WHY IS HE "LORD MAYOR"?

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 83, 4 October 1930, Page 25

WHY IS HE "LORD MAYOR"?

What-legal title has London's first citizen: to the prefix "Lord" Mayor? ■ This question by a correspondent, was investigated-, by a "News Chronicle" representative recently with rather un-looked-for results. ' ,

Recent enactments have put the claims of other Lord Mayors on a proper legal footing, but it appears that the Lord Mayor of London holds' his title without any definite prescription except tradition. It has been alleged that Edward 111. granted the prefix "Lord" in 1354, when, by tho Charter of Maces, the Chief Magistrate was granted the honour of having maces carried before him by the sergeants. Sir William Soulsby, so long associated with the Lord Mayors of London, admitted that ho could not give any details of claim to tho title. "I can tell you," he said, "who was the first Mayor of London to uso the title 'Lord

Mayur.' It was Thomas Legge, .an ancestor of tho present Earl of Dartmouth. I think it must havo come from a courtesy title.'' The librarian at the Guildhall said: "The title probably arose becauso it was tho custom for the mayor to be addressed as 'My Lord the Mayor,' and it may be that this was corrupted later into 'My Lord Mayor.' " The most learned authority who has investigated this subject was tho Rev. A. B. Beavcn, whose volume, published in 1913, on "Tho Aldermen of the City of London," contains this conclusion regarding tho Lord Mayor of London's title: "I am convinced it is not dofinite, but evolutionary in its origin, and the dates seem to imply that, whereas the prefix had been mdro or less regularly adopted in tho .official minutes fioni about. 1353, it did not come into i general use in tho outer, world until iome^teu years later." _ .■