Remembrancer

Remembrancer, the name originally of certain subordinate officers of the English Exchequer. The office itself is of great antiquity, the holder having been termed remembrancer, memorator, rememorator, registrar, keeper of the register, despatcher of business (Maddox, History of the Exchequer). There were at one time three clerks of the remembrance, styled king's remembrancer, lord treasurer's remembrancer and remembrancer of first-fruits. The latter two offices have become extinct, that of remembrancer of first-fruits by the diversion of the fund (Queen Anne's Bounty Act 1838), and that of lord treasurer's remembrancer on being merged in the office of king's remembrancer (1833). By the Queen's Remembrancer Act 1859 the office ceased to exist separately, and the queen's remembrancer was required to be a master of the court of exchequer. The Judicature Act 1873, s. 77, attached the office to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court of Judicature (Officers) Act 1879 transferred it to the central office of the Supreme Court. By s. 8 the king's remembrancer is a master of the Supreme Court, and the office is usually filled by the senior master. The king's remembrancer department of the central office is now amalgamated with the judgments and married women's acknowledgments department. The king's remembrancer still assists at certain ceremonial functions - relics of the former importance of the office - such as the nomination of sheriffs, the swearing-in of the lord mayor of London, the trial of the pyx and the acknowledgments of homage for crown lands. Other duties are set out in the Second Report of the Legal Departments Commission, 1874.

"Remembrancer" is also the title of an official of the corporation of the city of London, whose principal duty is to represent that body before parliamentary committees and at council and treasury boards.