Sir Charles Fortescue Brickdale (1 March 1857 – 20 September 1944) was a British barrister and civil servant best known for his reform of

HM Land Registry His Majesty's Land Registry is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's Government, created in 1862 to register the ownership of land and property in England and Wales. It reports to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ...

as Chief Registrar.

Life

Brickdale was born on 1 March 1857 to Matthew Brickdale, a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

, and his wife Sarah Lloyd. After attending

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

he matriculated to

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

, and from there was

called to the Bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

in 1883, specialising in land law. In 1886, he published ''Registration of Title to Land and how to Establish it without Cost or Compulsion'', in which he argued that the relatively new land registry department, which had so far proved ineffective, could massively improve if it was to follow the Australian and Prussian models. Two years later he was made assistant barrister at the Land Registry by

Lord Halsbury Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or a ...

, and used the position to argue for greater reform, which came in the form of the Land Transfer Act 1897. The land registration system at the time was voluntary, and getting local organisations and conveyancers to accept was a long and difficult job. Brickdale was appointed Chief Registrar of HM Land Registry in 1900. During his time as Chief Registrar he turned the Land Registry into a fully functioning department and helped prepare the

Law of Property Act 1925 The Law of Property Act 1925c 20 is a statute of the United Kingdom Parliament. It forms part of an interrelated programme of legislation introduced by Lord Chancellor Lord Birkenhead between 1922 and 1925. The programme was intended to moderni ...

, which was put in place after his retirement in 1923. He was knighted for his work in 1911, and died on 20 September 1944.

References

External links

* 1857 births 1944 deaths British barristers Members of Lincoln's Inn British civil servants Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford People educated at Westminster School, London {{UK-bio-stub