The Dignity of a Mayor: or, Municipal Insignia of Office.[21]
By R. S. Ferguson, F.S.A., Mayor of Carlisle 1881-2 and 1882-3.
PART I.
THOSE members of the Archæological Institute who attended the Congress held at Carlisle in 1882, will recollect that, though the mayor of Carlisle did not exactly blow his own trumpet, yet he was rarely seen without his trumpeter in immediate attendance. They may possibly, therefore, have set down to his credit a disposition to magnify the dignity of an office to which he, however unworthy, has been a second time elected. Indeed, they would not be far wrong; and he must admit that his recreations during office took the form of a research into Municipal Pageantry and Municipal Heraldry.
These are very large subjects indeed, and I cannot now undertake to grapple with them. I am glad to say that my valued friend, Mr. Lewellinn Jewitt, has seisin of them both; and that he is preparing for publication an exhaustive treatise on “The Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office of all the Cities and Corporate Towns of Great Britain.”
I propose merely to gossip a bit about Municipal Insignia of Office; to make a few remarks as to what they mean, under what authority they are, or have been assumed; and to bring under your notice a few examples.
Under the term Municipal Insignia I include Rods or Wands of office; Maces, both great and small; Swords of Honour or State; Caps of Estate or Maintenance; Chains and Badges, both of Mayors’ and of other officials; Rings and Robes; Halberts, Horns, and Constables’ Staves.
“Few people,” writes Mr. Llewellinn Jewitt, “have even the most remote idea of the amount of artistic wealth, of antiquarian treasure, and of historical relics possessed by and lying hidden away in the strongholds and chests of the various corporate bodies of this kingdom. The corporations ... are rich beyond compare in works in the precious metals, in emblems of state and civic dignity, in relics of mediæval pageantry, in badges and insignia of various offices, and in seals and records of different periods.”
The neglect with which these treasures have been treated is astounding. The reformed corporations of 1837 despised Municipal Pageantry; many actually sold their insignia for the best prices they would fetch, as “relics of the barbarous ages,” to use the words of a mayor of the town of Maidenhead. Others discarded the use of their insignia, and their existence was almost forgotten. A reaction, however, set slowly in. The Great Exhibition of 1851 caused some places, Nottingham for one, to provide their mayors with chains, in order to attend at the opening. Other places were induced to buy new, or furbish up old insignia on the occasions of Royal visits. During the International Exhibition of 1862 a loan collection, but on a small scale, was formed, to which several corporations contributed their maces and other objects.
In the year 1874, the Royal Archæological Institute presented to the mayor of Exeter a chain of office, in commemoration of the Congress held at Exeter in the previous year. This excited so much interest that the Council of the Institute, in 1875, entertained the idea of holding in London an exhibition of chains of office and other municipal insignia. A committee was formed, and circulars were sent to nearly 600 municipal bodies, asking for information as to their insignia, and as to the possibility of their being exhibited in London. About 300 replies were received; but in those about one-half neglected to describe their insignia, or contented themselves by saying they were “old and OF NO VALUE.” In fact, the municipalities still lacked proper education on the subject, for some of those that replied in the above terms possess most valuable insignia, as also do some that did not answer at all. Difficulties arose, many municipalities “did not see their way” to the loan of their insignia, and so the proposed exhibition was, temporarily as I hope, abandoned. But the attention thus drawn to the subject had good results; it awakened an intelligent interest in the treasures possessed by various corporations, and Mr. Llewellinn Jewitt seems to have had less difficulty in getting information than the Institute found. In the years 1880, 1881, and 1882, he published in the Art Journal a series of most interesting and beautifully illustrated articles, on Corporation Plate and Insignia of Office, shortly to be developed into the book which I have already mentioned.