The RSC applied to all civil cases in the Supreme Court in England and Wales commenced after the merger of the courts of common law and equity in 1883 by the Judicature Acts until they were superseded by the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) in 1999 on 26 April 1999.

[1] In 1951 the Evershed Committee on Supreme Court Practice and Procedure published its Second Interim Report in which it strongly recommended that "a complete revision of the Rules be immediately put in hand".

This gave the Supreme Court, for the first time, one complete, integral body of procedural rules.

Appendix A of the RSC contained Form Precedents which were compulsory in cases governed by the Rules.

These are being slowly replaced by new CPR rules as the law in the areas covered by the RSC Orders is reformed.