This article examines the history of the office of Bankruptcy Registrar of the High Court of England and Wales. It is argued that the power of the registrars to act judicially grew from their authorisation to act pursuant to delegated powers introduced in 1869 and that this began a major shift in their role from being largely administrative to their current status as fully fledged (and renamed) insolvency and companies court judges. The fluidity of bankruptcy offices in the nineteenth century is also examined, demonstrating that certain bankruptcy officer‐holders moved freely between functions in the course of the development in the office of registrar from what might be called its administrative phase to the judicial phase with the eventual creation of a Bankruptcy Court and more recently the creation of a specialist insolvency and companies list in the new Business and Property Courts. Finally, it is argued that a factor in the foregoing developments and the increasing reputation of the bankruptcy registrars was the extension of their jurisdiction from pure bankruptcy work to include company insolvency, directors' disqualification cases and non‐insolvency company work, a significant increase in their trial work and their acquisition of an appellate jurisdiction.

中文翻译：

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高等法院破产登记官办公室的起源和发展

本文考察了英格兰和威尔士高等法院破产注册处的历史。有人争辩说，注册服务商司法行动的权力从其根据1869年引入的委托权力进行行动的授权中发展而来，这开始了其职责的重大转变，从很大程度上由行政权转变为完全成熟（并更名）的当前地位。破产和公司法院法官。还考察了19世纪破产机构的流动性，证明了某些破产官员在注册服务商办公室发展过程中在职能之间自由地从所谓的行政阶段过渡到司法阶段，最终建立了破产法院，最近又成立了专家破产和公司在新的商业和财产法院中列出。最后，有人认为，上述发展和破产注册机构声誉提高的一个因素是其管辖权从纯粹的破产工作扩展到包括公司破产，董事丧失资格的案件和非破产公司的工作，这大大增加了破产管理人的管辖范围。他们的审判工作和获得上诉管辖权。