Definition
A commission of bankrupt was a formal written authority issued by the Lord Chancellor of England, directed to a body of appointed commissioners (typically five in number), empowering them to investigate and administer a bankruptcy proceeding against a named debtor. The commission authorized its recipients — styled commissioners of bankrupt — to examine the bankrupt concerning his trade, debts, and assets; to receive proofs of debt from creditors; to oversee the assignment of the bankrupt's estate; and to perform the various procedural acts required by the statutes of bankruptcy then in force.
The commission was the foundational instrument that triggered and legitimized the entire bankruptcy proceeding under the old English system. Without it, no person could be officially declared a bankrupt, and no authority existed to compel disclosure or seize assets. The commissioners derived their entire jurisdiction from the face of the commission itself.
The commission of bankrupt was abolished as the operative initiating instrument by the Bankruptcy Act of 1 & 2 William IV, c. 56, § 12 (1831), which substituted a fiat — a more summary written authority issued by a bankruptcy court judge — in its place. The office of commissioner of bankrupt was later consolidated further under the Bankruptcy Act 1869 and eventually the Bankruptcy Act 1883, which placed administration in the hands of official receivers and the court.
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Common Confusion
COMMISSION OF BANKRUPT vs. FIAT IN BANKRUPTCY: After 1831, the fiat replaced the commission as the initiating instrument of English bankruptcy proceedings. Researchers encountering the terms in pre- and post-1831 sources must take care not to treat them as interchangeable. The commission required appointment of ad hoc commissioners; the fiat operated through the existing court structure and its officers. Historical dictionary entries drafted before or around 1831 may describe the commission as a present institution; those drafted after will mark it as former practice.
COMMISSION OF BANKRUPT vs. COMMISSIONERS OF BANKRUPT: The commission is the document; the commissioners are the persons appointed by it. Sources use both phrases, and careless reading can blur the distinction, particularly in older treatises where "commission" is used loosely to refer to the body of commissioners collectively.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is purely historical and is encountered almost exclusively in English legal materials predating the mid-nineteenth century. Several navigational points are essential:
Date boundary: The commission of bankrupt ceased to be operative English law after 1831. Any source describing it in the present tense was almost certainly written before that date, or is summarizing pre-reform practice. Black's Law Dictionary entries carry this caveat implicitly by using "formerly," but not all historical sources are so careful.
Corpus placement: In Law Mind sources, the term will appear in treatises on old English bankruptcy law, in equity and chancery materials, and in historical overviews of commercial law. It will not appear in American bankruptcy law materials of any period. The United States never adopted the commission of bankrupt system; American bankruptcy statutes from the Act of 1800 forward operated through courts and court-appointed assignees, not through ad hoc commissions.
Commissioners as evidence source: Where a commission of bankrupt was issued and examined a bankrupt or witnesses, those examination records could be used in subsequent litigation. Researchers working on disputes about pre-1831 English estates or commercial transactions may find references to commission proceedings in chancery records, and understanding what the commission was clarifies why such testimony was taken and what authority it carried.
Jurisdictional trap: Scotland and Ireland had distinct bankruptcy regimes. A commission of bankrupt issued in England had no force in Scotland, which operated under sequestration proceedings. Do not assume English commission materials apply to Scottish insolvency records.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in close agreement on the core description: both identify the commission as an authority from the Lord Chancellor, directed to appointed persons to proceed against a bankrupt under statute, and both note its replacement by the fiat under 1 & 2 William IV, c. 56, § 12. Burrill adds the useful detail that the commissioners typically numbered five, and emphasizes that under the reform legislation they became permanent officers rather than ad hoc appointees — a structural shift that Black's does not foreground.
Rapalje & Lawrence track nearly identically to Black's, adding the characterization "discreet persons," which echoes the language of the statutes themselves and signals that the Lord Chancellor exercised discretionary selection.
None of the historical dictionaries address the American non-adoption of this instrument, nor do they situate the commission within the broader arc of English bankruptcy reform running from the Tudor-era statutes through the consolidating reforms of the 1820s–1880s. Researchers should not rely on these entries alone for historical context; a treatise such as Eden on the Law of Bankruptcy (various editions, pre-1831) or Archbold's Law and Practice of Bankruptcy gives fuller procedural detail.
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Jurisdictional Note
The commission of bankrupt was exclusively an English legal institution. It was never part of American law. Scottish insolvency law used sequestration, not commission. Irish practice had its own statutory framework. Researchers should treat this term as geographically bounded to England and Wales and temporally bounded to the period before the 1831 statutory reform.
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