Keeper of The Signet
The Keeper of the Signet is one of the Great Officers of State of Scotland, and is one of the offices held by the Lord Clerk Register. The current Keeper of the Signet is Lord Mackay of Clashfern, former Lord Advocate of Scotland and Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom.
The office is now a purely ceremonial one, as the Keeper of the Signet grants a commission to the Principal Clerk of Session to allow the Signet to be used. The Keeper of the Signet is the senior officer of the Society of Writers to the Signet and issues commissions to new members. Although the Society is a private body, the Register of Commissions forms part of the records of the Court of Session, held by the National Archives of Scotland. The Keeper does not exercise administrative functions over the Society, these being delegated to the Deputy Keeper. The present Deputy Keeper is Caroline Docherty, Consultant at Morton Fraser LLP.
Read more about this topic: Society Of Writers To Her Majesty's Signet
Famous quotes containing the words keeper and/or signet:
“There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother’s keeper will end up by being his jailkeeper.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“Commerce has set the mark of selfishness,
The signet of its all-enslaving power,
Upon a shining ore, and called it gold:
Before whose image bow the vulgar great,
The vainly rich, the miserable proud,
The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings,
And with blind feelings reverence the power
That grinds them to the dust of misery.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)