When master watchmaker and jeweller, John Neve Masters came to Rye to live in 1869, he was surprised to find that the town had not one but two mayors; the official Right Worshipful Mayor of the Borough of Rye, and the Mock Mayor of Landgate.
In his 1925 book The Second Book of Reminiscences he describes Mayor Making day. “The Corporation elected a Mayor on November 9th at noon, the Tradesmen and Fishermen also elected another “Mayor” at six o’clock pm on the 9th at the “Queen’s Head.” The chosen individual was elected “Mayor of Landgate”, which was that part of the town outside the Landgate Tower and town walls.”
The tradition of mock mayors started around the country in the 18th and 19th centuries as parodies of the real mayors and their elections. The mock elections had printed posters, speeches, processions, music, dancing and drinking and were organised by those unable to vote, or who considered that the mayor did not represent their interests. They saw themselves as overturning or satirising the hierarchy of the time, much like the medieval and later Lord of Misrule revels around Christmastime.
In 19th century Rye, while the mayor and the aldermen, councillors, mace bearers, officials of the Corporation and friends of the mayor processed, all dressed in their finery, from the town hall to The George for their dinner, the mock mayor and his supporters repaired to the Queen’s Head. According to Masters, they wore “red mantles” and carried maces, some of which “were beautifully cut out of pumpkins and turnips, and sometimes suffered before the dinner was over, as Beer was King at the Queen’s Head sometimes on these occasions.” One mace head, later discovered, was made of thin metal with synthetic blue stones, like ones that could be bought from stage costumiers.
According to Henry Pocock Clark, writer and printer, in his Guide and History of Rye (1861/65) the Mock Mayor of Landgate ran from 1825 to 1870. One of the elected was William Paine, a shoemaker with a shop in the Landgate, who was the mayor for many years. It was reported that he always wore his top hat and apron and kept his mayoral regalia on his mantlepiece.
H P Clark describes the mock mayor elections in grandiose terms, but being a reformer “against the old corrupt system, carried on by the patron of the borough, Dr Lamb”, was all for the more democratic nature of them. “Here is an election unsullied: here is purity: no bidding or obeying: no pleasing or offending: no favours bestowed or withheld: no shackling or unshackling: for every voter is free as the air he breathes and ‘Friendship’ is their Motto and Measures not men their maxim.”
Later the mock mayors started up again. There was a Mock Mayor of Military Road until around the 1950s. The feature photo at the top of the page is of one of the last meetings outside the Globe Inn with Albert and Flo Booth in their mayoral regalia. James Fuggle, local potter, supplied the photo which shows his grandfather, Mr E Fuggle, holding the mace, second from left. “He lived just opposite the Globe in what was then known as Brassknocker Row. He did not talk about this and died when I was 10. I only found out about the mock mayor a few years ago. My uncle in Canada sent me a copy of John Neve Masters’ The Second Book of Reminiscences – he was given it by a fellow golfer when he found out that my uncle came from Rye.”
There were also Mock Mayors of Tilling Green, including Sid Pinwill, and of Landgate, some of which took part in the Rye Carnival and Bonfire Night into the 1970s, although little is written on this.
If anyone has any information or memories of the local mock mayors, or can identify the other people in the feature photo, please contact Rye News at info@ryenews.org.uk
Mock mayor elections still take place around the country, with speeches, mock courts, costumes, music and plenty of drinking.
Is it time to resurrect the tradition in Rye?
Image Credits: James Fuggle .