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- Frederick Ernest Woodliffe was Lord Mayor of Kingston upon Hull and Admiral of the Humber from November 9th 1937 until November 9 1938.
- THE OFFICES OF THE LORD MAYOR OF KINGSTON UPON HULL
AND ADMIRAL OF THE HUMBER
n.b. These paragraphs are intended for the information
and the interest of holders of the office of Lord Mayor,
and of others to whom they may be given. They are,
in no way, nor are they meant to be, a full recital of
the matters affecting such offices.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS OF THE TWO OFFICES
The right of the Burgesses to elect from among themselves a Mayor was first granted by Charter of the 6 May, 1331 and the right of the Mayor and Burgesses to elect an Admiral of the Humber was granted by Charter of the 10 March, 1447 which Charter gave the right of election of one suitable and discreet man, according to the wise discretion of the Aldermen, to be Admiral within the said City of Kingston upon Hull and within the whole town of “Dripole” and the whole precinct thereof and throughout the whole water of the Humber; such election, in the first place, to be made immediately following upon the decease “or our most dear kinsmen John, Duke of Exeter and of Henry, his son”. From the first election of Admiral of the Humber some few years after 1447, the election has taken place annually.
THE LORD MAYORALTY
The Mayor being the chief citizen, it may be of interest to point out that the title itself is derived from the early medieval English term “Maier” or “Mer”, or from the Latin “Maior”, the comparative of magnus meaning great and, therefore, indicating the greater, i.e., the greater among his fellow burgesses.
The first Mayor, following the grant of the 1331 Charter, was Sir William De La Pole, famous in the history of the City and, up to the reform of Municipal Corporations in 1835, the election of Mayor continued to be made in accordance with the Charter powers.
In December 1883, a Government Inquiry into the Municipal Corporation of Kingston upon Hull took place and records these items of interest:-
By the Governing Charter of 1661 it was granted that there should be chosen as Mayor of the Borough “one of the more honest and discreet Aldermen”. The Mayor was to hold with the Sheriff, Aldermen or other persons, the following courts – the Court of Record (which dealt with actions of all kinds without limitation as to amount); the Assizes; the Quarter Sessions and the Court of Gaol Delivery, the Mayor sitting daily at the Guildhall as Judge of the Court of Record to hear complaints, etc. It was also recorded that, under a bye-law of 1677, a fine of £500 could be imposed upon any Alderman refusing to take upon himself the office of Mayor after being duly elected. On the other hand the Mayor, on assumption of office, was entitled to receive dues consisting of samples of fish, apples and potatoes and a bag of coals from every vessel delivered (i.e., discharged) at the Port and being so laden, and from a return it appeared that the average annual number of bags of coals was not less than 720 amounting at 8d per bag to the value of £24.00, and the overall value of fish, oysters, potatoes and apples collected during the same period was four guineas per annum, after paying to the collector 2d for each sample. Nevertheless, it was also recorded that in 1833 many of the dues were disputed or refused.
It has also been suggested that the Mayor disposed by sale of the bags of coals and perhaps some or all of the other perquisites, no doubt quite properly as being his due and surplus to his personal use.
The Mayor presided over the Bench of Aldermen as the Corporation was then called, and it was indeed a Bench, all the Aldermen being Justices of the Peace. There were no Councillors.
The Mayor was also appointed Clerk of the Market. He signed all Deeds and Instruments to which the Common Seal was affixed; he held Courts for the election of Guardians of the Poor under the Hull Poor Act and he was the Returning Officer at all Corporate elections. He took an Oath of Office in the following terms:-
“You shall be true to our Sovereign Lord the King and his Heirs, and truly
keep and govern this Town, and the King’s People, as well Inhabitants as
Strangers, after the effect of the King’s Laws and the Ordinances of the said
Town, doing equal justice as well to the poor as rich, all the privileges to this
Town given by the King and his Progenitors, you shall maintain: the ordinances
that are made, or shall be made, by the common assent and for the common
weal, you shall duly keep and execute to your power; you shall not dispend
the common goods in waste, nor no new matter begin or take upon you to do,
by the virtue of your office, without the consent of most of the Aldermen; and
where you know any great debate amongst neighbours, you shall do your
power to cease it in that you is. So help you God”.
At the present time the election of the Lord Mayor is in accordance with the provisions of the Local Government Act 1933, and is the first business at the Annual Meeting of the City Council.
The Mayor’s of all boroughs, County and non-County (and including of course Lord Mayors) are elected from among the Aldermen or Councillors of the borough or persons qualified to be such, and the term of office is one year continuing, however, in office until his successor becomes entitled to act.
The Mayor or Lord Mayor has precedence in all places in the Borough with a saving for the Royal prerogative and this matter of precedence can become complicated in the case of royal visits, and where other dignitaries may be present such as Lords Lieutenant – but no doubt arises for purely local or civic functions, and on these occasions the Lord Mayor has clear precedence.
The Lord Mayor today presides at meetings of the City Council and, perhaps the most important function of the office, apart from this, to quote a well known authority is “personifying the spirit of local patriotism and price which is one of the reasons for the success of the modern borough”, and it is the pursuance of this function that involves the Lord Mayor in all the social functions and activities the full burden of which only he may know.
During his year of office, except for illness, the Mayor or Lord Mayor may not be absent, continuously from the borough, for a period exceeding two months otherwise he ceases to hold the office.
In Kingston upon Hull the office of Mayor was raised to the dignity of Lord Mayor in 1914, a coveted honour but not, of course, conferring any privileges or duties, except that Lord Mayor’s at official gatherings take precedence over Mayors.
The style of title of the Lord Mayor is the Right Worshipful or the Worshipful, governed by custom or usage and not determined in any other way. The right to the style of title of Right Honourable can only be conferred by express grant from the Sovereign, and is enjoyed in England by the Lord Mayors of London and York.
The following 19 cities alone have Lord Mayors, namely:
London, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry,
Kingston upon Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester,
Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich, Nottingham, Plymouth, Portsmouth
Sheffield, Stoke-on-Trent and York.
THE ADMIRAL OF THE HUMBER
By the Charter of 1447 a suitable and discreet man was to be elected Admiral of the Humber, and whilst it has not been laid down specifically that the person elected is to be the Mayor, the Mayor or Lord Mayor has always, by custom, been so appointed. The jurisdiction of the Admiralty of the Humber was anciently defined as going to the mouth of the Humber but, how far westerly it was difficult to determine, although by the Charter no Admiral of England was to inter meddle with the jurisdiction within the town of Kingston upon Hull or any liberties or precincts thereof or of the County of the town which stretched as far as North Ferriby, and doubtless the jurisdiction ran westward at least to the limits of the County.
During the course of the 1833 Inquiry, already mentioned, it was stated that formerly there were Admiralty Courts held, but they had not been held for over 150 years.
By the 1447 Charter the Admiral of the Humber, for the maintenance of the Port, was to have and receive all singular profits, commodities and emoluments of the office of Admiral. It would now be difficult to determine what those profits were but, it would appear that he had, amongst other things, the right of wreck, flotsam and jetsam, salvage, royal fish such as whales, sturgeon and porpoises, goods taken from pirates and ships of the enemy taken in the waters subject to his jurisdiction, although all these rights were diminished by the rights of others, such as the owners of manors abutting on such waters. There were also the receipts of the Admiralty Court which the Admiral held to try offences with regard to ships and shipping matters generally, the Admiralty Court at one time being held at the Woolhouse (or Weigh-house) in High Street.
No doubt a great deal more could be written about the Admiralty of the Humber, but the following may be of some interest and suffice for the present purposes.
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Articles of Agreement were entered into between The Lord High Admirals of England, Clinton and Charles Lord Howard of Effingham (1585), as to the mode of the exercise by the burgesses of their Charter rights in relation to the Admiralty of the Humber, and in 1706 an opinion was given by Counsel as to the ownership of whales and other royal fish. The Articles, just referred to, were commented upon to the effect that the ancient privileges were betrayed by entering into such Articles, which however became void on the death of the Lord High Admirals concerned and the full privileges were considered to have been restored.
It will be seen, therefore, that the Charter rights generally were jealously guarded.
In 1729 the Master of a ship took a large fish alive in the Humber and towed it to near Brough, securing it at the water’s edge to his ship with a rope until the rightful owner could be traced. During a visit of the vessel of York, he being of the opinion that the fish most probably belonged to the Admiralty of York, a person named Hall declared that he farmed the fishery, caused his men to secure the fish and threatened any who dared to meddle with it. William Fenwick, the then Mayor of Kingston upon Hull, and Admiral of the Humber, intervened with his men who secured the fish by they tail and towed it to Hull. The man Hall brought an action against Mayor Fenwick and others for trespass. Hall lost his case and the success of Mayor Fenwick’s defence, based on his rights as Admiral of the Humber, is interesting and, perhaps, of peculiar interest are the grounds of complaint of trespass which included damage to goods, fish oil, fish blubber and “lying dead there” one blubber fish, one oil fish and one sea fish.
On the 2nd June 1737 the Bench ordered “that Mr Mayor as Admiral of the Humber, shall exercise his Admiral jurisdiction
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