WITH FIFTY LORD MAYORS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 3, 5 January 1926, Page 4

WITH FIFTY LORD MAYORS

SIB W. SOULSBY'B BECOBD.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 12th November,

For half a century there has been one continuing link between the Lord Mayors of London—Sir William Soulsby, who has held the office of Private Secretary to the Lord Mayor since 1875. _ This long period of service was not contemplated by Sir William when, as a young barrister-at-law, he was selected as secretary for a year in 1875.

"Like all newly-fledged banisters," he said, in an interview, ''I had visions of the Woolsack; but each Lord Mayor reappointed me in the position. During that half-century nearly ten millions have "teen raised at the Mansion House to relieve distress at home and abroad, while the records of the Mansion House are part of the history of the Empire, and it would require volumes to chronicle them. I have no intention of writing a book of reminiscences, though I have often been pressed to do so."

Of his fifty chiefs 13 are living, 2 were created peers, 3 Privy Councillors, and 30 baronets. Be has twice served father and son—Sir Francis Truscott in 1880 and Bir George Truscott in 1909; aDd Sir Stuart Knill in 1893, and Sir John Knill in 1910. One Lord Mayor, Mr. Alderman Nottagc, died during his year of office. Only one birth has occurred in the 50 years at Mansion House, the mother being a daughter of Lord Mayor Cotton. The christening took place in St. Paul's and Thomas Carlylc was a godfather.

Thero has been one Jewish marriage at the Mansion House, the bride being a daughter' of Lord Bearstcd, Miss Nellie Samuel, who waa married in 1903. Sir William's association with the city is longer than his appointment at the Mansion House, for he was at the City of .London School in the 'sixties, with Mr. Asquith as a contemporary. "I remember," he says, "seeing the State entry of Princess Alexandra to the city in 1863 from a grandstand occupied by the 700 boys of the school in the Cathedral enclosure of St. Paul's.,"

When Sir William began his secretaryship quill pens were still used, and letters bore seals of ted or black wax; there were no telephones, tubes, motor vehicles, or typewriting machines; fire engines were drawn by horses, and few were worked by ateam. The Lord Mayor had then to wear a white tie and evening dress when he was in the Police Court, and he and the sheriffs need be great churchgoers, for they went to a different church every Sunday in full state. It was characteristic also xof the lavish hospitality, and perhaps the greater voracity, of the period that the afternoon was spent in entertaining the Common Councilmen, the clergy, the churchwardens, and the sidesmen. This practice persisted until Sir Robert Fowler, when Lord Mayor, brought it to an end in 1883, and it has never been revived.