The Mace-Bearer Magazine - Guild of Mace-Bearers

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MACE-BEARERS OF THE CITY AND THE WARD BEADLES Tony Sharp, President ‘The Ward Beadles of the City of London’ gave an illuminating talk at the 2012 Conference in Hertford. Tony has kindly submitted the following article for those who were unable to make the conference. Now I am sure that you are all familiar with the City of London’s Lord Mayor’s Show which involves great pageantry and you have probably seen the three Esquires to the Lord Mayor who accompany him; The City Marshal who wears a plumed hat, the Sword Bearer who wears a fur or Muscovy Hat and the Common Crier who wears a forensic wig and who actually carries the Great Mace of the City. However, the Ward Beadles actually pre-date that office. The Common Crier only dates from the institution of the Lord Mayor in 1189 and the office developed out of the Mayor’s personal mace bearer or Beadle. Now firstly you may have heard of the title of Beadle applied to other officials. The Livery Companies or Guilds of the City also have Beadles and those that have Halls have Hall Beadles. Yet these officials are employees of those companies and indeed the Mace Bearer to the Lord Mayor is an employee of the City Corporation. I am sure that most of the Mace Bearers in the Guild are actually employees of their boroughs. However, the Ward Beadles of the City of London are elected officials and as such they do not receive remuneration, they get an honorarium to cover their expenses, which it actually hardly does. When I say that they are elected whom, you may ask, so Elects them? The answer is that they are elected by the ordinary Voters in the City who also elect the Councillors and the Aldermen of the Wards. Until 2004 they were elected every year but since then every five years. Note that they are Elected Officials of the Wards and not Elected Representatives on the City Council. Now the Alderman, the senior elected Councilman of a Ward, is also an ancient office and they are still to this day also the City’s Magistrates or Justices of the Peace. As such legal officers who sit in judgement on others they required an executive officer who could bring wrong-doers before them. That executing officer was and is The Ward Beadle who acts on the instruction of the Alderman. Today these duties are largely ceremonial but also electoral in that the Official who keeps Order at both the elections for Sheriffs and for the Lord Mayor, elections that take place every year in the great Guildhall of the City, are the Ward Beadles. The Ward Beadle also calls to order the election meetings held in the Wards for the voters to question their councillors and to elect them; these meetings are called the Ward Motes and are the most ancient assemblies in the City, predating the elections of Sheriffs and Lord Mayor. There are twenty five Wards of the City and each elect a suitable person to the ancient office of ‘Ward Beadle’ of which in fact there are twenty nine: the three largest Wards have two or three Ward Beadles. 14
What were the Origins of the Beadles? Well they had a number of public order duties which before modern police forces developed would be known as the Watch, night or day watch. An offence was committed and the Beadle would go equipped with his mace to apprehend the offender and take him before the Alderman. Later he would approach the wrong-doer to take his fine. I know that you are all aware that at the opposite end of a Mace is the symbol of authority of the law officer, be it the Mayor’s or the Borough’s coat of arms,these often combined with a crown to denote that the ultimate authority was the King. These symbols grew until they became the most notable part of the Mace and the cudgel end became reduced to a small knob. So we effectively all carry our Maces up-side down! The earliest set of rules and responsibilities for the Ward Beadles of the City come from ‘The Customs of London in the Reign of King John’ “There are three chief folkmoots annually. One at Michaelmas, to know who is sheriff, and to hear his commands. The second at Noel for keeping the wards. The third at St John’s day to protect the city from fire, by reason of the great drought. If any Londoner neglect one of these three, he is in the king’s forfeiture for forty shillings. But by the law of London the sheriff ought to have enquiry made concerning any one of whom he would know, for certain, whether he is there or not. If the good man say that he was not summoned, that must be ascertained from the beadle of the ward. If the beadle says he was summoned, the man is convicted at the husting; for the beadle has no other witness, nor ought to have than the great bell which is rung at St Paul’s for the folk-moot.” (reproduced from Stubbs’ ‘Select Charters’ OUP). The ‘folkmoot’ at ‘Michaelmas’ is the ‘Common Hall’ at which the Lord Mayor is elected, but originally in that period it was when the citizens were informed by the king who he had appointed as the sheriff. That at ‘Noel’ was the Ward mote elections as held in December until 2003 when it moved to March under the revised electoral arrangements. That at ‘St John’s Day’ is the midsummer ‘Common Hall’ became that for when the citizens elected the Sheriffs. As can be seen, the Beadle was the sole judge and witness of a citizen’s compliance, who would be subjected for neglect to the swingeing fine of £2.00; this at a time when a workman may earn only a penny a week! Primarily, it must be understood that Ward Motes were originally meetings of the Freemen only (but is now for all the electors on the Register or the Ward List) so that the democratic and electoral element of the meetings whereby they elected Councilmen was a later development. Indeed for centuries only the Ward officers and the Ward Beadle were elected. This was because these Ward Motes were essentially the same as a Manorial Court with the Freemen making ‘presentments’ of civil issues and criminal matters with the Alderman punishing miscreants according to law, the Beadle ‘attaching’ such persons as the court’s officer. In the early period the Alderman was the main landowner in the Ward, so he was lord of the manor. Indeed, even today, ward electors can ask general questions at the Ward Motes which the Alderman, Ward Clerk and Common Councilmen attempt to address. According to the famous Liber Albus compiled by the City Secretary John Carpenter at the request of Sir Richard Whittington in 1419 (Part I, Chapters I to XVI; and most of which of its procedures are still maintained) the Beadle as an elected officer actually predates that of the Councilmen as elected representatives. The councillors date from as late as Richard II – Henry IV, but then they did not govern the City as today. The election of Alderman is much later still and was only (until the last Act of 2003) ‘once for life’, this deriving from the Aldermanry of a Ward as a personal property acquired as the land title of a City magnate. The Sheriffs were originally appointed officers, of and by the king, until the early twelfth century (Henry II) whence from they were elected by the Liverymen. The Lord Mayor first appears in 1189 (Richard I). …continued on page 22 15
Page 1: The Mace-Bearer [Type text] 1 www.c
Page 4 and 5: THE OBJECTS, IDEAL & MOTTO OF THE G
Page 6 and 7: FROM THE EDITOR Dear All, I am plea
Page 8 and 9: SCOTLAND I am 54 years old, married
Page 10 and 11: FROM THE TRAINING OFFICER 10 In Feb
Page 12 and 13: ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2012 On Thursday
Page 16 and 17: SOCIAL SCENE 16 Prime Warden Joe Ca
Page 19 and 20: AROUND THE SOUTH EAST REGION Chris
Page 21 and 22: THE COMMONWEALTH MACE If you were w
Page 23 and 24: the citizens first chose their own
Page 25 and 26: THE ART OF THE CHAUFFEUR In the cur
Page 27 and 28: A VISIT TO BUCKINGHAM PALACE Firstl
Page 29 and 30: THE CITY OF RIPON BELLMAN To those
Page 31 and 32: THE CEREMONY OF THE WHITE GLOVES On
Page 33 and 34: There was some reluctance on the pa
Page 35 and 36: The appointment received a small am
Page 37 and 38: Since 2002 there have only been 3 h
Page 39 and 40: AN OLYMPIC YEAR 2012, as well as be
Page 41 and 42: Further Information about Key Event
Page 43 and 44: CONFERENCE 2013 For members who are
Page 45 and 46: RECIPE CORNER As well as the ceremo
Page 47 and 48: PUZZLE PAGE 2 Find all the words li
Page 49 and 50: The Guild of Mace-Bearers Member’
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