User Contributed Dictionary
see Remembrancer
Extensive Definition
The Remembrancer was originally one 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. The Remembrancer compiled memorandum rolls
and thus “reminded” the barons of the Exchequer of business
pending.
There were at one time three clerks of the
remembrance, styled King's
Remembrancer, Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer and Remembrancer of
First-Fruits. In England, 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
in 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 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 section 8 of that Act, 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 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 the City of London, the Trial of
the Pyx and the acknowledgments of homage for crown
lands.
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.
In Scotland, the office of
Queen's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer continues to exist.
The office is filled by the Crown Agent, the head of the
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, and represents the
Crown's interests in bona
vacantia, ultimus
haeres and treasure
trove.