VPRS 3261 County Court Ledger

This series was created to record financial information connected with management of cases heard before local County Courts. The requirement to create this record was originally provided by Section 11 of An Act for the More Easy Recovery of Certain Debts and Demands 1857. Under this section the Clerk of Courts was required to "keep an account of all court fees and fines payable or paid into court and of all moneys paid into and out of court and shall enter an account of all such fees fines and moneys in a ledger belonging to the court..". The ledger appears to have been one of at least three volumes established under the 1857 Act to record information about cases brought before it, the other two being the County Court Register and, until c.1865, the County Court Journal. Each case recorded in the journal was given the same case number as that for the com[plaint] recorded in the Register. Information recorded included the [com]plaint number and amounts paid or received relating to a large number of court processes including the issuing of summons, orders, document filing, affidavits, bonds, securities, Bailiff's fees, fines and authorities to obtain money from the Court. Each of these processes is identified in separate columns within the folio. The names of the parties to an action are not recorded as this information was to be found in the Register. The provisions in the 1857 Act were replaced by s12 of the County Courts Statute 1865 which simply stated clerks needed to make a minute of all fines and other proceedings of the court in such books as shall be prescribed. The form of record prescribed is subject to research but it appears that some Clerks continued to use the pre 1865 ledgers.