What did a solicitor's clerk actually do?

[Rena]

I think I might have cracked it! I tried Googling the companies mentioned in the Lloyd's List articles to see if they'd offer any clues, and discovered that "Parker & Co., St. Michael's Rectory, Cornhill, E.C" is a solicitor's office. More fully they are "Parker, Garrett & Co," and S. Garrett of that address pops up next to Henry in the notice declaring the registration of the "Delagoa Bay Agency Company (Ltd.)"

Whoopeee !

My next suggestion would have been to look for his name in the online London Gazette because I noticed in the Edinburgh Gazette quite recently, when I found an ancestor had sold his interest in a company, that clerk's and solicitor's names were mentioned.

[Geordie daughter]

It turned out to be double-whoopee! S. Garrett was actually Samuel Garrett, the brother of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Britain's first qualified woman doctor, and his firm arranged her marriage settlement. Her husband James George Skelton Anderson co-owned the Orient Steamship Company, and her father, Newson Garrett, also had shipping interests, so no wonder the firm took on a lot of clients in the shipping/export-import trade. Samuel was very keen for women to be admitted to the legal profession as solicitors, etc, and made a speech, as President of the Law Society, to that effect in 1918 (Go, Samuel! ). A later partner, Henry Martin Holman, corresponded regularly with William More Adey, one of the inner circle of friends who managed Oscar Wilde's business (and presumably, legal) affairs while the latter was in prison. Oh, and the original head of the firm was Sir Henry Watson Parker (knighted 1887, according to his obit.), who was vice-president of the Incorporated Law Society in 1885-6, and president in 1886-87. As you can imagine, I'm just a little bit gobsmacked!

[Geordie daughter]

...AND the office was right on the doorstep of the Turk's Head/Pasqua Rosee's Head, the first ever coffee house to make its appearance in London in 1652. My late dad was a fan of Samuel Pepys and would have been fascinated to know that Henry spent most of his working life near a place Pepys had frequented around two centuries earlier. By the time Henry was employed at Parker, Garrett and Co., (c.1871) it had become a pub, though, and the building it occupied was pretty new, having been erected around 1869 to replace a much older one.

[Rena]

Wow !

It's amazing that one little hint can unlock such a flood of information.

Onward and upwrd eh?

[Geordie daughter]

Absolutely!
A quick rummage through the Newspaper Archives courtesy of FindMyPast, last night, revealed that the company seems to have specialised in Maritime and Company Law (in the early days, at least), although there are also plenty of more general dealings with libel cases, property, deceased estates and so on. They acted for the "Globe" newspaper after it printed an article reporting (wrongly) that Lord Kitchener had resigned, in 1915, and got badly rapped over the knuckles by the Government for it. The firm's letters and the Government's response to them, were printed in other papers afterwards.

[Marmalady]

 The only thing of note is that he got married, at the grand old age of 62 (after his parents' deaths), to his spinster cousin who had been part of the household since her early twenties.

Possibly a marriage of convenience to preserve the proprieties. An unmarried woman living with a man unchaperoned was frowned upon in many circles

[BumbleB]

 The only thing of note is that he got married, at the grand old age of 62 (after his parents' deaths), to his spinster cousin who had been part of the household since her early twenties.

Possibly a marriage of convenience to preserve the proprieties. An unmarried woman living with a man unchaperoned was frowned upon in many circles

Not necessarily - perhaps he had to care for his parents and was only free to marry after their passing. 

I have an instance of a couple - OK, rather younger - who married within a month of his widowed mother's death.  They obviously knew each other well, as they had 4 children together prior to marriage    They then went on to have another two, and all are named in his will as "natural or legitimate".

[Marmalady]

If there was an unmarried woman (or indeed, any woman!) in the household, it is more likely she was doing any necessary caring for the elderly parents, rather than the son who was out at work all day

But maybe the parents objected to the marriage, so the couple felt unable to marry earlier even tho both were lang past the age of needing parental consent

[Geordie daughter]

Those thoughts went through my mind as well, though with regard to the bit about preserving propriety, there was a spinster sister, Annie, living at home as well, and all three of them moved to, and set up house in, Ipswich together afterwards. Maybe they were trying to avoid any suggestion of there being a menage a trois!! If I had to choose, I think the parental objection theory would win over preserving the proprieties by a narrow margin, on the grounds that Nellie was so closely related. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall! As for the caring for elderly parents bit, it looks very much as if it was Nellie acting as a sort of housekeeper to the couple in their twilight years, as Annie worked in the family's cork cutting business alongside another brother, and Henry was still in employment until at least 1911.