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Our First Charter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

R. B. Pugh
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Summary

The Antiquaries decided to seek incorporation in March I751 and secured a royal charter, little supplemented since, in the following November. By using all known domestic and governmental records and also many ‘blue books’ the charter's progress from petition to patent is here traced and the composition of its cost examined. The key position of the Attorney General now occupied by the Privy Council Office, the scrupulous observance of obsolescent legal formalities, and the Antiquaries' debt to the Royal Society's charters are emphasized. Domestic interest apart, the article contributes to the neglected study of eighteenth-century diplomatic.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , September 1982 , pp. 347 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1982

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References

Notes

1 The following abbreviations bear the meanings shown parenthetically. Evans (Evans, Joan, Hist. of Soc. of Antiquaries (1956))Google Scholar; Lyte (Maxwell-Lyte, H. C., Hist. Notes on the … Great Seal (1926)Google Scholar; Ants., Mins. (Soc. Ants. Min. Bks. penes Soc. Ants.); Rep. Cts., Chy. (Lords 1740)Google Scholar ([Reprint of] Rep. of Lords Commrs. appointed to … survey … the Cts. … Chancery, H.C., 1814 (183), xi)Google Scholar; Rep. Fees, 1837 (First Rep of Treasury Cttee. [on] Fees … of Public Offices, H.C., 1837 (192) xliv)Google Scholar; Signet & P.S. (192) Offices (Rep. of Cttee. on Signet and Privy Seal Offices, H.C., 1849 [1099], xxii)Google Scholar; Weld (Weld, R. C., Hist. of Royal Soc., 2 vols. (1848)).Google Scholar The relevant Ants. Min. Bks. are thus divided: vol. vi (5 Oct. 1749–7 Nov. 1751), vii (14 Nov. 1751–23 Dec. 1756). The page numbers of Parliamentary Papers refer to the pages of the individual papers and not to those of the collective volumes. The following code references to classes of documents in the Public Record Office, London, (herein P.R.O.), bear the meanings shown parenthetically. A.O. 3 (Exchequer & Audit Dept. Various Accounts); C 233 (Chancery, Patent Office, Docket Bks.), C 66 (Ditto, Enrolments, Patent Rolls); C 83 (Ditto, Warrants for the Gt. Seal, Ser. III); E 407/183 (Exchequer of Receipt, Misc. Bks. and Paps.); P.S.O. 4 (Privy Seal Office, Misc. Recs.); S.O. 3 (Signet Office, Docquet Books); S.O. 7 (Ditto, King's Bills); S.O. 8 (Ditto, Warrants for King's Bills, Ser. I); S.P. 29 (State Paper Office, State Papers Domestic, Charles II); S.P. 36 (Ditto, ditto, Geo. II); S.P. 45 (Ditto, ditto, Various).

2 Evans, pp. 100–12.

3 Ibid., p. 102.

4 Mins. Ants., vi, 40. The minute book at this time does not confirm Evans's statement (p. 101) that Richmond was an absentee President.

5 Evans, p. 102.

6 For Grub and his office see n. 27.

7 Evans, p. 102.

8 Mins. Ants., vi, 44.

9 Evans, p. 103.

10 Handbk. of Brit. Chronology, R. Hist. Soc. (1961 edn.), p. 42.

11 Mins. Ants., vi, 81.

12 Dict. Nat. Biog.

13 Mins. Ants., vi, 87–9.

14 Evans, p. 104.

15 Ibid.

16 Applicants for peerages were still drafting their own petitions in 1660: Lyte, p. 96.

17 S.P. 36

18 S.O. 8.

19 Evans, p. 104.

20 Davies, J. D. Griffith, King in Toils (1938), p. 5.Google Scholar

21 Trench, C. P. Chenevix, George II (1973), p. 153.Google Scholar

22 Lyte, p. 93.

23 Rep. Fees, 1837, 154; Rep. Signet & P.S. Offices, p. v.

24 Lyte, p. 94n. For the resultant pat. see Cal. S.P. Col. 1661–8, no. 284.

25 Weld, i, pp. 432–3.

26 Rep. Fees, 1837, 47, 60, 62.

27 A Grub was appointed to this office in 1720: Hist. Reg., Chron. 19; he held it for life in 1740: Rep. Cts., Chy. (Lords 1740), 95.Google Scholar He was presumably the ancestor of another Grub who was dismissed from the same office in 1801 because his accounts were kept irregularly. Rep. Fees, 1837, 61; Rep. Signet & P.S. Offices, 1.

28 Rep. Fees, 1837, 61.

29 Ex inf. Lord Harrowby. The vol. was published in 1747.

30 In S.O. 7/226 Oct.

31 27 Hen. VIII c. 11.

32 47 and 48 Vic. c. 30 s. 5. The ‘course’ has often been described. Lyte, pp. 92–100, is the fullest. The accounts, however, in Rep. Fees, 1837 and Rep. Signet & P.S. Offices, if some allowance is made for the time differential, are also revealing.

33 Rep. Fees, 1837, 47.

34 15 and 16 Vic. c. 83.

35 Lyte, p. 266.

36 C 83/88/5.

37 Guide to Contents of P.R.O. (1963), ii, 233.

38 Rep. Fees 1837, 154.

39 Signet & P.S. Offices, 2.

40 Fitzroy, A. W., Hist. of Privy Council (1928), pp. 308–10, 314–15.Google Scholar

41 Pugh, R. B., ‘Newgate between two fires’, Guildhall Studs. in Lond. Hist., iii (1979), 210 sq.Google Scholar

42 e.g. S.P. 45/8 ff. 215–17.

43 The dockets (or docquets) for the Antiquaries’ charter are: Signet Office (S.O. 3/26); Privy Seal Office (Ind. 6763); Patent Office [in Chancery] (C 233/11 [Ind. 4231] f. 100).

44 Evans, p. 102.

45 Mins. Ants., vi, 44.

46 Ibid., 112.

47 Ibid., 44.

48 A special fee for a perpetuity is specified in the 1535 Act. See also Lyte, p. 334. Extra charges for skins beyond the first were being taken from 1740: Reps. Cts., Chy. (Lords 1740), 34, 95. Computing clauses or grants is recorded in Rep. Fees, 1837, 137 and is apparent in relevant Signet Office and Privy Seal fee books: S.P. 5/3, P.S.O. 4/4.

49 S.P. 45/27 (part) and /28.

50 Weld, i, 118.

51 E. Foss, Biog. Dict. of Judges of Engl., s.v. Finch, Heneage.

52 Weld, i, 119.

53 S.O. 5/3.

54 P.S.O. 4/1, /5, /7, /8/1, /8/2.

55 In P.S.O. 4/8/2. For ‘private seals’ see below p. 352.

56 See also p. 351.

57 In A.O. 3/481.

58 Lyte, p. 95.

59 12 Ann St. II, c. 9; 13 Ann c. 19.

60 Lyte, p. 297; Evans, Florence M. G., Princ. Sec. of State (1923), p. 210.Google Scholar

61 Lyte, p. 333; S.P. 29/35 no. 44.

62 Evans, op. cit. (note 60), p. 210.

63 Harding, H., Pat. Office Centenary (1953), esp. pp. 5 and 6.Google Scholar

64 Rep. Fees 1837, 60, 63, 132; Signet & P.S. Offices, 1.

65 Rep. Fees 1837, 100.

66 Ibid., 137.

67 Ibid., 145.

68 This suspect figure rests upon Rep. Cts., Chy. (Lords 1740), 34, 94. It discounts an error noted ibid., 96.

69 Rep. Fees, 1837, 149.

70 Lyte, p. 297.

71 Rep. Fees, 1837, 68.

72 Lyte, p. 297.

73 Ibid.

74 Rep. Fees, 1837, 68.

75 C 66/3634 no. 25.

76 Rep. Fees, 1837, 60, 63–4.

77 Bruce-Mitford, R. S. L., Soc. Ants., Notes (1951), pl. facing p. 28.Google Scholar

78 In date order the references are: in E 407/183; apptmt. of Harrington as Sec. of State; Adm. 4/24–28, all Adm. commns.

79 See Bell, C. F. and Mrs.Poole, Reginald Lane, ‘English seventeenth-century portrait drawings in Oxford colleges’, Walpole Soc. xiv (1925–1926).Google Scholar

80 Mins. Ants., vii, 15.

81 Ibid., 21.

82 Dict. of Printers and Booksellers … at Work, 1668–1725 (1922), p. 45.

83 Weld, i, 128, 141; ii, 481–523.

84 Mins. Ants., vii, 6–7.

85 Weld, i, 120.

86 Ibid., ii, 481, 494.