A proposition to the Land Transfer Commissioners. Robert Wilson. [publisher not identified], [London], 1868.

119 pages, partially unopened.  10 folding illustrations of forms - 8 in red and black type-, 4 folding maps - 1 coloured. Printed by the London Printing and Publishing Company, Limited. 26, Paternoster Row, London E.C.  Original yellow endpapers. 23 x 15 cm. Original brown embossed cloth with gilt titling down the spine. Rear inner hinge cracked but still firm. Head and tail of spine slightly worn.

Robert Wilson, a London solicitor, called for a Register of property ownership together with a consistent indorsed land certificate to embody the title of the property in question- a system that is in currently use with His Majesty's Land Registry and subject to the Acts of Parliament that followed between 57 an 134 years after this proposal Wilson’s plan was in essence very simple though it took thirty-four closely printed foolscap pages to present it in detail. The land itself was to be registered on the basis of a public map. The Commission, however, rejected this imaginative proposal, remarking: “One serious objection is the necessity of sending a commission into every district to ascertain who are to be put on the register of lands in that district,– an objection not merely or mainly on the score of expense, but to the principle of such an enquiry". In the event, any form of compulsion was delayed for forty years, and even then was introduced only in a limited form.

This was an important administrative and legal step eventually leading to regulation of the land and property market we have today.

OCLC, 1198243072.