The office of Clerk of the Company is doubtless as ancient as the Company itself, although there is no mention of one prior to the year 1530185; but as there were always registers to be kept, fees to receive, apprentices to bind, and the multifarious business of a Livery Guild to conduct and record, we conclude that the office has existed from the earliest period.

The Clerk in Queen Mary’s time seems to have combined the occupation of gardener with that of his office, and for this he had but a small fee in addition to his stipend. Later on the Clerks appear to have devised fees for every conceivable kind of business which could possibly be transacted at Barber-Surgeons’ Hall, and in the 17th and 18th centuries the income derived from this source alone must have been very considerable.

The Company has been served by good, bad and indifferent Clerks; we prefer to dwell only on the former and record the names among others, of Francis Rowdon, Charles Bernard and John Paterson as being worthy to be held in goodly remembrance. The books of the Company abound in testimony to their ability as well as to the fidelity and zeal which they displayed in the execution of their office.

1st October, 1555. The first Clerk of whom there is any record is Thomas Apulton (or Apleton), who, being Beadle, was promoted to that office.

As will be seen elsewhere, the Company had a fair garden in Monkwell Street, and the following interesting minute connects it with the Clerk:—

5th March, 1556. It was ordered that if—

27th August, 1557. John Johnson was elected and sworn Clerk “for so longe time as he shal behave hymsyllfe well and honestlye in the saide office.” The salary was fixed at £4 per annum, with 6s. 8d. extra for paper, ink and keeping the garden, and “for wasshinge of the lynen of the howse iij^s iiij^d.”

It would appear that one Wilson had some time previously been Clerk, for arrangements were made by which Wilson’s widow was not to be put out of her house, and it was also settled that if Johnson died before his wife, his widow should in like manner have the house after his decease. The rent of this house, which was attached to the Hall was 10s. per annum, and paid by the Clerk to the Renter Warden.

Johnson probably continued Clerk till about 1570, as the books are kept in the same handwriting until then.

Thomas Garter succeeded Johnson, but on 14th January, 1572, he was dismissed from his office for a “certain lewde facte by him committed,” and William Field was elected and sworn in in his place. Field wrote an exceedingly neat and precise hand.

20th March, 1572. It was ordered that in future the Clerk of the Company should always be chosen from among the freemen.

15th March, 1575. William Eden elected Clerk vice Field.

14th November, 1577. Eden was ordered to receive £6 per annum “benevolence” over and above his salary of £4, in consideration of the “smalenes of his lyvinge.”

10th December, 1596. Eden was indebted to the Company £10, “yet in regard of the hardnes of the tyme and his greate charge he shalbe forborne this yere.” At the same Court, gifts were made to the Beadle and Porter on account of the hardness of the times.

16th June, 1597. Eden’s troubles had not forsaken him for we read under this date—

2nd November, 1597. Francis Rowdon elected Clerk vice Eden. Rowdon appears to have been a most methodical man and kept the books with scrupulous neatness and care; his writing is a very fine specimen of the Court hand of the period, and the best in the Company’s books for many years.

1599. The Clerk’s Salary was raised to £6 per annum.

1600. To £8 per annum, and in

1603 To £10 per annum.

26th July, 1609. Rowdon presented Richard Ratsdale, Scrivener, for the office of Clerk, about whose sufficiency and ability enquiries were ordered to be made, but they were not satisfactory, for, on the 10th August, William Syddon was elected Clerk vice Rowdon.

The same day it was ordered that Rowdon was to continue in the Livery and to have the use of the Hall and his house until Michaelmas, also that Syddon was to be translated from the Cutlers’ Company.

Syddon’s records of the Company’s business were very meagre and a great contrast to those of the former Clerk.

7th October, 1625. Syddon surrendered his clerkship to Richard Turner (a son of Cressens Turner, Clerk in the Lord Mayor’s Court), who was admitted and sworn. Turner died in 1643, and by his will left some property to the Company to be annually distributed in charity amongst freemen of the Barber-Surgeons, and this became the source of a protracted litigation between his widow and the Company. On the 17th November, 1643, she filed a bill against the Company, which they defended, and succeeded in retaining the greater portion of the bequest. The accounts appear to have been very intricate and involved, remaining unsettled for many years. The Court, however, distributed the whole of the bequest in accordance with the will, as long as the estate (which was leasehold) held out.

2nd October, 1643. Robert Rawlins elected Clerk vice Turner.

30th June, 1648. The Court granted Rawlins £30 in consideration of his great pains about the Company’s business, and ordered that his salary should be raised from £10 to £30 per annum.

23rd February, 1658. Richard Reynell elected Clerk vice Rawlins (resigned).

21st July, 1685. Joseph Masters elected Clerk.

17th September, 1685. Charles Hargrave elected “Deputy Clerk.” The business of the Company had of late years increased enormously in consequence of the examinations of and Certificates to Navy Surgeons, examinations held for superannuation of wounded or infirm soldiers and sailors, and other matters connected with the Navy office, all of which entailed vast labour on the Clerk.

28th November, 1688. Charles Hargrave elected Clerk vice Masters.

20th November, 1707. Charles Bernard elected Clerk vice Hargrave.

Hargrave had kept the books in a slovenly manner, and appears to have been both a dishonest servant as well as an improvident man.

11th December, 1707. It was reported to the Court that Hargrave’s Estate was indebted to the Company £320 8s. 6d., moneys which he had received and not accounted for.

8th July, 1708. Mrs. Sarah Hargrave (his Widow) presented a petition for relief, stating that she was in poor circumstances, with six children unprovided for, whereupon the Court, notwithstanding her late husband’s delinquencies, very generously ordered her a gratuity of £12 10s. 0d.

Charles Bernard was a relative of, and Executor to Charles Bernard, Serjeant-Surgeon to Queen Anne and Master in 1703. It is delightful to observe the methodical and careful manner in which Bernard began, and all through his life kept the books and accounts; he wrote a large and elegant hand, though somewhat encumbered with flourishes, and his signature is a characteristic one.