Habemus Maiorem

 

The NBC is of the view that the ‘earliest records show that there has been a mayor in Newcastle since 1318’.

Although records from the 1300s are sparse, there is documentary evidence that Newcastle-under-Lyme had a functioning civic government structure with a mayor-like figure or chief burgess during the medieval period.

In 1590 Elizabeth I granted the first governing Charter to Newcastle-under-Lyme ‘with the power of hanging and gibbeting and independence of the county court; along with the right of the burgesses to elect a Mayor’.   We are also told that this privilege ‘was …usurped by the members of the Corporation and confined to their own body … finding their attempts to recover their privileges ineffectual that determined to cast an odium upon the ceremony of election, yet in some measure retain the semblance of their rights by electing a ‘Mock Mayor.  At this ceremony every act was a burlesque on the Corporate election’.   Joseph Mayer of Thistleberry, whose father became Mayor of Newcastle in the 1830s in order to restore the democratic rights of those entitled to vote, gives a good account of the ceremony to elect a Mock Mayor.  The ceremony, ‘so annoying was it to the corporate dignitaries that in some instances his ‘Mock’ Worship was put in the stocks as punishment.  The burlesque scenes were often very cutting and exhibited a great deal of rancour and ill-feeling’.  Joseph Mayer’s satirical pamphlet highlighted the behaviour of civic dignitaries who, once in power, were thought to become a law unto themselves.

This did not prevent Joseph Mayer from designing, making and presenting a Mayoral chain to the borough, however. 

The mock ceremony had disappeared by the 20^th century.   

Fast forward to the 21^st Century:  The NBC states that ‘the Mayor and Deputy Mayor are elected each year by our elected members at the Council’s annual meeting held in May…, which has remained unchanged for many years…. The meeting gives the new mayor an opportunity to speak about their aspirations for the coming year and to wear the mayoral robe for the first time’. 

‘The mayor is the first citizen of the borough. The mayor should remain impartial throughout their year in office and should not be asked to become involved in political or contentious issues’.

Those attempting to encourage the new Mayor to accountability and even to heel, await the coming year with bated breath.  

In the current local climate of 'silencing' and the attempts to limit the freedom of speech, perhaps events are turning full circle and a mock mayoral ceremony might help to restore the many imbalances creeping into the body politic, and civic life.