The Lord Chancellor's jurisdiction over lunatics so found by writ of De Lunatico Inquirendo had been delegated to two Masters-in-Chancery.
[1] Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury was the head of the commission from its founding in 1845 until his death in 1885.
[2] The Lunacy Commission was made up of eleven Metropolitan Commissioners: three medical, three legal and five laymen.
The duty of the commission was to carry out the provisions of the act,[4] reporting to the Poor Law Commissioners (in the case of workhouses) and to the Lord Chancellor.
[3] The first secretary to the commissioners was Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge, a barrister and uncle of Lewis Carroll.