The Registrary

Summary

The Registrary is one of the most important administrative University officers: he has to deal with records and documents, with congregations and councils and courts, with Boards and Syndicates, with the Reporter, and to some extent with fees and moneys (though that rising official the Treasurer may perhaps in the future supersede him in some of these last matters). But in the Senate House he does not thrust himself forward, and so in dealing with Ceremonies we have not much to say about the Registrary.

But his office is fairly ancient, appearing, and definitely appearing, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The first Registrary was Robert Hobbs, who, like all those who held the post in that century, was an Esquire Bedell and an expert in all University affairs. Even after he resigned office in the year 1543, there is a curious record of how the old gentleman was consulted as to the correct way of carrying out academic proceedings. His successor John Mere left three or four Diaries which throw much light upon University ceremonies; and Matthew Stokes, who followed him, was one of the keenest of all the Cambridge officials. He gave “a curious picture of all the habits of the several degrees and officers of the University,” which formerly hung in the Consistory, but is now somewhat inconveniently placed on the staircase of the Registry.