Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION SEVEN.
OFFICERS OF THE CORPORATION.
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.



354 ANNALS OF DOVER