There is no reference in our earliest college statutes—those of 1552—to an Auditor, but the extant accounts show that the office existed from the foundation of the College in 1546. Definite regulations for the appointment were proposed in the draft statutes of 1554, and were embodied in the statutes of 1560. By these the auditor was made one of the statutable officers of the Society: the post was held for long periods, and it was not permissible to perform the duties by proxy. The statute in question was re-enacted in 1844. By the statutes of 1861 the office was made annual, and tenable only during pleasure. It remains annual under the present statutes, but a definite proviso was inserted in 1882 that it is not tenable by a fellow or officer of the House, and a clause was introduced providing for the appointment from among the fellows of an Assessor or Assessors who should be present during the audit.
From the foundation of the College, its financial year ran from Michaelmas to Michaelmas, and the audit of each year was concluded in the following December. At first the annual honorarium of the [128] ]auditor seems to have been £10 with an allowance of £2 for travelling expenses, stationery, etc., but before the end of the sixteenth century it had been reduced to £5, with an augmentation of £3. 6s. 8d. and some allowances.
The form of the declaratio computi was much as at present, and generally, with but small variations, it takes the form now stereotyped “and so the said A. B. Senior (or Junior) Bursar upon the foot of this his account for one whole year ending Michaelmas ... oweth unto the College the sum of....” In some cases, and notably in the seventeenth century, the sums include fractions of a penny, even as small as one thirty-second part thereof. Presumably the audit was always followed by a “feast,” as still remains the custom.
Of the occupants of the office from 1546 to 1618 the information in the college books is incomplete. The only auditors previous to 1618 whose names I have noticed, with the years in which they held office, are Edward Burnell, 1553, 1561, 1563 and 1564; Adam Winthrop, 1606; and Richard Brooke, 1614. I have not, however, read the account-books through from cover to cover, and it may be that there are references which have escaped me. Luckily Winthrop’s diary and some memoranda from 1595 to 1621 are extant, and contain references to a few earlier dates. From these we can take our [129] ]continuous record back to the year ending Michaelmas 1593, when he was auditor. He resigned in 1610, and was succeeded by Brooke. Brooke was acting in 1615, and had commons in 1616, and I have no doubt acted in 1617. From 1618 onwards we can, from one source or another, make out the names of those who held the office. The handwritings of the earlier auditors have marked characteristics. They suggest that there was one auditor from 1547 to 1552, another from 1553 to 1578, who must have been Edward Burnell, another from 1579 to 1591, and another from 1592 to 1609, who must have been Adam Winthrop. But I present these as mere surmises, and I do not attempt to go back beyond 1593.
Our roll then is as follows. From 1547 to 1592 we cannot definitely say more than that Edward Burnell was auditor for a period which included the years 1553 to 1564, for no doubt his tenure was unbroken. From 1593 the sequence runs thus:
Adam Winthrop, 1593 (or earlier) to 1609; Richard Brooke, 1610 to 1617; Robert Spicer, 1618 to 1628; Francis Hughes, 1629 to 1668; Samuel Newton, 1669 to 1717, Newton resigned in 1674, and thereon he and William Ellis were appointed to the office, with remainder to the survivor of them, but apparently William Ellis never acted; Denys L’Isle, 1718 to 1726; William Greaves, 1727 to 1778; Robert [130] ]Graham, 1779 to 1791; Samuel Knight, 1792 to 1811; Nicholas Conyngham Tindal, 1812 to 1825; James Parke, 1826 to 1828; Andrew Amos, 1829 to 1836; John George Shaw-Lefevre, 1837 to 1851; George Denman, 1852 to 1862; George Valentine Yool, 1863 to 1869; Augustus Arthur VanSittart, 1870 to 1881; John Willis Clark, 1882 to 1908. Since 1908 the office has been held by a professional accountant. The dates given indicate the ends of the audit year: thus the audit of 1669 was for the year 1668–69. It will be noticed that during the three hundred and sixteen years from 1593 to 1908, there were, if we omit William Ellis, only seventeen auditors, giving an average tenure of more than eighteen years. Of these seventeen auditors at least eleven have been lawyers and four ultimately rose to the Bench. I add a few biographical notes on these auditors.
Of Edward Burnell, the earliest holder of the office whose name I have given, I know nothing. His successor Adam Winthrop, 1548–1623, the son of a prominent London merchant and reformer, had been admitted as a fellow-commoner at Magdalene in 1567, and had left the University without a degree. He had been called to the bar, but did not practise, and was content to fill the rôle of a well-to-do country squire. He was an intimate friend of Still, master of Trinity from 1577 to 1593, whose sister he married in 1574, and whose wife [131] ]was his connection by marriage. I conjecture that he owed the office to Still’s influence. Winthrop was a fair scholar, an indifferent poet, and somewhat of a pedant. His tomb is at Groton, Suffolk. More than one of his descendants were distinguished. In particular his son, John, 1588–1649, who was admitted to Trinity College in 1602, was the founder of the well-known American family of this name; and his great-great-grandson, Sir George Downing was the founder of Downing College.
Winthrop seems to have done the whole of the audit work at the end of the Michaelmas term of each year. Thus in 1601 he wrote:
The ivth of Decemb. I ridde to Cambride & beganne the Auditt the 7th beinge Monday. The xiiijth of Decembre I returned from the Auditt & did see the Sonne in the Eclips about 12 of the Clock at noone.
Perhaps his resignation was made at the suggestion of the College, for early in 1610 he wrote: