice. Some later files also relate to appeals from decisions of magistrates' courts in matrimonial causes.
Access is by the indexes in J 78.
Between 1858 and 1927 almost all divorce files survive. Between 1928 and 1937, the 80% of suits that were filed in the Central Registry are in J 77. The 20% of suits that were filed in the new district registries were destroyed (they are not indexed by J 78). After 1938, through to cases where petitions were filed in 1972, very few survive for each year. Files containing petitions dated after 1972 have not been transferred to The National Archives.
Many files contain marriage certificates. Later files (after 1938) may contain photographs.
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Arrangement (Information about the filing sequence or logical order of the record)
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Arrangement
For the period 1858 to 1866 the files are arranged numerically under the first letter of petitioners' names. Thereafter they are in a numerical sequence of file numbers covering overlapping blocks of years.
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Related material (A cross-reference to other related records)
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For registers of divorce cases of HM Procurator General see TS 29
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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)
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- Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, 1858-1875
- Supreme Court of Judicature, Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, 1875-1970
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Physical description (The amount and form of the record)
- 4693 boxes, bundles and files
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Access conditions (Information on conditions that restrict or affect access to the record)
- Subject to 30 year closure
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Immediate source of acquisition (When and where the record was acquired from)
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from 1996 The Court Service
1987-1995 Lord Chancellor's Department
1962 Supreme Court of Judicature
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Subjects (Categories and themes found in our collection (our subject list is under development, and some records may have no subjects or fewer than expected))
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Accruals (Indicates whether the archive expects to receive further records in future)
- No further accruals are anticipated.
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Selection and destruction information (Information about how the record was selected for archiving)
- In most cases the files have been weeded and contain only minutes, pleadings and decrees, but in certain selected suits, illustrating particular kinds of proceedings, papers have been preserved in their entirety. From 1938 specimens of the files (for each year) have been selected in order to illustrate the changing nature of divorce in accordance with the recommendations of the Report of the Committee on Legal Records (Cmnd 3084) of 1966.
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Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C9685/
Catalogue hierarchy
Over 27 million records
This record is held at The National Archives, Kew
311,299 records
Within the department: J
Records of the Supreme Court of Judicature and related courts
You are currently looking at the series: J 77
Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, later Supreme Court of Judicature: Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Files
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