Definition
The Six Clerks in Chancery were a body of six senior officers of the English Court of Chancery whose duties centered on the formal administration of proceedings before that court. They received and filed all pleadings and proceedings, signed and issued office copies of documents, and attended court to read pleadings aloud as required by practice. Each of the Six Clerks also supervised a cohort of subordinate clerks — the Sixty Clerks — who performed much of the routine documentary work under their authority. The office was ancient, with roots traceable to the medieval organization of the Chancery, and for centuries the Six Clerks occupied a central position in the machinery of equity litigation in England. The office was abolished by statute in 1842 (5 Vict. c. 5) as part of the broader Victorian program of Chancery reform that dismantled the court's inherited bureaucratic structure.
Common Confusion
The Six Clerks in Chancery should not be confused with the Clerks of the Crown in Chancery, the Masters in Chancery, or the Sixty Clerks (also called the Sworn Clerks or Under-Clerks). The Masters were judicial officers who examined witnesses, heard references, and performed quasi-adjudicative functions. The Six Clerks were administrative officers, not judicial ones. The Sixty Clerks served under the Six Clerks and handled day-to-day document work. Researchers encountering references to "clerks in Chancery" in historical sources must identify which tier of the clerical hierarchy is meant, as the terminology is not always precise in early records.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is an institutional artifact. No researcher will encounter it in live legal practice, but it appears with some frequency in English legal history sources, equity jurisprudence treatises, and any primary material touching on Chancery practice before 1842. Several points of navigational importance:
First, the abolition date matters. The office was abolished by 5 Vict. c. 5, effective 1842. Any source describing the Six Clerks as current officers postdates this abolition only if the source itself predates 1842. Researchers using historical treatises should anchor the date of composition to determine whether the author is describing live practice or historical record.
Second, the Spence and Blackstone citations in Bouvier point to the two primary analytical frameworks: Blackstone's Commentaries (via Sharswood's edition) for the constitutional and structural account of the courts, and Spence's Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery for the more detailed institutional history of Chancery's internal officers. Both are available in the Law Mind corpus and should be consulted together for a full picture.
Third, the Six Clerks appear at the intersection of two important research streams: the history of equity jurisdiction and the Victorian court reform movement. Researchers tracing the transformation of the English court system in the nineteenth century — from the Chancery reforms of the 1840s through the Judicature Acts of 1873–1875 — will encounter the Six Clerks as one of many abolished offices whose functions were absorbed into the reorganized system.
Fourth, the fee and patronage dimensions of the office matter for legal history purposes. Like many Chancery offices, the Six Clerkships were effectively proprietary positions, held by purchase or grant and generating income through fees rather than salary. This made abolition a contested financial matter requiring statutory compensation. Researchers studying sinecure reform or the economics of the old court system should note this dimension, which Bouvier's brief entry does not address.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's entry is functional but sparse, giving the core duties and the abolition statute without context. The cross-references to Sharswood's Blackstone (3 Bl. Com. 443) and Spence's Equitable Jurisdiction are the entry's most useful features, directing researchers to the fuller accounts. Blackstone describes the Six Clerks within his survey of the Court of Chancery's officers, treating them as an established feature of the court's administrative apparatus. Spence, writing specifically about equitable jurisdiction, provides greater institutional depth on how the Chancery's clerical hierarchy functioned in practice.
Neither source, nor Bouvier, addresses the proprietary nature of the offices or the compensation issues raised by abolition — a gap that reflects the doctrinal rather than administrative-history orientation of the standard legal dictionaries. Researchers needing that dimension should look beyond the dictionary shelf to parliamentary records and the reports of the Chancery Commission.
Jurisdictional Note
The Six Clerks were exclusively an institution of the English Court of Chancery. The office had no formal counterpart in the American colonies or early American courts, which developed their own equity procedures without replicating the English clerical hierarchy. Scottish and Irish Chancery practice diverged as well. This is purely an English legal institution.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Court of Chancery; Masters in Chancery; Victorian Court Reform