VPRS 793 Reports

Full description

From 1841 to 1852 all Victorian Supreme Court cases were handled by the New South Wales Supreme Court, Port Phillip District under the Imperial Act 5 Vict No 9. It provided that the resident judge of the Port Phillip District should have exclusive jurisdiction to deal with civil and criminal cases. The Supreme Court had the same jurisdiction as that of the Lord High Chancellor in Equity. With the creation of the Supreme Court of Victoria (Act 15 Vict No 10) in 1852 the Master in Equity became a recognised officer in the Court in Victoria. In 1883, by the Supreme Court (Judicature) Act, the English legislation providing for the concurrent jurisdiction of law and equity came to apply in Victoria where previously the court was notionally divided into a court of law and a court of equity. The 1883 Act was later repealed, and was re-enacted with considerable procedural amendments by the Supreme Court Act 1890.

This series consists of Reports prepared for the Court by the Master in Equity. Court Orders could demand that the Master prepare a Report on certain matters relevant to the case before the Court and to place before the Court to assist in determining the matter. In other matters, the Court could order the Master to take certain actions in relation to the matter before the Court and report to the Court. Actual case files may be found in VPRS 259 Equity Case Files.

According to the Supreme Court Rules of 1854, chapter VI Equity Practice, Reports shall concisely state the Masters conclusions without setting forth the evidence or his reasons, and opposite each paragraph shall be a reference to the documents or folio in the evidence upon the conclusions are based, and every Report shall be annexed by the Master to the Decree Decretal, or other order directing the reference or enquiry.

From 1852 until 1862 the Reports were transcribed in to the volumes. A copy of the Report was also placed in the Equity Case File. The folio number of the Report in VPRS 793 was written on the copy in the Equity Case File and the date of the Report was noted in the Equity Suit Book VPRS 1697.

From 1861 the practice of transcribing the Report into the volumes ceased. Instead the original Reports were bound together into volumes rather than being placed in the Equity Case File. The Reports were folded originally and were later unfolded and bound, probably by the Masters Office to assist reference. The cases folio number in the Equity Suit Book (VPRS 1697) is written on the Report. The Equity Case File Number is not usually written on the Report. The previous system of transcribing Reports in to the Books did not provide these cross references.

Up until c.1870 the Reports also have a document number written on them. This document number also appears on the documents which make up the Equity Case Files see VPRS 259. The register that allocated the document number is not in PROV custody as at August 2001 and its location is unknown.

A Note about Previous/ Subsequent Series
Although this series covers the period 1852 1884 (including 1864), some Reports from 1864 were bound into a volume with Orders and Decrees also created in 1864, see VPRS 12799 Orders, Decrees and Reports. It is not known why this was done, possibly the Reports in VPRS 12799 were missed when the majority of the Reports were bound into the volumes of VPRS 793, and for expediency the Reports were bound with Orders and Decrees that also had been missed.