III. Bankruptcy before the Era of Victorian Reform

Extract

Bankruptcy law in early nineteenth-century England called less loudly for reform than did the machinery of its courts. The “Commissioners in Bankruptcy,” spoken of in evidence before parliamentary committees as “London's main commercial court,” sat in a room in the Guildhall, always inadequate for their needs, but at times overrun by cooks when it was claimed as an extra kitchen for municipal feasts. There were seventy commissioners, grouped in fourteen lists of five. The post was in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, and as it was agreed that £300 a year was the most commissioners could expect to earn, it is not surprising that they were respectable rather than distinguished men, though in ambitious youth men as distinguished as Lord Macaulay might be glad of the Chancellor's patronage. The income, consisting of a guinea fee for each meeting, was brought to its maximum by expedients which destroyed the dignity and impaired the efficiency of the court. Of the five men, the necessary majority of three sat, while the other two went about other work, which might at times be that of practising as counsel before other “lists.” Guineas were easily added to by adjournments which increased the number of meetings. It was less obvious that they might be multiplied by three, by hearing before each set of three commissioners three bankruptcies, but this seems generally to have been done. Thus in a crowded room, at many tables, many bankruptcies marched on, at varying speeds, broken by frequent adjournment, which brought extra fee but at times better progress by resort to a private room in a coffee-house near by.