The Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1873. It reorganised the English court system to establish the High Court and the Court of Appeal, and also originally provided for the abolition of the judicial functions of the House of Lords with respect to England. It would have retained those functions in relation to Scotland and Ireland for the time being. However, the Gladstone Liberal government fell in 1874 before the Act entered into force, and the succeeding Disraeli Conservative government suspended the entry into force of the Act by means of the Supreme Court of Judicature (Commencement) Act 1874 and the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1875.
The Court of Appeal is the highest court within the Senior Courts of England and Wales, and second in the legal system of England and Wales only to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Court of Appeal was created in 1875, and today comprises 39 Lord Justices of Appeal and Lady Justices of Appeal.
Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were judges appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the British House of Lords, as a committee of the House, effectively to exercise the judicial functions of the House of Lords, which included acting as the highest appellate court for most domestic matters.
In the history of the courts of England and Wales, the Judicature Acts were a series of Acts of Parliament, beginning in the 1870s, which aimed to fuse the hitherto split system of courts of England and Wales. The first two Acts were the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 and the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1875, with a further series of amending acts.
James Hannen, Baron Hannen, PC, FRS was an English barrister and judge.
Sir Robert Joseph Phillimore, 1st Baronet, was an English judge and politician. He was the last Judge of the High Court of Admiralty from 1867 to 1875 bringing an end to an office that had lasted nearly 400 years.
The Chancellor of the High Court is the head of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. This judge and the other two heads of divisions sit by virtue of their offices often, as and when their expertise is deemed relevant, in a panel in the Court of Appeal. As such this judge ranks equally to the President of the Family Division and the President of the King's Bench Division.
Jocelyn Edward Salis Simon, Baron Simon of Glaisdale, was a Law Lord in the United Kingdom, having been, by turns, a barrister, a commissioned officer in the British Army, a barrister again, a Conservative Party politician, a government minister, and a judge.
Francis Henry Jeune, 1st Baron St Helier,, known as Sir Francis Jeune (1891–1905), was a British judge. He was President of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice (1892–1905) and Judge Advocate General (1892–1905). According to, F. L. Wiswall Jr., "For better or for worse, it is fair to say that Sir Francis Henry Jeune had a greater influence upon the development of the Law of Admiralty than any single common lawyer since Coke."
Frank Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman of Knutsford,, known as Boyd Merriman, was a British Conservative politician and judge.
In the history of the courts of England and Wales, the Court of Probate was created by the Court of Probate Act 1857, which transferred the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts in testamentary matters to the new court so created.
In the history of the courts of England and Wales, the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes was created by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, which transferred the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts in matters matrimonial to the new court so created.
The Judges' Council is a body in England and Wales that, representing the judiciary, advises the Lord Chief Justice on judicial matters. It has its historical roots in the original Council of the Judges of the Supreme Court, created by the Judicature Act 1873 to oversee the new Supreme Court of Judicature. This body initially met regularly, reforming the procedure used by the circuit courts, and the new High Court of Justice but met less regularly as time went on, meeting only twice between 1900 and 1907, with a gap of ten years between meetings in 1940 and 1950 respectively. After relative inactivity, it was eventually wound up through the Supreme Court Act 1981, which contained no provisions for its continued existence, something Denis Dobson attributes to newer bodies which performed the duties the Council had originally been created to do.
The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Senior Courts of England and Wales. Its name is abbreviated as EWHC for legal citation purposes.
Sir James Lawrence Munby is a retired English judge who was President of the Family Division of the High Court of England and Wales. He was replaced by Sir Andrew McFarlane on reaching the mandatory retirement age.
Sir Andrew Ewart McFarlane is a British judge. He was a Lord Justice of Appeal in England and Wales from 2011 to 2018, and became President of the Family Division in July 2018 upon Sir James Munby’s retirement from that office.
Sir Nicholas John Hannen was a British barrister, diplomat and judge who served in China and Japan. He was the Chief Justice of the British Supreme Court for China and Japan from 1891 to 1900 and also served concurrently as Consul-General in Shanghai from 1891 to 1897. He was judge of the British Court for Japan from 1881 to 1891. He was the brother of James Hannen, a noted British judge of the 19th century. His son, Nicholas "Beau" Hannen was a famous actor of the early and mid-20th century.
The High Court of Justice in Ireland was the court created by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Ireland) 1877 to replace the existing court structure in Ireland. Its creation mirrored the reform of the courts of England and Wales five years earlier under the Judicature Acts. The Act created a Supreme Court of Judicature, consisting of a High Court of Justice and a Court of Appeal.
The Honourable Sir Stephen Ogle Henn-Collins, CBE was an English barrister and High Court judge.
The King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice deals with a wide range of common law cases and has supervisory responsibility over certain lower courts.
