A Civic Society for Romsey, Hampshire UK and surrounding villages

3. The new body corporate

The new body corporate was to be composed of 19 men that ‘may and shall be fit in person and capable in law’. The 19 members were to hold the following offices:

A mayor to be elected annually
6 Aldermen
12 Chief Burgesses

Those chosen had to be ordinary burgesses of the town – freemen whose property holdings gave them municipal rights. They are described thus:
Which same Mayor, six Aldermen and twelve Chief Burgesses of the aforesaid town for the time being shall be of the Common Council of the same town.

The corporation was a self-perpetuating body. The original nominated members had been appointed by James I, and from then on existing members chose replacements for any vacancies that arose

The charter provided for the appointment of mayor in the following terms:
the Mayor, Aldermen and Chief Burgesses of the aforesaid town for the time being, or the greater part of them of whom we will the Mayor of the aforesaid town for the time being to be one, may and shall have for all future times the power and authority annually, and in whatsoever year, for electing and nominating on the day of the feast of St Matthew the Apostle …

St Matthew the Apostle’s day is 21st September. The new mayor was to take office about a week later on the first Monday after the feast of St Michael the Archangel, 29th September

The 1625 rules decreed a £10 fine for anyone refusing to serve as mayor. The reasons for refusal are not given. Certainly, it was a heavy commitment in time and money.

The mayor was expected to provide two dinners for the rest of the corporation, one on being chosen and the other about a week before his term of office finished. In 1799 John Latham, the son of the historian Dr John Latham only gave one dinner, on his first being chosen. His father commented that this served ‘as a relief to future mayors, some of whom might hereafter, as well as former ones had been, greatly injured by the great expense incurred on such occasions’

Religious conviction might interfere with the commitment to attend Church of England services and thus to hold office. The fine for refusing the office of chief burgess was £4 and if refusing to swear the oath, then the fine was £10. In 1708 the fines were increased from £10 to £20. A new rule was written stating that every alderman and burgess must attend the meeting when a new mayor was elected or face a fine of £30. This suggests that some men sought to evade election by being absent.

Perhaps it is just as well that in the early years the retiring mayor was not then required to serve again for at least seven years

Aldermen and chief burgesses were normally appointed for life. When an alderman died, existing members selected a new one, usually from amongst those chief burgesses who had already served as mayor twice. Aldermen continued to be selected by the council until the office was abolished in 1974. They had full voting rights as members of the council, but in later years, their appointments were for a term of years.

An example of the election of a new chief burgess occurred in 1673, when Mr William Mathew ‘was formerly elected to the office of burgess of this town and accordingly ordered to the take the oaths … but refusing to do the same he was fined £4’.

In the charter, provision was made for the replacement of the mayor should he die in office; a replacement could be elected.

It was possible for a chief burgess or alderman to resign from office, a common reason being that the man concerned was leaving the district. Age and infirmity was also seen as a reason for resignation. In 1680, we read ‘Alex Gass one of the burgesses on his request on his being aged and infirm etc. is discharged from the said office and a new one ordered to be chosen in his room’. However the remaining councillors did not always accept the reasons given for resignation. In 1727, Alex Goddard resigned and was fined 40 shillings for leave to resign his place as chief burgess. Since he was also Town Clerk, which post he kept, this fine seems somewhat harsh.

Mr Goddard ‘was put off his office as town clerk’ in 1736 and ‘John Godfrey elected in his stead’. There were clearly tensions within the town at this time, for in the same year the council chose ‘to displace, amove and disfranchise Mr John Vanderplank from being one of the capital burgesses of this town for refusing and neglecting to give attendance when duly summoned and etc. and misbehaving himself to the mayor and justices of the said town’.

Replacements could be hard to find. Remember that the 1607 population for Infra and Extra only totalled 2,000. Women, children and the poorer townsfolk were not eligible for office. So the pool of people from whom these office holders were drawn was small. Although the population had increased to about 2,750 by the 1670s, the pool had become even more limited by the religious constraints of the Clarendon Code [a series of acts made between 1661 and 1665]. This code included Test Acts that obliged office holders to swear oaths of allegiance to the crown and to the Church of England. Since Romsey by then had a large non-Conforming or Dissenting population, the town ended up with a very small group from which to draw its councillors.

The Test Acts were only repealed in 1828. Then local government reform in 1835 initiated council elections. But as late as 1892, when the franchise, still male only, had been extended several times, the whole electorate of Romsey consisted of just 804 burgesses. However, the removal of the religious test had brought about a change in the membership of the council. William Roles writing in his diary in 1888 remarked that in the 53 years since 1835, 38 mayors had been Nonconformists and 15 were churchmen. The Nonconformists who became councillors were mostly the town’s tradesmen, and the relative numbers who became mayor highlights how the Clarendon Code had previously restricted the pool of talent available to govern the town.

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