Vickipedia

LEGI’TIMACY,PETITION TO DECLARE.In Scotland, it has always been competent for a party who wished to establish that he was a legitimate person, to raise an action of declarator of legitimacy, when the court solemnly decided the question. In England, this could not be done, except indirectly in the course of some suit for another purpose, until 1858, when the statute 21 and 22 Vict. c. 93 allowed all natural-born subjects whose legitimacy was doubted to present a petition to the Divorce Court to have the question decided. A similar act for Ireland was passed in 1868′(31 and 32 Vict. c. 20).