3-074-712 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Commencement of Michaelmas Term at the new Law Courts, 1883. 'The opening...[at] the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand - was attended...with some degree of judicial pomp. 'The Lord Chancellor, after entertaining the Judges at breakfast, arrived with them at the Courts, and walked at the head of their procession, fully robed, up the grand Gothic hall, where seats had been provided along each side for a large number of privileged spectators. The balcony at the upper end was occupied by the Judges' wives and ladies with them; the lower balcony...was filled with barristers in their wigs and gowns. With Lord Chancellor Selborne walked the Master of the Rolls, and Lords Justices Cotton, Hannen, Lindley, and Bowen, in their gold-embroidered robes; next these came, in their ermine, Mr. Justice Grove and Baron Pollock, followed by Justices Mathew, Cave, Kay, Chitty, North, Butt, Watkin Williams, and Smith. The Queen's counsel, in full forensic costume, brought up the rear...There is a large increase of business in all the Courts this term, compared with...last year; 809 causes in the Chancery Division, 886 in the Queen's Bench or Common Law Division, 214 Divorce petitions, 49 Probate actions, and 399 cases in the Court of Appeal'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.