Recorder of Belfast
one of two senior County Court judges of Northern Ireland
The Recorder of Belfast is one of the two senior County Court judges of Northern Ireland known as Recorders, the other being the Recorder of Londonderry.
The County Court judges in Northern Ireland are senior judicial officers, hearing civil actions, consumer claims, and appeals from magistrates' courts. They are called Family Care Centre judges when hearing appeals from the family proceedings courts and cases under the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995.
The Recorder of Belfast is deemed to be the Senior County Court Judge in the Province.
History
In 1876, the Recorder of Belfast sat for eight sessions a year, plus four in the Quarter Sessions for County Antrim.
In the House of Commons on 2 March 1882 Joseph Biggar asked the Attorney-General for Ireland, W. M. Johnson, whether he was aware that the Recorder of Belfast was paid to act at elections as assessor to the chairman of Harbour Commissioners in Belfast, and whether that was contrary to the County Officers and Courts Act 1877. Johnson replied that the Recorder of Belfast was appointed to the role of assessor long before the 1877 act was enacted and was not affected by its Section 92.
The title of Recorder of Belfast was confirmed by Section 102 of the County Courts Act (Northern Ireland) 1959, which provides that "The judge, or (if more than one) one of the judges, assigned to the division which is or includes— (a) the area of the city of Belfast shall be styled the Recorder of Belfast".
In 2005, for the first time, a solicitor, Thomas Burgess, was appointed as Recorder, and with effect from April 2006 a new dimension was added to the Recorder's role by the Justice Act 2004, making him the Presiding Judge with responsibility for the County Courts.
The Recorder has the civic position of Second Citizen of Belfast, after the Lord Mayor.
The public source identifies “Recorder of Belfast” as one of two senior County Court judges of Northern Ireland. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Recorder, Belfast and senior.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Recorder of Belfast”, the useful work is to connect “one of two senior County Court judges of Northern Ireland” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48814036. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1995, 1876, 1882 and 1877.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Recorder of Belfast” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.