Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper

The Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper was a civil servant within the Irish Chancery in the Dublin Castle administration. His duties corresponded to the offices of Clerk of the Crown and Clerk of the Hanaper in the English Chancery. Latterly, the office's most important functions were to issue writs of election to the Westminster Parliament, both for the Commons and for Irish representative peers in the Lords.

In 1859 commissioners investigating the Irish Chancery described duties of the office thus:

The office of the Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper in Chancery is regulated by the Act of 6 and 7 Wm. IV., cap. 74, which provides that the office shall consist of the Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper, and two clerks to be appointed by him.

The duties of the office are threefold :—first, those connected with the petty-bag or law side of the Court; secondly, preparing and issuing certain writs specified in the schedule to the Act of 4 Geo. IV., cap. 61; and thirdly, swearing gentlemen into office before the Lord Chancellor.

The business of the petty-bag or law-side of the Court, is confined to proceedings to enforce the performance of a recognizance entered into in the Court, and to proceedings in cases of debt against officers of the Court, there being an antiquated privilege appertaining to officers of the Court of Chancery, that they are not amenable in cases of debt to the ordinary tribunals of the country, but must be sued in their own Court.

Prior to the acts, enumerated thus in 1817 by commissioners into legal costs:

Until 1836, the Clerk was appointed by letters patent, and could himself appoint a deputy. There were no statutory qualifications required for the post.

In 1868 the Public Record Office of Ireland catalogued the older records it archived from the Hanaper office thus:

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