Scottish Court of Session Decisions

The petitioner, the Right Hon. H. J. Fitzroy, Earl of Euston, was the plaintiff in a suit pending in the High Court of Justice in England (Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division), the purpose of which was to have his marriage with Kate Walsh Smith, otherwise Fitzroy, commonly called Countess of Euston, annulled, on the ground that at the time of the said marriage she had a husband then alive, named George Manley Smith, to whom she was married on 16th July 1863 at St Mungo's Catholic Chapel, Glasgow.

The petitioner set forth that it was necessary for the purposes of this suit to prove this previous marriage, and to identify from the principal certificate or schedule the handwriting of the contracting parties.

This principal certificate or schedule was in the custody of the Registrar-General for Scotland, at Edinburgh, and the application was presented for authority to have the volume containing it exhibited before the High Court of Justice in London under the custody of an officer selected by the Registrar-General, and by whom the said volume was to be restored to the custody of the Registrar-General.

The Court was prayed “to grant warrant to and authorise the said Registrar-General, or his deputy, to convey the said volume to London, and there to exhibit the same in the said High Court of Justice at the trial of the foresaid cause.”

The Court, without hearing counsel, granted the prayer of the petition.