Definition
A riding clerk was one of the six clerks in chancery in English law who, in annual rotation, maintained the controlment books recording all grants that passed the Great Seal. Each of the six clerks took a turn serving as the riding clerk for one year. The position was an administrative function within the Court of Chancery designed to ensure a continuous, reliable record of royal grants. The six clerks as a body were eventually superseded by the clerks of records and writs, rendering the riding clerk a purely historical office.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is a historical administrative term with no modern operational equivalent. Researchers encountering "riding clerk" in primary sources dated before the nineteenth-century reforms of the English Court of Chancery should understand the term as referring to a specific annual duty among the six clerks in chancery, not a separate or permanent office. The position is relevant to research involving the passage of grants under the Great Seal, the administrative structure of Chancery, and the broader history of English equity courts.
The abolition of the six clerks as part of the Chancery reform movement means that post-reform sources will not reference riding clerks in any active sense. Researchers working with historical equity records, patent grants, or royal grants should be aware that the controlment books maintained by the riding clerk during a given year may be a relevant archival source for verifying whether a particular grant was formally recorded. The connection to controlment — that is, the checking and enrolling of grants as a form of official verification — gives the term significance beyond mere clerical description.
Do not confuse "riding clerk" with the administrative divisions called "ridings" (from trithings), the three parts of Yorkshire. The proximity of these two entries in historical dictionaries reflects alphabetical accident, not conceptual relationship.
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Historical Dictionary Support
All four sources consulted — Black's (1st and 2nd editions), Rapalje & Lawrence, and Bouvier — are in close agreement on the substance of the definition. Each identifies the riding clerk as one of the six clerks in chancery, each specifies the one-year rotating nature of the duty, and each confirms that the function involved keeping the controlment books of grants passing the Great Seal. Rapalje & Lawrence and Black's 2nd edition both note explicitly that the six clerks were superseded by the clerks of records and writs, providing useful terminal dating for the office's active existence. Bouvier's is the most concise of the four, citing Wharton's Law Lexicon as its authority.
None of the historical sources provide detail about the origin of the rotating arrangement, the mechanics of the controlment books themselves, or the precise dates of the office's creation and abolition. Researchers needing that level of detail will need to consult specialized histories of the English Court of Chancery or archival guides to Chancery records at the Public Record Office (now The National Archives).
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Jurisdictional Note
This term is exclusively English in origin and application. It has no recognized equivalent in American law, colonial law, or any other common-law jurisdiction's court structure. American researchers will encounter it only in English primary sources or comparative legal history.
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