VIII. CLERK TO THE MAGISTRATES.
This Office is under the Corporation, but is in the gift of the Magistrates. It was so under the old Corporation, when the Mayors and Jurats appointed their Clerk, who, in early times, was the Town Clerk, but later it became a separate appointment. A succession of lawyers of the Kennet family had held the office in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, but in the last days of the Jurats the Clerk to the Bench was Mr. George William Ledger. Under the Act of 1835, Mr. Ledger, who was Clerk of the Peace and Town Clerk, could not continue to hold the position of Clerk to the Justices, but he was compensated for loss of office. The appointment again reverted to the Kennett family, Mr. Matthew Kennett being appointed, and he held the office until his death in 1857. He was succeeded by Mr. James Stilwell, who held the office until his death in 1898. Then the late Mr. Arthur Harby, Mr. Stilwell's partner, was chosen as Clerk to the Magsitrates ; but, two years later, he, to the regret of the townspeople, was killed by being thrown from his horse during the Volunteer training at Sandwich on July 3rd, igoo. The Magistrates chose as his successor, his brother, Mr. Travers B. Harby, who at present holds the office.