MASTER OF THE ROLLS

Evening Star, Issue 18533, 16 January 1924, Page 10

MASTER OF THE ROLLS

QUAINT HISTORY OF OFFICE. The recent appointment of Sir Ernest M. Pollock as Master of the Rolls has drawn attention to the very’ interesting origin and development of a high judicial office. In very early days a Clerk of the Chancellor’s department of the Curia Regis, where all Writs, Charters, etc., were prepared for the Great Seal, is mentioned (Dialogus de Scaccario) as supervisor of the Scribe who composed the Chancellor’s Roll (which quickly grew into Rolls). During the Middle Ages the principal of the many Clerks (or Masters) who assisted the Chancellor was styled the Keeper of the Rolls. John de Langton, 1286, was the first. KEEPER OF THE DOMUS CONVERSORUM. In 1516 William de Ayremynno for the first time combined Keeper of the Rolls with Keeper of the Domus Conversorum in Chancery Lane, a homo since Henry lll.’s time for converted Jews. There ho deposited the Rolls. The House was in 1373 granted by Edward 111. to the Keeper, and so became the College of the Chancery Men, and by putting the Clerk into possession thereof the Chancellor made him Keeper. He very soon acquired importance; assisted the Chancellor judicially; ranked in 1588 after the Chief Justice, but before the Chiefs of the Common Pleas and Exchequer; and in 1433, while the Chancellor was in France, exorcised the jurisdiction. As the Chancery Court developed the judicial duties of all the Masters increased; but from the first a large share fell to the Master of the Rolls, whom the Judges at times assisted. The designation, however, does not appear in any statute until 1495. In Henry VIII.'s reign he was occasionally named Vice-Chancellor, and until then was always a cleric. A SINECURE. James I. took another view. Ho regarded the office as a sinecure in spite of the Special Commission delegating a jurisdiction distinct from that of the other Master to the Master of the Rolls to hear causes generally, a practice since Wolsey’s time so usual that Coke states he hears causes and makes Orders in the Chancellor’s absence. Kin" James, however, appointed a Scottish favorite who know nothing of the duties; but not again. After 1623 the Master with the Chancellor regulated the practice of the Court, and despite the jealousy of the other Masters came to bo in fact the Chancellor’s deputy generally. The Statutes of 1729 and 1833 established and increased his authority and powers ; and that of 1838 founding the Public Record Office constituted him Keeper or Master of all the Rolls and Records there.

Formerly he could sit in the Commons, a usage defended by Lord Macaulay, but ended by the Judicature Act, 1873. He was made a judge 6i the Chancery Division and ex officio of the Court of Appeal, November, 1875; in 1881 of the Court of Appeal exclusively. Sir William Grant, “ a perfect model of judicial excellence ”; Henry Bickersteth, Lord Langßale, “ the Father of Record Reform”; SR George Jessel, a Jew; Lords Esher, CozensHardy, Swinfen, and Sterndale are amongst the more famous Masters.—S. M. De Rhodes, in ‘John o’ London’s Weekly.’