July, 25.
Mr. Urban.—The learned antiquary finds a pleasure in tracing the origin of ancient customs, even when time has so altered them as totally to obliterate their use. It may therefore not be unpleasing to the generality of your readers, while it is yet recent in memory, to record in your Magazine the laudable motive that gave rise to the farcical custom of electing a Mayor of Garrat, which is now become truly ridiculous.
I have been told, that about thirty years ago, several persons who lived near that part of Wandsworth which adjoins to Garrat Lane, had formed a kind of club, not merely to eat and drink, but to concert measures for removing the encroachments made on that part of the common, and to prevent any others being made for the future. As the members were most of them persons in low circumstances, they agreed at every meeting to contribute some small matter, in order to make up a purse for the defence of their collective rights. When a sufficient sum of money was subscribed, they applied to a very worthy attorney in that neighbourhood, who brought an action against the encroachers in the name of the president (or, as they called him, the MAYOR) of the club. They gained their suit with costs; the encroachments were destroyed; and ever after, the president, who lived many years, was called “The Mayor of Garrat.”
This event happening at the time of a general election, the ceremony upon every new parliament, of choosing outdoor members for the borough of Garrat, has been constantly kept up, and is still continued, to the great emolument of all the publicans at Wandsworth, who annually subscribe to all incidental expenses attending this mock election.
M. G.
The late eminent antiquary, Dr. Ducarel, made inquiries respecting this custom of the late Mr. W. Massey of Wandsworth, who answered them in the following letter:—
Wandsworth, June 25, 1754.
Dr. Ducarel.—I promised to give you an account of the mock election for Garrat, a district within the compass of the parish of Wandsworth. I have been informed, that about 60 or 70 years ago, some watermen, belonging to this town, went to the Leather Bottle, a public house at Garrat, to spend a merry day, which, being the time of a general election for members of Parliament, in the midst of their frolick they took it into their heads to chuse one of their company a representative for that place; and, having gone through the usual ceremonies of an election, as well as the occasion would permit, he was declared duly elected. Whether the whimsical custom of swearing the electors upon a brick-bat, ‘quod rem cum aliqua muliere, intra limites istius pagi, habuissent,’ was then first established, or that it was a waggish after-thought, I cannot determine, but it has been regarded as the due qualification of the electors for many elections last past.
This local usage, from that small beginning, has had a gradual increase; for no great account was made of it, that I can remember or hear of, before the two elections preceding this last, which has been performed with uncommon pomp and magnificence, in the plebeian mode of pageantry. And, as it has been taken notice of in our public newspapers, it may probably have a run, through those channels, to many parts of the kingdom, and, in time, become the inquiry of the curious, when and why such a mock usage was commenced.