The Masters of the Bench (or ‘Benchers’) are the senior members of the Inn who constitute its governing body. The word ‘Master’ is used as a gender-neutral title and form of address for individual Benchers. The term’s usage at the Inn dates back at least to the Tudor period, and it has been used to distinguish Benchers for over three centuries.
Etymology of the title Master of the Bench
To understand this usage, it is helpful to consider the word’s etymology and meanings as a context for its present-day application at the Inn, and also to look at the evidence of its emergence in the Inn’s records.
The word derives from the Latin magister (meaning teacher, leader, director) and also from the Old French maistre (an honorific title for a scholar). Of its many broad meanings (as defined in the Oxford English Dictionary), three are of particular salience, all of which originate in Old English:
- Someone having authority, direction or control over an organisation, household, individuals or (in a nautical context) a vessel.
- A teacher, someone qualified to teach, an authority in a particular subject, one skilled in a particular craft, or someone holding a senior academic degree.
- A title of particular rank or respect, or denoting a particular office or position.
Modern Use
Its modern application reflects these senses. Masters of the Bench are those who govern and direct the Inn. They are professional experts with the capacity and responsibility to pass on their knowledge through teaching and training, and they occupy a particular rank and office within the Inn’s membership and governance. This non-gendered usage echoes academic degrees such as ‘Master of Arts’ as well as legal offices such as ‘Master in Chancery’; it also reflects the traditions of a medieval guild, in which the Masters of a trade would pass on their skills to apprentices in the craft.
Usage at Middle Temple
The term’s usage at the Middle Temple originated several centuries ago and should be understood in the context of the evolution of the Inn’s membership structure. By the 1500s, the three levels of membership familiar today – students, barristers and Benchers – had emerged. The term ‘Bencher’ first appears in 1507 in the Inn’s records, and ‘Utter-Barrester’ and ‘Inner-Barrester’ appear to have been in use by c1545. By the 1550s their formal identification as Masters of the Inner Bar (students), Masters of the Utter Bar (barristers) and Masters of the Bench (Benchers) was well-established.
These distinctions originate in the physical locations at which the three categories of member stood or sat during Moots (which also gave rise to the ‘Call to the Bar’ as an act of conferring a qualification). For many years, the qualification to become a Master of the Bench was to have served as the Inn’s Reader, and thus Benchers bore the distinction of having delivered a key element of the Inn’s educational curriculum.
Members of all three groups were given the title ‘Master’, which was often abbreviated to ‘Mr’ in written records. ‘Mr’ was originally simply a ‘graphic abbreviation’ of ‘Master’, a form of written shorthand. The Bencher Master X, the barrister Master Y, and the student Master Z would be denoted in writing as Mr X, Mr Y and Mr Z respectively.
The use of Master x to denote Benchers specifically, as distinct from other members, first appears in written records in 1720. This aligns with the separation of ‘Master’ and ‘Mister’ in wider English parlance into different words at around the same time.