Doe on the demise of Lord Arundel against Fowler
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 01 February 1850 |
| Date | 01 February 1850 |
| Court | Court of the Queen's Bench |
English Reports Citation: 117 E.R. 270
QUEEN'S BENCH.
S. C. 19 L. J. Q. B. 151; 14 Jur. 179.
[700] hilary vacation (a). doe ON THE demise OF lord AfiUNDEL against fowler. Friday, February 1st, 1850. Stat. 52 Gr. 3, c. 146, s. 5, requires parish registers to be kept at the parson's house or in the church. The custody of such registers by the parish clerk at his house is not, unless accounted for, such reasonably proper custody as to render receivable in evidence an extract made by a witness from a book produced to him as the parish register by the clerk, at the clerk's house. [S. C. 19 L. J. Q. B. 151 ; 14 Jur. 179.] Ejectment for a cottage, &c., in Wiltshire. On the trial, before Williams J., at the last Wiltshire Spring Assizes, it appeared that the lessor of the plaintiff claimed title on the determination of a lease for lives. To prove the death of one of the eestui que vies, a witness stated that he went to a house in Kingston, Surrey, which had been pointed out to him by a person in the street as the house of the parish clerk; that the witness there saw a person calling himself parish clerk, who produced as the register of burials a book from which the witness had made an extract as evidence of the death in question. The learned Judge rejected the evidence, on the ground that it did not appear that the custody of the register by the parish clerk was the proper custody. The defendant having obtained a verdict, Greenwood, in last Easter term, obtained a rule nisi for a new trial, on the grounds that this evidence was improperly rejected, and also that the verdict was against the evidence. [701] Crowder now shewed cause. Croughton v. Blake (12 M. & W. 205), and Bishop of Meath v. Marquess of Winchester (V), in which cases it was held unnecessary to shew that a document came from the most proper custody or from strictly legal custody, do not apply ; for, in the absence of explanation to account for the removal of the instrument, the parish chest was the only proper or legal custody. [Coleridge J. In (a) The Court sat in Bane on the 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th, on the Hth and from thence to the 16th inclusive, and on the 26th, of February. (*) In Dom. Proc. 3 New Ca. 183; S. C. 4 Cl. & Fin. 445, 14 Q. B. 702. HARWELL 1'. THE HUNDRED OF WINTERSTOKE 271 Roscoe on Evidence, p. 102 (8th ed.), the note of Bishop of Meath v. Marquess of Winchester (b)1, is given thus: "So a document relating to a bishop's see may be...
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