The statutory tribunals of the nineteenth century were conceived as self-contained semi-independent bodies to achieve an administrative objective. Though they had judicial functions to perform, their status as part of the executive meant that they were prima facie outside the regular court system and free from its control. Arguably, however, this control was necessary; the very qualities of tribunals that distinguished them and made them so well suited to their particular tasks rendered them vulnerable to error, ignorance, mismanagement and slackness. They lacked, furthermore, those safeguards inherent in courts of law, namely legal expertise, established procedures and independence. They had judicial functions to perform and yet they were diverse in nature, each procedurally self-contained and jurisdictionally specialised, with informal procedures, wide discretion and lay adjudicators untrained in law. There were two main forces pressing for and ultimately obtaining judicial supervision – the users of the tribunals, who pressed for the right to appeal from tribunals' decisions to the regular courts, and the judiciary, who pressed for the right to control the conduct of the tribunals. While between them these two methods of judicial supervision were comprehensive, they were theoretically and practically distinct, with appeal going to the merits of the decision itself, addressing potentially issues of both law and fact, and enabling the superior court to replace the tribunal's decision with its own. Review, on the other hand, related to the proceedings, embracing the extent and exercise of the tribunal's powers and procedures.