Definition of "penman"

[T]he holy Pen-men of the Nevv Teſtament ſeem to have borrovv'd and apply'd it [the word mystery] to ſome of the Great and Arduous Truths of Chriſtianity, ſuch as human Reaſon cannot give a clear and explicit Account of.

1693, [Robert South], chapter I, in Animadversions upon Dr. Sherlock’s Book, Entituled A Vindication of the Holy and Ever-blessed Trinity, &c. […], London: […] Randal Taylor, […], page 2

Well, I often wish I were a penman; but I never could do it. I’ll read any day as long as you like, but that writing, I could never manage.

1845, B[enjamin] Disraeli, Sybil; or The Two Nations. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Henry Colburn, […]

You have a very bad opinion indeed of the present state of Literature and of literary men, if you fancy that any one of us would hesitate to stick a knife into his neighbour penman, if the latter's death could do the state any service.

1846 February 28 – 1847 February 27, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, “On Literary Snobs”, in The Book of Snobs, London: Punch Office, […], published 1848, page 60

But there had been total silence. The Captain evidently was not a great penman, and Rosamond reflected that the sisters might have been abroad.

1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter LXIV, in Middlemarch […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, book (please specify |book=I to VIII)

Forgers, counterfeiters (penmen) and other such intellectuals have a certain standing in the underworld and even pickpockets are respected more or less as the masters of a difficult art, but they do not rank with the princes of the big con […]

1962, H. L. Mencken, The American Language, supplement 2, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, page 669