Clerk of the Signet

The Clerks of the Signet were English officials who played an intermediate role in the passage of letters patent through the seals. For most of the history of the position, four clerks were in office simultaneously.

Letters patent prepared by the Clerk of the Patents were engrossed at the Patent Office and then sent by the Secretary of State to receive the royal sign-manual. The duty of the Clerks of the Signet was to compare the signed bills with a transcript prepared by the Clerk of the Patents, and then to rewrite the transcript as a bill of privy signet, which was returned to the Secretary of State to be signed with that instrument.^[1]

By the end of the seventeenth centuries, many of the Clerks of the Signet performed their work through deputies, with the office itself becoming a sinecure. The Treasury was given the authority to reduce the number of clerkships in 1832, abolishing one in 1833 and another in 1846. The two remaining posts were done away with in 1851.^[2]

List of Clerks of the Signet

• John Depeden c.1420 ^[3]
• Thomas Andrew c.1422
• William Crosby 1437–1459 ^[3]
• George Ashby c.1440 ^[3]
• Robert Osbern c.1440 ^[3]
• Nicholas Harpesfield c.1445
• Edmund Blake c.1450 ^[3]
• John Bowden 1452–1459 ^[3]
• Richard Bell 1463–1474 ^[3]
• William Robyns c.1470–c.1482^[4]
• Oliver King c.1473 ^[4]
• John Wylde c.1475–c.1488 ^[4]
• Edmund Gregory c.1479–c.1483 ^[4]

The history of these earlier Signets in the medieval period is not recorded by the table below.

Early Modern to Later Modern Clerks of the Signet

Date	One	Two	Three	Four
1509	Brian Tuke
1523	Thomas Derbey	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
1530		Thomas Wriothesley
1532			William Paget
bef. 1537				John Godsalve
2 October 1539	John Huttoft
14 April 1540		Thomas Knight
1541	Richard Taverner
bef. 1544			William Honing
bef. 1545		William or Gregory Railton.[5]
1547/55	Nicasius Yetsweirt			John Cliffe
30 October 1561		John Somer
December 1569			Sir Thomas Windebank
1578/89	Sir John Wood	Charles Yetsweirt
9 March 1589				Sir Thomas Lake
23 December 1595		Nicholas Faunt
24 October 1607			Levinus Munck
1608		Francis Gall
5 September 1610	Francis Windebank
13 January 1616				Robert Kirkham
27 May 1623			Sir Humphrey May
9 June 1630			John More
15 June 1632	Sir Abraham Williams
1638			Edward Norgate	Philip Warwick
1641/5		Sir Thomas Windebanke, 1st Baronet

Appointments were not made under the Commonwealth of England until 1655 as the republic did not recognise hereditary house of Lords, so peerages were not created.

• 1655–1705:John Nicholas
• 16 June 1655: James Nutley
• 20 March 1656: Samuel Morland

Appointments resumed upon the Restoration in 1660, including two of the former officeholders, Warwick and Windebanke.

Date	One	Two	Three	Four
1660	Sir Philip Warwick	Sir Thomas Windebanke, 1st Baronet	William Trumbull	Sir John Nicholas
bet. 1674–1678		Sidney Bere
1678			Nicholas Morice
15 January 1683	Sir William Trumbull
1684		John Gauntlett
9 February 1705				William Cooke
25 August 1708			Joseph Moyle
18 February 1716	Hon. Peter Alexander
2 October 1716		Gauntlet Fry
28 May 1728				Charles Delafaye Thomas Delafaye
13 November 1729	Edward Weston
7 May 1736			Sir Joseph Copley, 1st Baronet
22 May 1746		William Blair
1747				Charles Delafaye
22 December 1762				James Rivers
15 July 1770	Montagu Wilkinson
16 April 1781			John Tirel Morin
4 March 1782		William Fraser
June 1797	Eardley Wilmot
24 January 1801	Sir Brook Taylor
11 December 1802		William Harry Edward Bentinck
19 March 1807			John Gage
30 October 1807				Thomas Norton Powlett
26 February 1825				Alexander Cockburn
8 May 1826				Augustus Granville Stapleton
1831				abolished
15 October 1846	abolished
26 January 1847			Charles Samuel Grey
7 August 1851		Office abolished