Commissioner of Assize

A judge appointed by the Crown to travel on circuit and hold an assize in a county of England or Wales. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Commissioners of Assize were usually judges of the superior courts, appointed by commission to exercise the Crown’s authority at particular assize sittings. They principally tried serious criminal cases, with juries, and heard some civil cases. The system ended with the abolition of the assizes in 1971.