Surname Index

to

The Practice of the Sheriff's Court of the County of Devon:

With a collection of the most modern forms of precedents of process, pleadings etc.

by

George Blaxland Rogers

Exeter: Printed for the Author & Published by Upham & Trewman (1824) 149 pp.

Prepared by Michael Steer

The office of Sheriff is the oldest under the crown. It is over 1000 years old, with its establishment before the Norman Conquest. It remained first in precedence in the counties, until the reign of Edward VII, when an Order in Council in 1908 gave the Lord-Lieutenant the prime office under the Crown as the Sovereign's personal representative. Under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972, on 1 April 1974 the office previously known as Sheriff was retitled High Sheriff. The High Sheriff remains the Sovereign's representative in the County for all matters relating to the Judiciary and the maintenance of law and order. A number of fictitious names are used as examples in the forms and protocols throughout the book; for example; John Doe, Joseph Right, Richard Wrong, Robert Goodtitle, Richard Badtitle. This rare and much sought-after book was produced digitally from a copy in the Bodleian Library collection and can be downloaded from Google Books. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.