Signet

Signet, in England, one of the seals for the authentication of royal grants; for its use and for the signet office, now abolished, see SEAL, p. 277. The signet in Scotland is a seal which seems to have been originally intended to authenticate royal warrants connected with the administration of justice. The principal class of solicitors in Scotland are called Writers to the Signet, from their having been originally clerks in the office of the king's secretary, it being their duty to prepare all warrants for charters or grants to be passed under either the Great Seal or Privy-seal, such warrants being called from an early period 'signatures,' because they bore the signet of the king. Writers to the Signet and Solicitors before the Supreme Courts were long the only solicitors allowed to act as agents in the Supreme Courts. But by the Law Agents Act of 1873 any person duly admitted a law agent can practise in any court in Scotland. See SOLICITORS.