1552 King Edward VI Chron. & Polit. Papers (1966) (modernized text) 174 The bullion may remain still and the land not sold, which if it were to be spent were better bestowed hereafter on those that have served than sold to auditors or penmen.

1613 S. Rowlands More Knaues Yet sig. E3 But Plutoe's pen-man you did late mistake The deuils errand, for your Maisters sake.

1628 E. Coke 1st Pt. Inst. Lawes Eng. 120 Clerk..a pen-man who getteth his living in some court or otherwise by the use of his pen.

1678 in Documents Colonial Hist. N.-Y. XII. 604 Should I take a pennman to writt.

1727 A. Hamilton New Acct. E. Indies I. xiii. 150 The Banyans..are either Merchants, Bankers, Brokers or Pen-men.

1858 D. Masson Life Milton I. 20 Scriveners, as the name implies, were originally penmen of all kinds of writings.

1885 ‘S. Luska’ As it was Written viii. 138 A penman's palsy shakes my fist.

1924 Scribner's Mag. Dec. 602/2 Every pay-day Annie stopped at the corner and had the penman write a letter for her.

1987 Oxf. Diocesan Mag. Sept. 8/2 After the penman had written on the parchment, it was quired, stitched, and bound in a leather cover.

1601 G. Hakewill Vanitie of Eie (1615) viii. 45 Moses, the pen-man of God.

1611 M. Smith in Bible (King James) Transl. Pref. 3 The authour being God, not man; the enditer, the holy spirit..; the Pen~men such as were sanctified from the wombe, and endewed with a principall portion of Gods spirit.

a1659 R. Brownrig 65 Serm. (1674) II. xv. 186 Moses, the first Pen-man that God ever imployed.

1741 W. Warburton Divine Legation Moses II. 480 The inspired Pen-men.

1781 A. Francis Poet. Transl. Song of Solomon Prelim. Disc. p. ii The Song of Songs is no human composition, but the work of an inspired penman.

1875 F. H. A. Scrivener 6 Lect. Text New Test. 7 In the case of the classical writings, so with those of the sacred penmen.

1909 B. P. Bowne Stud. in Christianity i. 55 It is not to be thought of that an ‘inspired penman’ should be in error.

1865 Sessions Papers 11 Apr. 519 For being concerned with, Jemmy the Penman, and others, now in custody.

1887 J. Hawthorne (title) An American penman: from the diary of Inspector Byrnes.

1938 F. D. Sharpe Sharpe of Flying Squad xxix. 297 As soon as they get some cheques or ‘kites’, as they call them, these are rushed off to the ‘penman’ or ‘scribe’, whose task is that of taking out crosses on them, enlarging the figures and preparing suitable letters to the bank asking them to cash the cheques.

1974 H. McLeave Only Gentlemen can Play (1975) ii. 97 You'll need a passport... I've got a penman who can doctor it.

1993 Guardian 23 Oct. (Weekend Suppl.) 31/1 There is some sadness, some regret that the old penman is redundant. Those glorious copying skills, the choice of ink, the forgery of the watermark, all has been replaced by modern technology.

1592 ‘C. Cony-Catcher’ Def. Conny-catching sig. A4 That palpable asse..that would make any pen-man priuy to our secret sciences.

1673 F. Kirkman Wits (new ed.) Pref. sig. A2 The most part of these Pieces were written by such Penmen as were known to be the ablest Artists that ever this Nation produced, by Name, Shake-spear, Fletcher, Johnson, Shirley, and others.

1710 Ld. Shaftesbury Soliloquy 71 Able Penmen rais'd to rehearse the Lives, and celebrate the high Actions of great Men.

1886 E. Dowden Life Shelley I. iv. 135 The grand ball..taxing to the utmost the powers of the penman who described the event next day in the Morning Herald.

1916 J. R. Towse Sixty Years of Theater i. 9 The dialogue..was furnished by practical pen-men.

1977 Listener 11 Aug. 164/2 This gentle-spoken penman has a few surprises for Ireland.

2003 Mail on Sunday (Nexis) 7 Sept. 66 An amusing account of the author's younger self, in which he mercilessly sends himself up as acolyte, priest and pushy penman on the make.

1610 R. Niccols Winter Nights Vision in Mirour for Magistrates (new ed.) 604 The pen-man of my historie.

1641 J. Jackson True Evangelical Temper iii. 217 So doth the Penman of the Epistle to the Hebrewes.

1674 N. Fairfax Treat. Bulk & Selvedge To Rdr. If I give out I set highly by it, I should lacken it as much by making such a Fondling the Penman of it.

1706 A. Bedford Temple Musick vii. 154 The Pen Men of the Holy Scriptures.

1788 B. Franklin Autobiogr. (1987) 1457 I was..Penman first of the Request to have a Communication of the Instructions, and then of the Remarks upon them.

1882 F. W. Farrar Early Days Christianity I. 329 The inspiration of the Holy Spirit was not a mechanical dictation, which makes a man the pen rather than the penman of sacred utterance.

1939 B. C. Davenport Diary French Revol. I. Introd. p. xi The recent discovery of a thirty-dollar charge from a clerk in the Pennsylvania Legislature for engrossing the actual parchment in no way impairs Morris's..title of penman of the Constitution.

2003 St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch (Nexis) 15 Jan. a2 Scott Turow.., penman of ‘Presumed Innocent’, will address the question ‘Where have you gone, Perry Mason?’