APPENDIX C.
ELECTION OF LORD MAYORS OF LONDON.
(Page 356.)
In the years 1751-2-3, the Lord Mayor was not appointed by rotation; Sir G. Champion, the senior Alderman, being accused of a leaning towards Spain. From 1754 to 1765 (inclusive) if there was in any year a contest, yet in each case the senior Alderman nominated was chosen. From 1766 to 1775 (inclusive) there was in every year a departure from the order of seniority. In 1776-8 the order of seniority was again observed; so that two years before Johnson made his remark the irregularity had come to an end. This information I owe to the kindness of Mr. Scott, the excellent Chamberlain of the City. Sir George Champion had been passed over in the year 1739 also. In an address to the Liverymen he says that 'the disorders and great disturbance to the peace of the city, which in former times had been occasioned by the over-eagerness of some, too ambitious and impatient to obtain this great honour, had been quieted' by the adoption of the order of seniority. Gent. Mag. 1739, p. 595. Among the Lord Mayors from 1769-1775 (inclusive) we find Beckford, Trecothick, Crosby, Townshend, Bull, Wilkes, and Sawbridge. 'Where did Beckford and Trecothick learn English?' asked Johnson (ante, iii. 76). Crosby, in the year of his mayoralty (1770-1), was committed to the Tower by the House of Commons, for having himself committed to prison a messenger of the House when attempting to arrest the printer of the London Evening Debates, who was accused of a breach of privilege in reporting the Debates (Parl. Hist. xvii. 155). Townshend in the same year refused to pay the land-tax, on the plea that his county (Middlesex) was no longer represented, as Wilkes's election had been annulled (Walpole's Letters, v. 348). Bull in the House of Commons violently attacked Lord North's ministry (Parl. Hist. xix. 980). Sawbridge, year after year, brought into Parliament a bill for shortening the duration of parliaments. During his Mayoralty he would not suffer the pressgangs to enter the city. (Walpole's Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 84.)
Among the Aldermen the Court-party had a majority. In April 1769 Wilkes's eligibility for election as an Alderman was not allowed by a majority of ten to six (Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iii. 360, and Ann. Reg. xii. 92). On his release from prison in April 1770 he was, however, admitted without a division (ib. xiii. 99). When, in March 1770, the City presented an outspoken remonstrance to the King, sixteen Aldermen protested against it (Walpole's Letters, v. 229). About this time there arose a great division in the popular party in the City. According to Lord Albemarle, in his Memoirs of Rockingham, ii. 209, from the period of this struggle 'the Whigs and what are now called Radicals became two distinct sections of the Liberal party.' Townshend, who in this followed the lead of Lord Shelburne, headed the more moderate men against Wilkes. The result was that in 1771 each section running a candidate for the Mayoralty, a third man, Nash, who was opposed to both, was returned (Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 345, and Ann. Reg. xiv. 146).
The Livery, for a time at least, was Wilkite. Wilkes's name was sent up as Lord Mayor at the top of the list in 1772 and 1773, but he was in each case passed over by the Court of Aldermen. It was not till 1774 that he was elected by a kind of 'Hobson's choice.' The Aldermen had to choose between him and the retiring Lord Mayor, Bull. Walpole, writing of Nov. 1776, says the new Lord Mayor 'invited the Ministers to his feast, to which they had not been asked for seven years' (Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 84). See Boswell's Hebrides, post, v. 339.