LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR. The origin and early history of this official will be found under CHANCELLOR. The lord chancellor is not only head of the judiciary in England, but also a minister of State, taking precedence after the archbishop of Canterbury. The close connection of the chancellor and the chancery with all parts of the constitution accounts for the extraor dinary range and variety of the chancellor's functions. They were summarized by Bentham as follows :—"He is (I) a single judge controlling in civil matters the several jurisdictions of the 2 great judges; (2) a necessary member of the cabinet, the chief and most constant adviser of the king in all matters of law ; (3) the perpetual president of the highest of the two houses of legisla ture; (4) the absolute proprietor of a prodigious mass of ecclesi astical patronage ; (5) the competitor of the minister for almost the whole patronage of the law; (6) the keeper of the great seal, a various, multifarious and indefinable office ; (7) the possessor of a multitude of heterogeneous scraps of power too various to be enumerated." Nominated by the prime minister, he goes out of office with the party to which he is attached. As speaker or pro locutor of the House of Lords it is his principal function to put the question ; he may take part in the debates, but cannot rule upon points of order. When the house sits for judicial business
he is entitled to preside. He is a member of the court of appeal and when present presides. He is also president of the chancery division and a judge of the High Court of Justice. By the Act of Union (1705) one great seal was appointed to be kept for all public acts and so his authority extends to the whole of Britain, and the commissions of the peace for Scotland as well as for Eng land issue from him. He is visitor of all hospitals and colleges of the king's foundation, patron of all the king's livings under the value of 20 marks—this was to enable him to reward the masters in chancery—guardian of all infants, idiots and lunatics, and superintendent of all charitable uses. Many of these functions are now committed to other departments or to the judges (see CHARITY; INFANT; INSANITY). His salary is and his pension £5,000 per annum.
See Holdsworth, Hist. Eng. Law vol. i., ch. v. ; Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors (1845) ; J. B. Atlay, The Victorian Chancellors