Much information as to silver oars will be found in the 30th and 31st volumes of the Institute’s Journal.
By far the greatest part of the chains and badges worn by mayors are modern, of various degrees of ugliness, and I certainly hope the antiquaries of a future age will not judge of the art of the nineteenth century from a collection of mayors’ chains. There are exceptions, such as the chain presented to Exeter by the Institute in 1874, which consists of sixteen main links, conjoined by small ones. Of the former, eight are castles, an idea taken from the arms of the city; seven are composed of the letter X, surmounted by a crown; the sixteenth is a cinquefoil, containing a representation of the hat presented to the mayor by Henry VII., and from the cinquefoil depends the badge on which is, in enamel, the arms of the city.
I do not know that a mayor’s chain and badge has any particular symbolism; I do not think that it is in the nature of a “collar.” It merely marks out its wearer as a man of importance, and requires no special authority to authorise its assumption. It is part of the idea of a mayor, inherent in him. But I must protest against some municipalities which have, without any right whatever, provided their mayors with collars of SS. The Lord Mayor of Dublin wears one, but the collar was given to the city by Charles II., so there is no doubt as to his right to wear it; but I think the Lord Mayor of London would find great difficulty in satisfying the College of Arms as to his right to a collar of SS, which was given him (temp. Henry VIII.), not by the Crown, but by a subject, Sir John Alleyne. The town council of Cork coolly ordered a fac-simile of the Dublin one to be provided for their mayor. The council of Derby purchased Lord Denman’s collar of SS, and their mayor wears it. Coventry, Nottingham, Stamford, Kingston-on-Thames, and other places possess modern chains of the “SS pattern,” as the jewellers call it, and their mayors wear them. They might with equal propriety assume the insignia of the Order of the Garter.
The use of chains is not confined to mayors; several other civic dignitaries wear them—sheriffs, and aldermen in some instances. York provides a gold chain for its Lady Mayoress, and is ungallant enough to weigh the chain when it is handed to a new Lady Mayoress, and again when she gives it up; an old scandal asserts that a former Lady Mayoress appropriated some of the links. Hull, which, by the way, possesses a mayor’s chain of the date of 1564, sold its Mayoress’s chain. At many towns the waits, or town musicians, had badges with chains for suspension: these are generally of silver, and the badges bear the arms of the place. Several curious examples exist. Lincoln has a mayor’s ring, but whether it is ancient or not I do not know, nor do I know of any other place.
As to civic robes, I can give no information and lay down no rules. The mayor of Carlisle is one of the few mayors who possess no robe, and I rather congratulate myself thereon. I was utterly unprepared for the gorgeous spectacle presented by my brother mayors at the Mansion House in 1882. Every variety of material, of colour, and of pattern was to be seen that the wildest imagination of the tailor could devise.
Although the mayor of Carlisle has no gown, the unreformed corporation of Carlisle had them in the seventeenth century, as shown by the records of a Court Leet, held on Monday, October 22, 1649:—
“We order (that according to an ancient order) the Aldermen of this Citty shall attend the Maior upon every Lord’s day to the Church in their gounes, and likewise to attend the Maior in the Markett-place at or before the sermon bell to the Church, sub pena vis. viiid. toties quoties; and the Common Counsellmen to attend likewise, sub pena 3s. 4d. toties quoties.
“We order that the present bailiffes of this Cittie shall forthwith provide for either of them a decent gowne for the Honnor of this Cittie, sub pena.”
The lateness of the hour warns me to stop. I daresay many of you think I have been but wasting the evening in gossip over trivial matters. “But,” as Mr. Thompson writes, in his “English Municipal History,”—
“The citizen of olden times looked upon the municipal insignia with a political significance. When he saw the mace and sword, when he saw the banner of his community unfurled, his heart exulted at the thought that his fellow-citizens and he constituted a body enjoying entire independence, their own civil and criminal jurisdiction, and a name in the land which kings and lords respected.”