Lord Chancellor's Department

The Lord Chancellor's Department was a United Kingdom government department answerable to the Lord Chancellor with jurisdiction over England and Wales.

Created in 1885 as the Lord Chancellor's Office with a small staff to assist the Lord Chancellor in his day-to-day duties, the department grew in power over the course of the 20th century, and at its peak had jurisdiction over the entire judicial system and a staff of over 22,000. Before it was merged into the Department for Constitutional Affairs (now the Ministry of Justice), it was the oldest United Kingdom government department.

The department was created in 1885 by Lord Selborne, who was the Lord Chancellor at the time. The Lord Chancellor was the only cabinet minister (other than those without portfolio) not to have a department of civil servants answerable to him, and justified the expenditure of creating a permanent department by saying that:

The Lord Chancellor, though Minister of Justice for almost every purpose unconnected with the Criminal Law, had no assistance of the kind given to the other chief Departments of State, either of permanent secretaries or under secretaries. The officers attached to him were personal and liable to change with every change of government.. but on each change of government the lack of continuity was more or less felt; and as the Lord Chancellor's Department work had a constant tendency to increase, the pressure of that lack increased with it.

The department was originally named the Lord Chancellor's Office, with the first employees simply being transferred from Selborne's personal retinue to the new office. The need for the office was partly due to the Supreme Court of Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875, which significantly changed the structure of the courts and increased the Lord Chancellor's workload as he struggled to enact the changes that the Acts required. Due to the odd nature of the Lord Chancellor's Office compared to other government departments (it was staffed almost entirely by lawyers and had an initial staff of only five) it developed slightly differently from other departments, regarding itself more as a lobbying organisation for the Judges and the Courts than a traditional government department.

...
Wikipedia