THE ACT OF 1829

Between 1815 and 1821 several royal commissions were set up to investigate the duties, salaries and emoluments of the various officers involved in the administration of some of the busiest of England's ecclesiastical courts, and these commissioners reported the results of their efforts in two reports in 1823. A more general concern with the costs that operated in the courts continued, however, as suggested by Peel's presentation to the Commons in 1828 of returns from all the ecclesiastical courts in England and Wales that were still operative, the number and nature of causes that were pursued within them and totals of the fees paid to the senior court officials. Petitions were also pressed on Parliament. A Cornish attorney, Thomas Theophilus Hawkey, complained that he was charged £10 by the archdeaconry office in Bodmin for attendance whilst seeking probate and for three copies of a will of twenty-four folios. He himself, as a lawyer, was not allowed to charge more than 4d. per folio for copies of documents, he continued, and if this rate had prevailed in Bodmin he would have had to pay no more than £1 4s. for his copies, plus 6s. 8d. to the registrar for attendance. He also alleged that a widow, seeking in the same office probate of her husband's will, one valued at less than £20, was charged a total of £5, a sum she was not able to pay, requiring her to apply to her parish for relief.