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CROWN OFFICE ACT 1877

CROWN OFFICE ACT 1877 - LONG TITLE

An Act for making Provision with respect to the Preparation and
Authentication of Commissions and other Documents issued from the
Office of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery; and for other
purposes.
[10th August 1877]
Preliminary

CROWN OFFICE ACT 1877 - SECT 1

1. This Act may be cited for all purposes as the Crown Office
Act, 1877.

S.2 rep. by SLR 1894

CROWN OFFICE ACT 1877 - SECT 3
Rules by Queen in Council as to language of documents.

3. Her Majesty may, by Order in Council, make, and when made from
time to time revoke, add to, or alter rules

(1)Prescribing the form in which documents to which this Act
applies, or any of them, are to be worded; and

(2)Making regulations as to the publication of royal proclamations,
and as to the towns to which copies of such proclamations are to
be sent, and generally as to the best mode of making such
proclamations known to the public:

Provided that

(1)Acts of or Bills in Parliament may in all cases be cited by
their short titles; and

(2)Whenever convenient, the enumeration of Acts of or Bills in
Parliament, of names of persons, or other matters, shall be
contained in a schedule or schedules, ...; and

(3)Any royal proclamation shall be valid in law if published as
follows:

Any rule purporting to be made in pursuance of this section shall
be laid before both Houses of Parliament within one month after it
is made, if Parliament be then sitting, or if not then sitting,
within one month after the commencement of the then next session of
Parliament, and shall be judicially noticed, and shall be of the
same validity as if it had been enacted by Parliament.

CROWN OFFICE ACT 1877 - SECT 4
Wafer seals to be framed in certain cases.

4. A Committee of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council,
consisting of the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain for the time
being, the Lord Privy Seal for the time being, and one of Her
Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State (in this Act referred to as
the Committee of Council), acting in case of difference according to
the opinion of any two of them, may from time to time direct
impressions with the same device as the Great Seal and of the
Privy Seal to be taken in such manner and of such size or sizes
as they may from time to time prescribe, on embossed paper, wax,
wafer, or any other material; and any such impressions, in this Act
respectively called a Wafer Great Seal and a Wafer Privy Seal,
shall be in the same custody as the seals of which they are
impressions, and when attached to or embossed on any document
required to be or usually authenticated by or passed under the
Great Seal or Privy Seal, shall confer on that document the same
validity in all respects as if the document itself had been
authenticated by or passed under the Great Seal or Privy Seal.

CROWN OFFICE ACT 1877 - SECT 5
Rules by Committee of Council as to preparation and authentication
of documents to which Act applies.

5. The Committee of Council aforesaid, acting in case of difference
according to the opinion of any two of them, may by order make,
and when made from time to time revoke, add to, or alter rules

(1) Providing for a record to be kept at the Crown Office of all
justices of the peace appointed in pursuance of any commission of
the peace issued by Her Majesty, and for the rectification of such
record from time to time; and

(2)Prescribing the documents to which the Wafer Great Seal and the
Wafer Privy Seal respectively are to be attached; and

(3)Prescribing the mode in which documents to which this Act applies
are to be prepared, whether to be printed or written, or partly
printed and partly written, and whether to be printed or written on
paper, parchment, or any other fitting material: Provided that

(a)It shall not be necessary to the validity of any document to or
on which a Wafer Great Seal or Wafer Privy Seal is attached or
embossed to prove that the attachment or embossing of such wafer
seals respectively was authorised, and no evidence to the contrary
shall be received; and

(b)Engrossing may in all cases be dispensed with, and, so far as
seems to the Committee of Council convenient, printing shall be
adopted in place of writing.

Any rule purporting to be made in pursuance of this section shall
be laid before both Houses of Parliament within one month after it
is made, if Parliament be then sitting, or if not then sitting,
within one month after the commencement of the then next session of
Parliament, and shall be judicially noticed, and shall be of the
same validity as if it had been enacted by Parliament.

CROWN OFFICE ACT 1877 - SECT 6
General saving.

6. Nothing in this Act shall abridge or affect the prerogative of
the Crown in relation to the grant or withholding the grant of any
document.

CROWN OFFICE ACT 1877 - SECT 7
Definitions.

7. In this Act, if not inconsistent with the context, the following
expressions have the meanings herein-after respectively assigned to
them:

"Great Seal" means the Great Seal of the United Kingdom:

"Document to which this Act applies" means any writ, commission,
letters patent, letters close, or document of such a character, or
belonging to such a class, as would at the date of the passing of
this Act, be required to be or usually would be authenticated by
being passed under the Great Seal:

"Crown Office" means the office of the Clerk of the Crown in
Chancery.