The register's office, among the first created by the municipal government after incorporation in 1796, had the responsibilities to maintain records and manage all funds. This office's authority was extended to account audits and settlement and the register in 1818 began to be annually elected by the two branches of the city council instead of joint mayoral and city council appointment.

By the 1820's the establishment of a funded debt through loans and stock emissions made the register's duties more complex. Negotiation and authorization for the expanding funded debt lay with the Commissioners of Finance, but the register was charged with its functional management including record keeping and account audits, collections, and payments.

As the size and intricacy of Baltimore's financial affairs grew, it became necessary to develop additional means of administration. In 1857 the comptroller was established to audit and settle all municipal accounts. The register continued to maintain the city's records and to serve as custodian of city funds although now only on instructions from the comptroller. A further attempt to lighten the load of Baltimore's financial machinery came in 1874. During this year a city librarian's office was created to relieve the register of keeping all municipal records except for those pertaining to the public debt and property titles.

The duties of the register remained stable up to 1946 when the office was abolished by a revised charter. Responsibility for keeping the records of the public debt and for custody of municipal monies and securities was vested in the department of the treasurer, an office merged into the Department of Finance in 1980.

For additional information see Jacob H. Hollander, The Financial History of Baltimore (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1899); Frederick P. Stieff, The Government of a Great American City (Baltimore: H. G. Roebuck & Son, 1935); ords. 5 and 8 (1797); ord. 8 (1857); ord. 129 (1874); and the Baltimore City Charter of 1946, sect. 62.