COEPOEATION OP LONDON, 
 
 AS IT IS, m AS IT SHOULD BE. 
 
 ®f tl;e fast anB frtsmt SonUitfon of tie ©fte ffiaols; 
 
 DISPUTE BETWEEN THE COURTS OF ALDERMEN AND COMMON COUNCIL. 
 
 AN APPENDIX, 
 
 COMPBISINO A LIST OF ALL THE OFFICEBS OF THE COBPOEATION, AND OF T51B 
 COMMITTEES OF COMMON COUNCIL, 
 
 an ^Ipialietfcal kist of tie J^rakts of tie Court. 
 
 By william CARPENTER. 
 
 LONDON; 
 
 W. STRANGE, 21, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 1847. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This little work is intended to form a sort of Text 
 Book for Corporation Reformers. The powers, 
 property, and defects of the Corporation of the 
 City of London are briefly, but accurately exhi¬ 
 bited; and it is believed that a pretty strong case is 
 made out against the Corporation as it is. Care has 
 been taken to advance nothing as fact but what is 
 capable of proof, while the historical sketch has been 
 carefully compiled from the most authentic data. 
 
 The Appendix will, it is believed, be found of some 
 utility to all who are interested in civic aifairs. The 
 information it contains is now exclusively confined to 
 Members of the Corporation—a circumstance for which 
 there seems to be no good reason. 
 
 July mh, 1847., 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CORPOKATION AND ITS ABUSES. 
 
 Enemies of the Corporation—Aldermen and Common Council- 
 men—abuses long tolerated by the latter—necessity of legisla¬ 
 tive interference—dispute between the two bodies—inconsistent 
 conduct of the Court of Common Council—duty of the Citizens 
 at large—mischievous influence of the Corporation, its wealth 
 and power. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 WHAT IS THE COEPORATION OF LONDON ? 
 Lord-Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council—incorporated 
 guilds—royal hospitals—general description of the powers of 
 the different bodies. 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 CONSTITUENT PAETS OF THE COEPOEATION. 
 
 The Lord Mayor; antiquity and importance of the office—his 
 various funotionsT-his power as Chairman of the Common 
 Council—dispute between the tvio—Aldermen; chosen by the 
 several wards, but the Court of Aldermen not a representative 
 body—powers and privileges of the Aldermen—evils resulting 
 from their election for life—originally elected annually, and 
 not eligible for re-election—necessity of a recurrence to the 
 former practice—CoBimon Council; inequality of the repre¬ 
 sentation in the Court-:feuds and contests between the inhabi¬ 
 tants of the City and the livery and freemen in former times— 
 triumphs of the non-freemen—City election Act—culpable 
 conduct of the Common Council on the representation of the 
 Citizens-Mr. Alderman Humphreys’ motion to throw open 
 the franchise—powers and privileges of the Court of Common 
 Council-its right to originate measures of internal reform— 
 its power over the Corporation fimds and property. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE IITEKY COMPANIES. 
 
 Origin and power of the City gmlds involved in obscurity— 
 charters of incorporation—civil control over the guilds— 
 objectionable government of the Companies—gross mismanage¬ 
 ment of their trust, property, and revenues—the Livery, and 
 their anomalous privileges. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TARUTI0N3 IN THE CITY FRANCHISES. 
 
 Charters of Henry L—John—Henry HI.—Edward H.-Ed¬ 
 ward HL-Richard IL—Edward TV.-Acts of the Common 
 Council—Ci^ election Act—usurpations on the common right. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PXVENTJES OF THE COBPORATION. 
 
 Revenues derived from various sources—amount of the revenues 
 —mismanagement of the property, and of the royal hos- 
 pitels—objectionable tolls—items in civic expenditure—mal¬ 
 administration. 
 
 CHAPTER Vil. 
 
 EXPE.\DITnr.E OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 Annual revenues—amount of capital they represent—cost of the 
 ilayoralty very exorbitant—cost of justice, magistrac}', and 
 police—unnecessary e.xpenses of the magistracy—objectionable 
 mode in which the Aldermen deal with the Corporation funds 
 —Committees of the Common Council, and their allowances- 
 the Irish Society and its management—debts of the Corpora- 
 
 CHAPTEE Vni. 
 
 POLICE ASn PRISON MANAGEJIENI OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 The City Police: evils arising from its separate existeuee— 
 Mr. Hickson and Mr. Pearson—pay of the Force—enormous 
 cost of the establishment—O'^ Prisons: progress of prison 
 discipline—not reached the City of London—descriptions of 
 Hewgate, by Sir Richard Phillips, Mrs. Fry, and Mr. Poynder 
 —grand jury presentment—condemnatory reports of the In¬ 
 spectors of Prisons in 1836 and 1840—Giltspur-street Compter, 
 &a, schools of vice and profligacy—extreme culpability of the 
 Corporation. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 nF.CAPITULATION OF ABUSES AND REMEDIES. 
 
 Nature of corporate institutions—their functions—extension of 
 the franchise—equalization of wards—periodical election of 
 Aldermen—control and management of the City companies— 
 exclusive powers of the livery should be abolished—monopolies 
 of trade and labour should also be abolished—rents, tolls, and 
 tonnage dues require revision—reform of Committees of the 
 Common Council. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I. —Aldermen of the City of London. 
 
 II. —Common Councilmen of City of London. 
 
 III. —Committees of the Common Council. 
 
 IV. —Officers of the Corporation. 
 
THE 
 
 CORPORATION OF LONDON, 
 
 AS IT IS, AND AS IT SHOULD BE. 
 
 CHAPTEE 1. 
 
 THE CORPORATION AND ITS ABUSES. 
 
 The cliarges ivliicli tlie recent quarrel between the two 
 civic courts at Guildiiall induced tlie Common Council to 
 prefer against the Court of Aldermen, and which it urged as 
 a reason, moreover, for going to Parliament, if needs be, to 
 abridge the Court of Aldermen of some portion of the 
 powers which it has long exercised as a part of the corpo¬ 
 rate body, bring forcibly to my mind a quaint and cutting 
 passage in a p.araphlet published in 1682, on the business of 
 electing sheriffs, which the aldermen then claimed the right 
 of controlling, as they now claim the right of controlling 
 other things with wliicli they have as little business to 
 interfere. Says the writer,— 
 
 “It is the present unhappy fate of this groat and ancient city to be be¬ 
 trayed by persons fostered within her waHs, and nui’sed and nourished 
 through the benefit of her franchises and privileges. How many, whose 
 hereditary fortunes could not furnish them with bread, are swelled to a big¬ 
 ness ready to hurst, by having sucked at her breasts; and like vipers, after 
 they have been nourished in her womb, they set their interest in gnawing 
 her entrails, and stabbing her in her vital parts.” 
 
 I have BO wish to say anything unduly depreciatory of 
 the Court of Aldermen; but there Is no doubt that this 
 
2 THE CORPORATION AND ITS ABUSES. 
 
 sketch of some of that body in 1682 may he found to hold 
 tolerably tme of some of that hodj- in 1847. 
 
 Aldermen are not the only members of the corporation, 
 however, who are liable to rebuke and condemnation. If the 
 eharges of extravagance, of favouritism, and of indulgence in 
 other vices, that are now brought against the Court of Aider- 
 men by the leaders of the Court of Common Council, be well 
 founded,we can scarcely help wondering that the Aldermen 
 should have been permitted to indulge themselves in such 
 vices, without let or hindrance, down to the present year of 
 grace, 1847; or with only an occasional and a solitary 
 murmur at the inroads they were making upon the con¬ 
 stitutional rights and the private purses of the citizens at 
 large. If it be true that the Court of Aldermen has, for 
 many years past, as is now alleged by the Peacock party in 
 the Common Council, improperly appropriated the city 
 funds, in pensioning their own families and dependants, and 
 in various other extravagant and unconstitutional modes, it 
 is hut little to the credit of the Court of Common Council— 
 the representative body 'of the City of London—that it 
 should have permitted the impropriety to continue, and be 
 inclined to show itself in earnest about bringing it to an end, 
 only when the Court of Aldermen evince an indisposition 
 to become party to a bill avowedly intended to benefit 
 individual members of the Court of Common Council, who 
 had taken their seats, and were discharging the functions of 
 members, without possessing the qualifications that are 
 required by the law. 
 
 These facts do not say much in favour of the public- 
 spirit, or even of the honesty, of the representative court of 
 the city; nor do they give us any sreat reason to hope that 
 there is a very strong desire entertained by its members to 
 seize the opportunity for making a full and effectual reform 
 in the Corporation, in its numerous and important branches. 
 The wardmote of Farringdon Without took the rational 
 view, both of the necessities of the case, and of the power 
 required to deal with them satisfactorily, when it invoked 
 the aid of the legislature. “ To that complexion must we 
 come at last."’ There is little more ground for confidence in 
 the Court of Common Council than there is ground for con- 
 
THE CORPORATION AND ITS ABUSES. 3 
 
 ficlcnce in the Court of Aldermen, The Ictading members of 
 both Courts have too deep an interest in maintaining existing 
 abuses to bestir themselves, in good earnest, for their ex¬ 
 tinction. “ How many, whose hereditary fortunes could 
 not furnish them with broad, are swelled to a bigness ready 
 to burst, by having sucked at lier breast?” They may, no 
 doubt, “ gnaw her entuails, and stab her in her vital parts 
 but they are too short-sighted to be aware of what they are 
 doing. They may, by-and-bye, cut open the goose; but it 
 will be in the hope of getting at the golden eggs.' In the 
 meantime, the quarrel between the tivo Courts will probably 
 be brought to an amicable arrangement. There will be a 
 “ conference,” or something of that kind, in humble imi¬ 
 tation of w'hat takes place at Westminster. Tlie Peachum 
 and the Lockit w'ill admit that they are both in the wrong. 
 Mutual expressions of regret and of respect will pass, and 
 the citizens and their interests will remain exposed to all 
 the encroachments and spoliation to which they have been 
 subject for so many years past.'-' 
 
 It remains for the citizens to look after their own interests, 
 ■and to see that the dispute between the two Courts, and the 
 facts it has brought to light, do not end in mere words. They 
 have much at stake in the matter. The pow'crs and pro¬ 
 perty of the Corporation of London are no small matters; 
 
 • Since this was written the dispute has taken very nearly the course an¬ 
 ticipated. After having stood out for a week or two, and obstructed the 
 progress of all otlier business, including the election of officers, the leaders of 
 tlie belligerents in the Common Council suddenly discovered that they ivere 
 subjecting the puhhe to inconvenience, and thereupon withdrew their oppo¬ 
 sition, and the ordinary hiisiness proceeded. They still “insisted,” however, 
 upon the Lord .llayor putting tire tim'd reading of the Qualilication Bill upon 
 the paper of liusincss, wliicli tlie Lord Mayor as resolutely insisted he would 
 not do. This farce continued, meeting after meeting, till the 11th of March; 
 when Mr. A.shm'st hroiight up a report from tlie committee, in which they 
 reiterated tlioir “ opinion” that it was tlie right of the Court to insist that 
 tlie Lord Mayor should put tlie question for the third reading of the bill, but 
 a,sked for power-as it was “the object of the committee to arrive at tlie 
 most accurate conclusion as to the rights and privileges of the two branches 
 of tlie corporation”—to take the advice of counsel, as to the mode in whicli 
 tliey should proceed. It will, no doubt, occur to most persons, that the 
 “ opinion” of the Court should have been so well fortified before it took up 
 its ground in opposition to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, that it might have 
 been saved from the luimiliation of retreating, after an ineffectual stand; 
 and only under cover of “ taking the advice of counsel” as to the best mode 
 
THE COEPOEATIOH AKD ITS ABUSES. 
 
 and tlie legislature should be invited to place them upon a 
 proper footing, and to surround them with such safeguards as 
 are necessary to ensure their proper application.—It is not 
 that the Corporation is of less utility than it might be—it is 
 not that it is of no perceptible utility at all; it is, that it 
 does positive mischief—that it is an ascertained nuisance ; 
 and that, therefore, it would be really better that it should 
 be altogether swept away, than remain as it at present is. 
 
 This will appear clearly enough, when we come to look 
 into the nature of the local government it exercises, and the 
 improper manner in which it appropriates its funds. In the 
 meantime, let this fact be adverted to. Jfany and heavy 
 taxes are imposed within the limits of the City of London. 
 These taxes are rendered much heavier than they need be, 
 in consequence of the clumsy way iu which the local 
 government is managed and carried on. There is no doubt 
 that many thousands of pounds might be annually saved to 
 the citizens of London, in their rates and taxes, if the various 
 institutions to which they are applied were placed upon a 
 bkter footing, and some of them amalgamated with each 
 other. If the Corporation did not stand in the wavy there 
 can be little doubt that much improvement in this respect 
 would take place through the entire metropolis. The various 
 branches of local expenditure are susceptible of much econo¬ 
 mising. The several matters appertaining to roads, streets, 
 sewers, police, public instruction, public health, the magis¬ 
 tracy, and the poor, are now all broken up into separate and 
 comparatively small masses, and placed under different, and 
 not seldom conflicting management. A great waste of moncy 
 is necessarily the consequence, and all things are imperfectly 
 
 The Government, after having been for many years urged 
 thereto, has just prepared a Bill for improving the health of 
 towns in England, by making provision for cleaning and 
 draining, for fiimishing better and cheaper supplies of water 
 and gas, and for carrying out, everywhere, upon a complete 
 and uniform scale, those sanatory regulations, the necessity 
 for which has been so fully established by two or three 
 commissions, and by the evidence of innumerable, and com¬ 
 petent witnesses. The hill proposes a central body of 
 
THE CORPORATION AND ITS ABUSES. 
 
 commissioners, whose duty it shall be to “ cause enquiry to 
 be made into the condition of any town or district in 
 England, especially with regard (o the supply of water and 
 the drainage thereof, and the best means of improving the 
 same, the prevalent cause of disease therein, and any other 
 matters which they shall desire to know.” Upon such reports, 
 when adopted .and recommended by the commission, Her 
 Majesty m.ay, by an order in Council, place the city, town, 
 borough, or district to which they refer within the provisions 
 of the Act, and it then becomes the duty of the local 
 .authorities—as the Town Council, where there is a Coipo- 
 ration, or the Town Commissioners, where they have been 
 .appointed under the provisions of the Act—to carry out the 
 recommendations of the Commission, by the adoption or 
 completion of all necessary works, and the rcmov.al of all 
 existing nuisances. Now, it would hardly seem that any 
 exception could be taken to such a measure as this, 
 especially when it is borne in mind that it stands proved— 
 after full and repeated investigations, by Urs. Arnott, K.ay, 
 and Southwood Smith—by the Commons’ Committee on 
 the Health of Towns, by Mr. Chadwick, in his Sanatory 
 Heport, and by the evidence of Commissioners and officers 
 of Sewers, of Engineers of Water Companies, and of 
 large numbers of medical and other witnesses, collected 
 under the Health of Towns’ Commission, constituting 
 altogether a mass of unanswered and unanswerable facts— 
 that there exist enormous and deplor.able defects and 
 abuses in the ra.anagcment of the sewerage, the drainage, 
 the supply of water, the paving and cle.ansing, the venti¬ 
 lation, the lighting, .and in v.arious other matters appertaining 
 to the comfort and health of the inhabitants of the City of 
 London, as well as the rest of the kingdomI say, it would 
 sc.arccly seem possible that .any exception could be taken to 
 such a measure as this, when .all these facts are adverted to; 
 and when it is, moreover, found that the measure itself is one 
 which, while creating a central authority for enquiry, 
 direction, .and supervision, leaves the Corporation of the 
 Citv of London^ as it le.aves all other Corporations in the 
 kingdom, the full power of appointing the officers and 
 adopting the. measures necessary to carry out the provisions 
 
COEFORATIOS AKD ITS ABUSES. 
 
 or the Bill. The Corporatioa of Lon.lon, however, is up in 
 arms against the measure, as it has been against every other 
 measure for general purposes of improvement in all past 
 times. The Corporation of the City of London claims the 
 exclusive privilege of wrong-doing. Almost as soon as tlie 
 Bill was introduced to Parliament, a special general meeting 
 of the Commissioners of Sewers, which is constituted of tlie 
 Lord M.ayor and all the Aldermen, with a large number of 
 Common Councilmen, met at the Guildhall, to adopt 
 measures to exempt the City of London from its operation! 
 “ The City of London does not require such an enactment,” 
 says the Lord Mayor, “ for the Commissioners of Sewers 
 have spent £200,000 within the Last sixteen years.” . “ If 
 there is not a firm and determined stand made against the 
 measure,” said Sit Peter Laurie, “our rights and privileges 
 will be lost.” “It is sufficient to alarm the citizens of 
 London,” quoth Mr. Masterman; while that most enlightened 
 Common Councilman, Jlr. Lawrence, wound up the whole, 
 by declaring the Bill to be “one of the most atrocious 
 measures that had ever been introduced into Parliament 
 and it was “unanimously resolved that the Lord Maj'or 
 and all the members of the two Courts who were members 
 of Parliriment, together with Lord John Russell, Jlessrs. 
 Masterman, Lyall, and Patleson, the four representatives of 
 the City of London, wait upon Lord Morpeth and Sit 
 George Grey, to request them to exempt the City of London 
 &om the operation of the Bill.” 
 
 Thus the Corporation not only fails in its ovm exertions, 
 but it actuaEy impedes improvements in the course of accom¬ 
 plishment by others; another notable example of which is 
 furnished in the fact, that notwithstanding the sanction and 
 recommendation of the legislature, the Mavigation Com¬ 
 mittee of the Court of Common Council refused to per¬ 
 mit a main pipe to be laid along the lank or bed of the 
 Thames, to some point beyond Battersea-bride, for the pur¬ 
 pose of conveying thither the contents of the sewers, instead 
 of permitting them, as now, to fall into the river itself; thus 
 making that a common sewer, and a source of disease, in¬ 
 stead of a means of health. 
 
 1 refer to these matters, only for the purpose of suir- 
 
WHAT IS THE CORPORATION OF LONDON? 7 
 
 gcsting that the Corporation question is one of great 
 practical value, not only to the City of London, but to 
 the metropolis at large ; and that it should, therefore, 
 no longer remain in abeyance. In 1835, the City of 
 London was told that a separate measure of municipal 
 reform should he provided for it, if the Corporation did 
 not supersede its necessity, by reforming itself. It has 
 not done so. Eleven years have since passed away, and 
 the trusts of this wealtliy and powerful body are but little 
 better discharged than they formerly were. Its wealth is 
 enormous—its powers are almost commensurate with its 
 wealth : and yet the citizens at large are no better off, and 
 in some respects worse off, than those who are without 
 its franchises, and belong to other parts of the metropolis. 
 This is a sliame and a reproach to them. They are nume¬ 
 rous, wealthy, and influential. They have but to use the 
 power they are possessed of to get their Corporation con¬ 
 verted into an instrument of great good, instead ofbeing, as 
 it is now, a thing of’ mere mockery and extravagance. At 
 the bottom of everything else, however, lies knowledge. 
 The citizens, generally, must become informed, and they 
 must inform others, of the evils they would get rid of, and 
 of the powers they wotild have more beneficially employed 
 I ask permission to lend a helping hand in tliis; promising 
 that all my statements shall be capable of the most satis¬ 
 factory proof. 
 
 Let us endeavour to ascertain what the Corporation of 
 London re.ally is, what power and property it possesses, 
 and what changes it must undergo, before it can be made 
 conducive to either the local or the general good. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHAT IS THE CORPORATION OE LONDON? 
 
 Is oKlcr to tlciil saiisiacconlv with the several questions 
 appertaining to a reform of the Corporation of the City of 
 London, it becomes necessary that we should have a clear 
 conception of what that Corporation consists. We must 
 know something of the nature of its several parts, as well as 
 of the power which it exercises as a whole. It becomes the 
 more necessary to be particular in this matter, not only be¬ 
 cause many citizens are strangely ignorant concerning it; 
 but because the course of proceeding taken by those who 
 stand forward as Corporation reformers, wliether in or out of 
 the Corporation itself, is eminently calculated to create false 
 notions about it, and to limit, very materially, the inquiries 
 and the operations which any reform, to be worth the trouble 
 of obtaining, must necessarily include. 
 
 Tlie Corporation of the City of London is usually spoken 
 of as a municipal government consisting of the Lord ilayor, 
 the Court of Aldermen, and the Court of Common Council; 
 and the question of Corporation reform is, 2'enerally, if not 
 always, limited, by those who advocate it, to some modifica¬ 
 tion of one or other, or all, of these several parts of the 
 aggregate body. Thus, the recent dispute, which was to 
 blow up the whole concern, but which now seems most 
 likely to terminate, as I antieipated—in a quiet and comfort¬ 
 able arrangement between the belligerent parties—this dis¬ 
 pute, 1 say, which has been so much talked of and written 
 about, as one tending to so great and important a result, is 
 confined to the question touehing the right of the Lord Mayor 
 
WIIAT IS THE CORPORATION OF LONDON ? 9 
 
 to take a certain course in tire Court of Common Council, 
 and of tlie Common Council to originate and enact a law 
 abolisliing tlie present qualiQcation for a seat in that court, 
 and to substitute another in its place. But, said they who 
 attach so much Importance to this war of words between 
 tlie members of the two Courts, and who n'cre willing to 
 sacrifice the Corporation itself, rather than abate one jot of 
 the pretensions which the Court of Common Council stood 
 up for—Oh, say they, the bill upon which the dispute was 
 raised, was but the mere instrument with which the Common 
 Council seeks to “ destroy the usurpations of the Court of 
 Aldermen,” and to “ deprive them of the unconstitutional 
 power they now, and for many years past, have e.Kcrcised 
 over the civic purse.” Well, be it so, and let the proposed 
 objects be accomplished; we should even then be far—very 
 far, distant from such a reform of the Corporation as would 
 render it worth preserving, as an instrument of local govern¬ 
 ment, of executive trust, or of public charity—all of which 
 it is, or ought to be, upon a scale of unrivalled magnitude 
 and advantage. 
 
 The truth is, that the Lord Mayor, and the Aldermen, and 
 the Common Council, constitue apart only, of the .Corpora¬ 
 tion of the City of London; and so long as the citizens 
 permit their representatives and others to put the Corporation 
 in this partial and defective light, no reform that they can 
 propose or accomplish will be worth the trouble and cost 
 through which it will have to be realized. It is to this point 
 that I here particularly desire to call attention. If there 
 is to be a struggle for civic reform, let it be a struggle for 
 something worth having, when it is obtained. If the 
 Corporation of London is to be preserved, let it not be as a 
 costly pageant—as a mere thing of show, to gratify the petty 
 vanity of obese aldermen, or the vulgar pride of stolid 
 Common Counclhncn. If it is to be preserved, let it be as 
 an effective instrument for the faithful and judicious admin¬ 
 istration of extensive and important trusts, and for the 
 maintenance and discharge of the not less important functions 
 of local government. 
 
 In order to secure this, we must add to the three bodies 
 in which the government of the City of London is nominally 
 
]0 WHAT IS THE CORPORATION OF EONDON ? 
 
 vested, and which constitute the three usually recognized 
 branches of the civic constitution—to these three bodies we 
 must add, the Incouporated Guilds, or Companies, many of 
 which exercise independent and important powers over their 
 several trades throughout the city, possess a large amount of 
 trust property, and exercise the exclusive right of electing to 
 the highest and other of the most important offices in the 
 Corporation. 
 
 To show the power wliich these incorporated companies 
 exercise, as a part of the government residing in the Corpo¬ 
 ration of the City, it may be enough to mention, that, in the 
 case of Ett v. Harrmii^ it was pleaded that there are 
 several guilds, companies, &c., in the City of London, which 
 guilds, companies, &c., have used, and ought to have the 
 overseeing, correction, and government of the several persons 
 using and exercising the several arts, trades, mysteries, and 
 manual occupations belonging to such several sccietiesj 
 guilds, fiatemities, fellowships, and companies, in the use 
 and exercise of sueh arts, trades, mysteries, and manual 
 occupations, within the said city and liberties thereof; and 
 that the said several societies, kc., for all the time aforesaid 
 have used, and ought, and yet use and ought, to be under 
 the order, government, and regulation of the Mayor, Alder¬ 
 men, and eommonally of the said city for the time being, in 
 Common Council assembled. And it was held by all the 
 judges, that an act of Common Council of 20th June, 1727, 
 compelling all butchers in London to be free of the Butcliers’ 
 Company, was legal, and that the end of that by-law was to 
 restore the original constitution of the Corporation; that it 
 was right and reasonable, and must have been the meaning 
 of the custom, that each company should have the inspection 
 of their own trade. 
 
 The Companies into which individuals carrying on certain 
 occupations in the city are compelled to enter themselves 
 as members, ate stated by the Commissioners of enquiry to 
 be the Apothecaries, Brewers, Pewterers, Butchers, Barbers, 
 Bakers, Saddlers, Painters, Stainers, Plumbers, Innholders, 
 Founder.^, Poulterers. Cooks, Weavers, Scriveners, Furriers, 
 .Spectacle-ma^rers, Clock-makers, Silk-throwers, Distillers, 
 
 ' 3 Barr. 1.322, 
 
lAT IS 
 
 CORPORATION OF LONDON? 11 
 
 Tobacco-pipe-makers, and Carmen. "With respect to these,” 
 they observe, “ the advantages resulting to the members, if 
 any there be, must be confined to such as may be derived 
 from the opportunities afforded to the more substantial 
 classes of occasionally being brought into contact with each 
 other at the meeting of the Companies. Advantages to the 
 community at large there are none; and the disadvantage to 
 those who are compelled to come into the Companies, on 
 account of their exclusive privileges, is measured by the 
 extent of the fine paid upon admission.* 
 
 It cannot be doubted that this power is one of serious 
 importance; it is a power to make regulations affecting 
 trade, and to impose taxes. There is a passage in the Seport 
 of the Municipal Corporation Commissioners, which 
 affords a striking exemplification of the oppressive character 
 of the exaetions which these Companies have the power of 
 making 
 
 “ A case was mentioned by the town clerk, of a tradesman, who, having 
 been admitted a wheelwright, set up a shop as a cheesemonger; and, as in 
 tills occupation he sold butter and eggs, he was summoned by the poulterers 
 to become a freeman of tliat company, with wdiicli he complied. He then 
 
 tlic suggestion of the Court of Aldermen, it was di5continucd.”t 
 
 And it is not one of tlie least grievances appertaining to the 
 power exercised by these Companies, that they regulate just 
 as they please the fine for taking up the livery, the amount 
 being r.aised in proportion as the Company becomes wealthy, 
 although the livery are not permitted to participate in the 
 funds, that being a privilege exclusively enjoyed by the 
 Court of Wardens, which is a self-elected and an irresponsible 
 body. Thus, the Merchant Tailors’ Company has raised the 
 fine for taking up the livery, by the son of a liveryman, from 
 £30 to £80; while a stranger is admitted only by favour, 
 and that at a cost of £116 5s. M. It appears that the fines 
 received by the five companies of Clothworkers, Brewers, 
 Tallow-chandlers, Armourers, and Butchers, amounted to no 
 less a sum than £18,629 in the eighteen years ending in 1832. 
 
 Maxicip. CoBP. Kep., p. 20. 
 
 t Ib. p. 178. 
 
12 -R-HAT IS THE CORPORATION OF LONDON? 
 
 It has been estimated, upon the best data tijat can be got 
 at—^for these Companies 'srill not render any account, even 
 to a royal commission, of the sum-total of their exactions*— 
 but it has been estimated, with tolerable reason, that the 
 support of these trading Companies costs the inhabitants of 
 the city about £15,000 a-year, independent of the burthens 
 occasioned by the “trading privileges,” or monopolies, they 
 hold. Of these, mention may be made of the privileges 
 or powers of the Goldsmiths’ Companj/, which are very 
 extensive, and very annoying to the trade; while they 
 must tend to enhance the cost of the articles over which 
 they exercise a control to the public. So the Founders’ 
 Company exercises the right of examining and stamping 
 weights; the Saddlcri Company of destroying all goods of 
 defective construction exposed for sale; the Plumbers’ 
 Company, of superintending the manufacture of all solder; 
 the Apothecaries’ Company, of granting or withholding 
 licenses for practising throughout England and Wales ; the 
 Gunmalers’ Company, of stamping all guns made in the 
 city; and the Watermens’ Company, of monopolizing all 
 carrying for hire on the river Thames, all the way from 
 Staines to Yantlett Creek. 
 
 Of these guilds or companies there are about eighty still 
 existing; and when it is remembered, that, in addition to the 
 powers which some of them exercise in matters of trade regu¬ 
 lations, they claim and use as private property—sometimes 
 against the Corporation, as a body—aU the funds in their 
 bands not entrusted to them for specific objects, whether 
 arising from the surplus revenue of charity estates, or from lines 
 imposed upon citizens, or otherwise; and that their livery¬ 
 men exercise the exclusive right of electing the Lord 31ayor, 
 the Slieriffs, (who are the two executive officers next in 
 importance to the Lord Jlayor,) and the Chamberlain, or 
 city treasurer: when all these facts are remembered, it 
 will be seen that the companies constitute no insignificant 
 
 • “Some of the Companies, which still e2nst in great numbers in connection 
 \dth the Corporation of the City of London, refused to furnish any informa¬ 
 tion, and others furnished it only under exceptions and restrictions. Although 
 therefore, sufficient information has been given to shew'the general and 
 ordinary constitution of these bodies, the details of many of the individual 
 companies have not been obtained.”— Mumcip. Cobp. Kep. p. 1. 
 
WHAT IS THE CORPORATION OF LONDON? 13 
 
 part of the Corporation, and that no reform which leaves 
 them untouched can be regarded as of any great value. 
 
 jTo the Companies, as a part of the Corporation, some have 
 added the governors of the royal hospitals—CKmt’s Hos¬ 
 pital, St. Bartholomews Hospital, St. Thomas's Hospital, 
 Bcthlem Hospital, and Bridewell— property constituting 
 the foundation of which was left in trust to the Lord Mayor, 
 Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City of London. But 
 the fact is, that the governing body of the Corporation 
 has permitted some considerable portion of its power 
 over these noble charities to be alienated; though it still 
 exercises a certain power of control, the Lord Mayor, the 
 Court of Aldermen, and a number of the Common Couneil, ■ 
 being ex-officio governors, for the time being. That 
 power might, no doubt, be exercised for great benefit, 
 if placed in the hands of proper men, and the patronage 
 it gives properly exercised; but I see no utility in treat¬ 
 ing the governors of the Royal Hospitals as part of the 
 Corporation. 
 
 For the purposes, of local government, as well as for the 
 administration of trust propertj', all the Companies, however, 
 must be taken to be parts of the Corporation; and no change 
 which leaves them unaltered is worth a moment’s talking 
 about. No bit-and-bit reform will meet the necessities of 
 the case. We may adjust the respective powers of the 
 Courts of Aldermen .and Common Council; but if we leave 
 the guilds or trading companies in possession of their present 
 enormous privileges, and allow them to retain their irrespon¬ 
 sible power of admitting to or excluding from their livery— 
 of electing to the highest executive offices—and of appro¬ 
 priating a large annual revenue, we shall be but laughed at 
 for our pains. It will be but a mere mockery of reform, 
 and the City of London will still continue a by-word and a 
 reproach. The object of municipal reformers should be to 
 secure good and economical local government, and the most 
 useful application of trust property. And this cannot be 
 obtained unless the various Companies are placed under 
 some new regulations, and are made really responsible to 
 the citizens at large. • 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 CONSTITHEXT PAETS OF THE COEPOEATIOE. 
 
 The Corporation of the City of London, in its municipal 
 character, is a system of local government, based upon the 
 principle of popular representation. It consists, of the 
 Lord Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, the Court of Common 
 Cotmcil, and the Liver\men of the Mercantile Guilds, who 
 constitute the Court of Common Hall. These form the 
 several branches of the civic constitution, which is popular, 
 in its essence, as are its various laws and institutions, having 
 formed, as there is good reason to believe, a portion of King 
 Al&ed’s compilation of the Saxon law, which was the ground¬ 
 work of those celebrated laws of Edward the Confessor, 
 which the Norman kings swore so constantly to observe, but 
 which, except in London and a few other prh-ileged places, 
 they gradually abolished in favour of their own feudal 
 customs. The City of London, as the Commissioners obsers'c, 
 has not, at this moment, any single governing charter, in the 
 usual sense of the term; nor is there any one comprehensive 
 charter by which the elections, powers, and functions of the 
 ruling bodies and principal functionaries are regulated or 
 defined. The greater part of the royal charters, commencing 
 with that of William the Conqueror, declaring that the 
 citizens of London should be “law-worthy,” have been con¬ 
 fined to tlie sanction of the ancient laws and customs found 
 previously established there. None of the city customs can 
 be taken away, except by the express provisions of an act of 
 Parliament; and it is, therefore, excepted fcom various 
 general acts of Parliament relating to trade, apprentices. 
 
CONSTITUENT PARTS OP THE CORPORATION. 15 
 
 orphans, distribution of intestates’ effects, the general Muni¬ 
 cipal Corporation -Act, the Metropolitan Police Acts, and 
 tlie Health of Towns’ Bill, separate legislative provisions 
 being resorted to, wherever the city franchises ate in question. 
 
 I liave said that the government and institutions of the 
 city are essentially popular, or democratic. Let us see how 
 fat this principle has been preserved or departed from, in 
 practice. 
 
 All the executive officers of the Corporation are elected, 
 either by the whole body of the citizens, or by that select 
 body which constitutes the livery of the several guilds, or 
 trading companies. 
 
 1.—The Lord Mayor. 
 
 The office of Lord Mayor, as it at present exists, was first 
 constituted, says Pulling (chap, ii.), by the fifth charter of 
 King .Tohn, A. D. 1207, which runs thus“ Know ye, 
 that we have granted, and by this our present writing con¬ 
 firmed, to our barons of our City of London, that they may 
 
 choose to themselves mry year a Mayor.and that it 
 
 shall be lawful to them at tlia end, of the year to remove him, 
 and substitute another, if they will, or the same to retain,” 
 &c. The barons to whom the power of electing the Mayor 
 is here given, are supposed to mean the Aldermen, who 
 have, as they allege, ever since claimed and exercised the 
 right of electing the Mayor, out of their own body, he being 
 one of two previously nominated by the liver}', in Common 
 Hall assembled. Pnlling very stoutly maintains this view 
 of the case, which he holds to be beyond all dispute. 
 Norton, however, in his Commentaries upon the Charters, 
 which is of, at least, equal authority with the treatise of Mr. 
 Pulling, is equally positive that the term barons, in the fifth 
 charter of John, cannot designate the aldermen, seeing that 
 the Aldermen have never exercised the exclusive power of 
 “ choosing” the Mayor. 
 
 With regard to the office of Mayor, it is quite clear that 
 the City of London had an executive officer, known as the 
 Mayor, previously to the fifth charter of John; for, in the 
 fourth charter of the same king, which was granted thirteen 
 years earlier than the subsequent one, that officer is ex- 
 
16 COXSTIinEXT PARTS OP THE CORPORATION'. 
 
 pressly mentioned—" Know ye, that we, at the request of 
 our Mayor and citizens of London, have granted,” &c. 
 Even in the time of Richard the First, we find Fitzalwyn 
 recognised by that name (Strype’s Stow, ii, 100); and the 
 first charter of William the Conquerer salutes "Godfrey, the 
 Portreve” (the name by which the chief magistrate of the 
 city appears to have been called, till the time of Riehard the 
 First), as well as “the burgesses within London, both 
 French and English.” The truth is, that the fifth charter of 
 John conferred upon the barons of the city the power of 
 electing to the office of Mayor, it having, up to that time, 
 been in the appointment of the Crown. 
 
 It may be somewhat difficult to determine whether the 
 Lord Mayor was always elected by a select body, as is now 
 aReged; but if it is to be argued, from the use of the term 
 larons, in the fifth charter of John, that the power was 
 originally conferred upon the Aldermen, as Pulling insists 
 that it was, then we may as surely argue, from the mention 
 of “ the citizens” of London, as the depositaries of that 
 power, in subsequent charters, that the whole body of 
 citizens were, in those times, in the legal exercise of that 
 right. Thus, in the sixth charter of Henry the Third, we 
 read, “ We have granted to the said citizens that every 
 Mayor whom they shall choose” &c. So in the charter of 
 confirmation of Edward the First, “ That whereas our 
 citizens, by the charters of our said progenitors, have been 
 accustomed hitherto to present every Mayor whom they have 
 chosen” &c. So, in like manner, by the articles of Richard 
 the Second, which were confirmed by Parliament, in the 
 seventh year of that king’s reign (A.D. 1384), it is expressly 
 ordained, that “ The Mayor and Sheriffs he elected by the 
 titizens of the said city, according to the tenor of the charters 
 of our progenitors,” &c. 
 
 Let this suffice, for the present, as to the modem limitation 
 of the right of electing the chief executive and judieial 
 officer of ^e corporation. I shall, bj^-and-bye, have to show 
 that all limitations of the city franchises to guild freeman 
 are invasions of the tight which resided in all the inhabitant 
 householders within the city, these being the “ citizens,” 
 properly speaking, the privileges conferred by the companies 
 
CONSTITUENT TARTS OF THE CORPORATION, 17 
 
 being a comparatively modem thing. I merely glance at 
 the subject here, because of its ineidental connexion with 
 the ofiBee of Mayor. 
 
 The office of Lord Mayor is one of considerable power and 
 importance. As the head of the Corporation, he is regarded 
 by the law, as the representative of the city on most occa¬ 
 sions of public importance; he derives from the Crown the 
 office of lieutenant or viceroy, and has all the powers of a 
 lord lieutenant within his county. He is in constant com¬ 
 munication with the executive government of the country', 
 and is expected to maintain communications with the great 
 Corporations of the city and kingdom, and to shew attention 
 to distinguished foreigners. He is also perpetual coroner 
 and escheator within the City of London and the borough 
 of Southwark, his authority not ceasing even on the 
 demise or abdication of the Crown, as that of all commission 
 officers does. He is in such cases the principal officer in the 
 kingdom. As clerk of the markets, he has the regulation of 
 the weights and measures used in all the London markets; 
 he is the gauger of all wine, oil, and other gaugeable .articles 
 brought into the city; he is the meter of .all coals, grain, salt, 
 fruit, hops, soap, butter, cheese, and other like things coming 
 into the port of London; he is oonserviitor of the rivers 
 Thames and Medw.ay, and perpetual commissioner in all 
 affairs relating to the river Lea. 
 
 By virtue of his office, the Lord Mayor is a justice of gaol 
 delivery of Newgate, and is named as a principal in every 
 commission for that purpose. He is also a justice of peace 
 for the City of London, and is regarded as the head of that 
 department. He has also various judicial powers given to 
 him by act of Parliament, such as in cases of dispute about 
 tithes in London; and he is looked upon as the general 
 arbiter of mercantile and private disputes. He can release 
 by his warrant, any apprentice or citizen carried on ship¬ 
 board, and there detained against his will. As chief magis? 
 trate of the city, he presides at the Court of Aldermen, the 
 Court of Common Council, and the Court of Common Hall. 
 He is, ex-officio, a member of all committees of the corpor.a-: 
 tion, and chairman of all committees he attends.* 
 
 • Rep. Munic. Coip. p. 7C, &o. 
 
18 COSSTIinEST PARTS OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 From all this it iTillbeseen, as already intimated, that the 
 office of Lord Mayor of London is one of great power and im¬ 
 portance, ranting in fact, nearly all the powers which Black- 
 Stone attributes to the Crown over the rest of the kingdom. 
 
 The Mayor of London bears the honorary appellation of 
 Lord, and has the privileges of having maces, the same as 
 royal, carried before him by the seijeants. This honour 
 and privilege he enjoys by the fourth charter of Edward the 
 Third; and in 1378, he was taxed at four pounds poll-tax, 
 amongst the right honourable Earls. 
 
 A question of great interest to the citizens of London is 
 now at issue between the Lord Mayor and a majority of the 
 Court of Common Council: 2. e. whether the former pos¬ 
 sesses the power of refusing to entertain a motion, of wliieh 
 notice has been regularly given, or whether, as the head and 
 president of that assembly, he can exercise any discretion in 
 the matter. At present the matter remains in abeyance, the 
 Lord Mayor Laving asserted his right of refusal, and the 
 Court, after an ineffectual attempt to resist it, having given 
 way, by referring the question to a committee, with power 
 to take legal advice. The Lord Mayor also claims and 
 exercises the right of dissolving the Court, at any time, by 
 directing the sword-bearer to take up the sword, and leaving 
 the assembly. In the recent disputes in that Court, the Lord 
 Mayor read a paper, in which he said, in refbrence to the 
 course taken by him in refusing to entertain a motion for 
 the third reading of the Qualification Bill,— 
 
 “ There existed, I am aware, another mode of stopping any motion of 
 winch, in the exercise of a sound discretion, I disapprove, namely, of dis¬ 
 solving the Ckrart; bnt being most anxious to proceed with the business on the 
 paper (not open to objection) to dispatch, and not to impede, the business of 
 the Corporation, I deemed it to be my duty to interfere merely in reference 
 to this Bin, and to decline to put the motion.” 
 
 The Committee of the whole Court, to whose considera¬ 
 tion the preservation of its rights and privileges was referred, 
 prepared an answer to the Lord Mayor’s reasons for refusing 
 to entertain the motion, and to his assertion of a right to 
 dissolve the Court at his “ discretion” ; bnt, strange to say, 
 the committee conceded the whole point in dispute, as to 
 the power of the Lord Mayor, as head of the Court. The 
 “answer” was, in fact, a miserable piece of twaddle, which 
 
CONSTITDENT PARIS OF THE CORPORATION. 19 
 
 served only to cover the majority who were parties to it 
 with ridicule and contempt.* 
 
 But it is quite clear that if this power, claimed and 
 exercised by the Lord Mayor, with reference to the Qualifi¬ 
 cation Bill, is legally exercised, the Court of Common 
 Council is a mete moekety—its powers being of hb avail in 
 any case in which the Lord Mayor shall set up his ovvn 
 opinion and will against the majority of the Court; I see 
 that Mr. Pulling, in his “Observations on the disputes 
 arising in the Corporation of London” (p. 15) inclines to 
 dispute the legal exercise of such power. “ The Court of 
 Common Council being once assembled,” he observes, “ it 
 would appear that, by ancient practice in the City of 
 London, it may be dissolved by the Lord Mayor’s retiring, 
 but there may be my grave doubt whether the assembly 
 can be legally dissolved at the mere caprice of the presiding 
 officer, and whether the business may not legally proceed in 
 his absence.” tOne thing, however, is certain; namely^ that 
 the question must be settled by some other tribunal, and the 
 Court of Common Council have resolved to obtain the opi¬ 
 nions of the law officers of the Corporation upon that and 
 other questions of scarcely less importance, as follows:— 
 
 1. Is the legislative and administrative municipal government 
 of the City of London vested in the Lord Mayor, Alder¬ 
 men, and Commons, in Common Council assembled ? 
 
 • Mr, R. Taylor moved, that the reply to the Lord Mayor’s statement he 
 adopted by the committee. 
 
 Mr. Ashurst seconded the motion. 
 
 Mr. Wire thought the reply, as fai- as it went, was good, but it was ineon- 
 clusive, and did not set forth in adequate comprehensiveness the rights of 
 the Court of Common Council. ' 
 
 Mr.R. L. Jones admitted that the paper just read had been got up in 
 haste, and might not be sufficiently comprehensive as regarded the rights of 
 the Common Council; but the question was, whether the importance of 
 answering the document read by the Lord Mayor would not outweigh any 
 inconvenience likely to arise fi-om the apparent imperfection of the reply. 
 
 The motion was then carried, witii the single dissentient voice of Mr. 
 Wire, who did not consider that the reply embraced the case of the Court of 
 Common Council with sufficient facts and reasoning.— Times, Feb. 17,,1817; 
 
 So that this sapient body deemed the promptness of the reply , of more 
 importance than its couclusiveness I 
 
 t See the cases of Rex V. Noams, 1 Bimiardiston’s Reports, p. 385 j Rex 
 V. Gaboeun, 11 East’s Reports, 77; and Bacon’s Abridgement, tit. Corpo¬ 
 ration, p. 260. 
 
20 COSSTIinENT PARTS OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 2. Aie the presence of the Lord Jlayor, the presence of any 
 
 and what minimum number of Aldermen, and the pre¬ 
 sence of any and what minimum number of Commoners 
 essential to constitute a legal court? And is the Court 
 dissolved by the departure of the Lord Mayor, or of 
 the Aldermen, or of the Commoners, so as to reduce 
 those bodies respectively below the minimum number ? 
 
 3. To enable the Court of Common Council to discuss and 
 
 decide upon any and what corporate questions, is it 
 essential that they should be inserted in a paper of 
 business, and a printed sununons for the meeting of tlie 
 Court: 
 
 4. Has the Lord Mayor a right to exclude from the summons 
 
 and paper of business any of such questions which the 
 members may think it necessary to discuss ? 
 
 5. If, in point of feet, they ate excluded from the summons 
 
 and paper of business, have the members of the Court a 
 light to have them discussed ? 
 
 6. Has the Lord Mayor the right to refuse to put to the vote 
 
 any such questions which may be duly moved and 
 seconded, when they are ripe for decision: 
 
 7. Has the Lord Mayor, or have the Aldermen as a body or 
 
 as individuals, the right of teto to stay the passing of 
 any, and if any, what description of measures in the 
 Court of Common Council; or, the Court being duly 
 formed, do the votes of the Lord Jlayor and the Aider- 
 men present- count only numerically with the voices of 
 the commoners: 
 
 8. Considering the state of the puhhc business and the differ¬ 
 
 ences which prevail between the Eight Hon. the Lord 
 Mayor, the Aldermen, and the Common Council, in 
 regard to the recent proceedings in the Court of Common 
 Council, what measures with reference to the welfare of 
 the city do you recommend that Court to take ?" 
 
 • strange to say, and as if still farther to stultify itself, the Court of 
 Common Coundl, -without waiting for the opinions of their iaw ofBcers upon 
 these several questions, came to a resoiution, upon the recommendation of 
 their Committee of Priviieges (March 25th) to prepare a bili for parliament! 
 This is really child’s play, and shows in what competent hands the manage¬ 
 ment of cine aSairs is piaoed. The few sensible and honest men amongst 
 them are home down by the fools and knaves. 
 
CONSTITUENT PARTS OP 
 
 CORPORATION* 21 
 
 2.—The Aldermen. 
 
 The City waS) at a very early period, divided into wards, 
 not after any uniform rule, for there is, and always has been, 
 a very great discrepancy amongst the several wards, as to 
 size, population, and property. There ate twenty-six of 
 these wards, as follows !— 
 
 Aldersgate, Castle-Baynard, Farringdon Without 
 
 Aldgate, Cheap Latighourne, 
 
 Bassishaw, Coleman-street, Lime-street, 
 
 Billingsgate, Cordwainers, Portsoken, 
 
 Bishopsgate, Cotnhill, Queenhithc, 
 
 Bread-street, Cripplegate Within, Tower, 
 
 Bridge, Cripplegate Without Vintry, 
 
 Broad-street, Dowgate, Walbrook. 
 
 Candlewick, Farringdon Within, 
 
 The only alterations that are knoivn to have been made in 
 the boundaries of the wards, are these:—The ward of Far- 
 ringdon was, in the time of Richard II., divided into two, 
 Without and Within; Whitefriars and Blackfriars were re¬ 
 spectively declared to be part of the. wards of Farringdon 
 Without and FarringdonWithin, by Acts of Common Council 
 of the 11 th of March, 1736, and 28th of February, 1806; 
 and St. Martin’s-le-6rand was annexed to the ward of 
 Aldgate, by the Post-office Act, 55 Geo. III., c. 91. 
 
 The great inequality in the size and property of the city 
 wards is shown in a very striking light, by a printed return 
 made to the Corporation, in March, 1840, from which, and 
 other materials, Mr. Hickson has compiled a table, exhibit¬ 
 ing the constitution of the majority and minority of both 
 Courts, for the year 1843.* 
 
 Each ward is presided over by an Alderman, who has the 
 nile and government within it. He is elected by the citizen 
 inhabitant householders of his ward, except in the ward of 
 Bridge, where he may be said to be self-elected. The Court, 
 which consists of these twenty-six Aldermen, is often . 
 seriously spoken of, as “ a representative body.” The fact 
 is, however, that the number of small wards, each of which 
 
 • Addend. West. Rev., vol. xxxix., p. 573. 
 
COXSTiTUEXT PARTS OF 
 
 CORPORATION. 
 
 returns an Alderman to tlie Court, so far exceeds tlie number 
 of laiwe wards, that it is tlie minority of tbe citizens, and tlie 
 minimum of property that are really represented in the Court. 
 “For example, the ward of Farringdon Without contains 
 •3,0.30 houses, the ward of Bridges only 198 houses; yet 
 each ward has an Alderman. One householder in the 
 ward of Bridge, supposing every householder had a vote, 
 would have, therefore, as much influence in the Court of 
 Aldermen as fifteen householders in the ward of Farringdon 
 AVithout.”—f HicKSon.) In like manner, it may he noticed, 
 that the ward of Farringdon Without contains £1.58,572, of 
 rateable property-; while the ward of Bassisliaw contains 
 only £G,819: yet each returns an Alderman, and no more. 
 The whole body of Aldermen are shown, by Mr. Hickson, 
 to be returned as follows 
 
 Wards. 
 
 7 Aldermen represent 7 .... 
 1 (Bridge'Withont).. 1 .... 
 
 )Ie property. 
 . .-£458,688 
 . 397,030 
 
 This is a striking anomaly; but, as Mr. Hickson observes, 
 the state of the representation (if we may be permitted the 
 misnomer) is really worse than it appears to be, for the 
 householders do not vote: the electors are freemen-hoxxso- 
 lioldeis; and in some of the wards not one-third of the 
 householders are fteemen. In the ward of Bread-street, the 
 number of householders is 250; the number of freemen only 
 75; so that an Alderman may be returned by a constituency 
 of thirty-eight electors (tlie majority of seventy-five). To 
 exhibit the anomalous character of this electoral constitu¬ 
 tion, in a more impressive light, Mr. Hickson enumerates 
 the powers and privileges exercised by the Aldermen, besides 
 the power which they exercise—independently of the Court 
 of Common Council—of drawing upon the city funds to an 
 indefinite extent. Let us see what these powers and 
 privileges are:— 
 
 “ 1. Upon all questions whatever relating to the afiairs of 
 die Corporation, they have a double influence, deliberating 
 
CONSTITUENT PARTS OE 
 
 CORPORATION. 23 
 
 and voting not only in their own Court, hut also as members 
 of the Court of Common Council. This is much the same 
 as if the peers were permitted to take part in the debates 
 and votes of the House of Commons. About one-third of the 
 members of every standing committee of the Court of 
 Common Council are also Aldermen, and on some com¬ 
 mittees the whole of the Aldermen are eligible, and form 
 half the number of members,. 
 
 “2. Every Alderman is a judge in various civil courts, and 
 a justice of the peace, or police magistrate, not only for Ids 
 own ward, but for the whole city. 
 
 “3. He is a licensing magistrate; a circumstance which 
 explains the interest taken by the publicans in every election 
 of an Alderman. 
 
 “ 4. The Aldermen arc elected for life, and usually sit with 
 closed doors; thus at once irresponsible to their constituents 
 and to public opinion. 
 
 “5. The Aldermen superintend the prisons. 
 
 “ 6. Every member of the court is a governor, ex-officio, 
 of the royal hospitals; a trustee, ex-officio, of various public 
 charities; and often a master or warden of some one of the 
 livery companies; an office not of right, but for which he is 
 not imfrequontly indebted to the influence of his position in 
 the Corporation. 
 
 “ 7. The Aldermen appoint the Recorder, the principal 
 Judge of the Central Criminal Court, the jurisdiction of 
 which extends over not only the City, but the whole of the 
 metropolitan districts. They appoint, also, the following 
 officers Recorder, Steward of Southwark, Clerk to Lord 
 Mayor, Assistant to Clerk to Lord Mayor, Clerk to Sitting 
 Magistrates at Guildhall, Assistant to Clerk to Sitting Magis¬ 
 trates at Guildhall, Keeper of Newgate, Keeper of House of 
 Correction, Keeper of Debtors’ Prison, Keeper of Borough 
 Compter, Ordinary of Newgate, Chaplain of House of Cor¬ 
 rection and Borough Compter, Chaplain of Debtors’ Prison, 
 Surgeon of Newgate, Surgeon of House of Correction, 
 Surgeon of Debtors’ Prison, Surgeon of Borough Compter, 
 District Surveyors, &c., &c. 
 
 “ 8. They elect for the borough of Southwark, from their 
 own body, two sitting magistrates, and other officers for the 
 
24 COSSriTDENT PARTS OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 same district; the inhabitants of the borough of Southwark 
 having at the same time no share whatever in the represen¬ 
 tation of the City. 
 
 “9. The Aldermen claim a veto upon the election of 
 members of their own Court, by the freemen of the wards. 
 This, if carried out, is equivalent to the right of self-appoint¬ 
 ment; and it was recently exercised in the case of an 
 Alderman returned three several times by the ward of Port- 
 soken. The forms of the Corporation also require that most 
 of the City officers shall be sworn in by the Aldermen; and 
 if the Aldermen refiise to swear in the officers presented to 
 the Court, the appointment is necessarily invalid. 
 
 “Finally, every Alderman, whatever may be liis capacity, 
 becomes, by rotation (unless he has rendered himself especi¬ 
 ally obnoxious to the rest of his brethren or to the livery, in 
 which case the order is sometimes cliangedj. Lord Mayor of 
 London: that is to say, the chief Magistrate, and chief 
 executive officer of the City. In this position his powers 
 are not exceeded by the Prefet of the Seine, in France, or 
 any subordinate officer of the government of Prussia. The 
 Lord Mayor has the power, for example, to obstruct and put 
 a stop to any portion of public business, at any stage of its 
 proeeedings, by dissolving the Ceurt of Common Council; 
 and the strong party feelings of a Mayor have, in fact, not 
 unfrequently, m former times, annihilated the right of public 
 discussion in the City, during his year of office.” 
 
 But we need not go back to former times, to find eases in 
 which the Lord Jlayor and his brother Aldermen have exer¬ 
 cised this power of reducing even the Court of Common 
 Council to a mere nullity. The proceedings in that Court, 
 ever since the month of December last, the Lord Mayor re¬ 
 fusing to put a question regularly proposed and seconded; 
 and the Aldermen, by withdrawing themselves from the 
 Council Chamber, dissolving the Court—the presence of two 
 Aldermen, besides the Lord Mayor, being necessary to con¬ 
 stitute a Court—these proceedings show the power of mis¬ 
 chief which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen possess of anni¬ 
 hilating the power of discussion, and stopping the progress 
 of civic legislation. They show, also, that the power docs 
 not always remain in abeyance. 
 
CONSTITUENT PARTS OF THE CORPORATION. 25 
 
 The great evil, and that which probably lies at the root of 
 every other, appertaining to the Court of Aldermen, is the 
 election of its members for life. That it was otherwise at 
 one time, there is abundant evidence. Thus, the sixth 
 charter of Edward III.; “ In the same letters (of Edward 
 II.) it is contained, that the Aldermen of the aforesaid City, 
 that every year they be removed, on the day of St. Gregory, 
 by the commonalty of the City, and that they so removed 
 be not chosen again the next year ensuing; but, instead of 
 them, others be chosen, by the same wards from which such 
 Aldermen were removed.” 
 
 ft is explained further on in the same charter, that sundry 
 strifes had sprung up between the Aldermen and commonalty 
 touching the interpretation of these words in former charters, 
 the Aldermen affirming that they ought not to be removed 
 from the office of Aldermanship without “sufficient reason,” 
 or “for..some notorious offence to be found in them.” 
 Whereupon the Icing,“being willing, as much as lieth in.us, 
 to contribute to the peace and tranquillity of the said Mayor, 
 Aldermen, and commonalty, and their snccessors, hencefor¬ 
 ward, concerning the interpretation of the said article, do, 
 by and with the advice of our said Council, declare, that all 
 and every Alderman of the said City, em'yj/mr, FOR EVER, 
 on the feast of St. Gregory the Pope, from the office of an 
 Alderman utterly and precisely shall cease, and shall not be 
 chosen again; but that, instead of those removed, other 
 Aldermen shall be dxosesi every year, for ever, out of the dis¬ 
 creet citizens of good fame, by the said wards, from which 
 the said Aldermen were removed.” The 7th of Richard II., 
 however, enacted that Aldermen might be re-elected; and 
 by the 17th of the same king, c. ii., it was enacted that they 
 should fill the office till reasonable removal; thus making it 
 an office for life, greatly to the detriment of the citizens at 
 large, and scarcely less so to the character of those who are 
 called to fill the office. 
 
 If the Aldermen of the City of London exercised only 
 judicial or magisterial functions, then, indeed, we should not 
 be disposed to find any great fault with the continuance of 
 their office being made dependent upon good behaviour, 
 
26 COSSTITUEST PARTS OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 although it ivould even then he an infringement upon the 
 original rights and franchises of the Citzens. 
 
 The most extensive powem of the Aldermen are those 
 employed in their collective capacity, as an independent 
 Court, which exercises both a legislative and an executive 
 control in the municipal government of the City. This has 
 led to many, and will lead to endless, disputes between the 
 Aldermen and the Commoners, and is, undoubtedly, an evil 
 that calls loudly for reform. Either the Court of Aldermen 
 should he stripped of its independent legislative and execn- 
 tive powers; or its members should he rendered strictly 
 responsible by periodical election. As we shall see hy-and- 
 bye, the Court now claims and exercises the right of deahng 
 with the corporate funds, wholly independent of the 
 Common Council, and in spite of the remonstrances of that 
 body: and a reference to the finance accounts will show 
 that the Court of Aldermen, to which does not attach even 
 the semblance of responsibility, alone disposes of more than 
 one-fourth of the aggregate income of the Corporation. This 
 is just as if the House of Lords were to appropriate a similar 
 proportion of the Consolidated fund, not only without the 
 assent of the Commons, but in defiance of their protests. 
 
 •3.—The Commox Cocxcil. 
 
 The third branch of the civic government of London is 
 the Court of Common Council, which is styled, the “ Court 
 of the Lord Jlayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of 
 London, in Common Council assembledthese corporate 
 officers, as we have already seen, constituting the Court. 
 
 In the description given of the Court of Aldermen, inci- 
 dentalmentlon has been made of the several wards into which 
 the City of London is divided, and the disparity that exists 
 amongst them, as to extent, population, and property. The 
 consequences of this are obvious and serious enough in tlie 
 constitution of the Court of Aldermen; any one ward, what¬ 
 ever its population or property may be, having just the same 
 representation and influence in that Coiut as any other ward, 
 each one of them returning one Alderman, who is its repre¬ 
 sentative there. But the consequences are still more serious 
 
CONSTITUENT PARTS OP THE CORPORATION. 27 
 
 ia tlie Constitution of the Court of Common Coimcil, whicli 
 forms the thhd estate of the civic government, answering in 
 some respects to the House of Commons; and which has, 
 for a long time, had the power of legislation within the City, 
 and is obviously the legitimate assembly for exercising those 
 powers of internal government and reform whicli peculiarly 
 exist within the Corporation of the City of London. 
 
 In former times, the freemen of the City met in general 
 assembly, like the comitia cunata at Rome, and thus exer¬ 
 cised the powers of internal legislation. This legislative 
 assembly was called the Folk-mote, in some places the 
 Hurdrecl; and when held within doors, the Hiisting, or the 
 Gommmi-hall. Here, as I have said, the body of burgesses 
 were present in person, and to them, with their officers, 
 whom they elected annually, every general privilege con¬ 
 veyed by the royal charters was granted. However vested 
 in latter times, every power exercised in the ancient 
 boroughs and cities, inolnding the City of London, derived 
 its origin from the acts of this assembly. This assembly, it 
 is important to observe, was held not merely to levy local 
 taxes, hut to administer justice, and determine, generally, on 
 the affairs of the community. This is evident from an occur¬ 
 rence related, with many and curious particulars, by Hove- 
 den,’" touching the general assembly of the nobility and 
 citizens of London, in the second year of Richard the First, 
 held by his brother John, then Earl of Moreton, and regent 
 of the kingdom. He says, “ the Earl of Moreton, the Arch¬ 
 bishop of Rouen, and all the bishops, earls, batons, and 
 citkms of London, met in St. Paul’s churchyard, on the 11th 
 day of October, deposed the chancellor, Wilham Long- 
 champ, Bishop of Ely, and made Walter, Archbishop of 
 Rouen, chancellor in his stead; and the same day, the said 
 earl and archbishop, and other the king’s justices, granted to 
 the citizens of London to lime their commnniti/~-‘communam 
 suam.’ The same year, the earl of Moreton, and the arch¬ 
 bishop, and almost all the bishops, earls, and barons, swore 
 firmly and steadfastly to preserve and defend this eommmity, 
 so long as it pleased the king.”t.. 
 
 * Annates, p. 702, t lb- 
 
28 COSSTIIUENT FAETS OF THE COKPOEATIOH. 
 
 Here we have, in all probability, the commencement of 
 the representative system in the city of London; for the 
 “community” thus granted to the citizens, was, no doubt, 
 as Dr. Brady observes, a select number for the management 
 oftheafiiis of the city, in the place of that promiscuous 
 gathering, at which every one had a right to be present, 
 and which had hitherto obtained. In the second of John 
 (a. d. 1200,) a council of thirty-five citizens is found asso¬ 
 ciated with the mayor, sworn with him to maintain the laws 
 or assizes in London; and this body, denominated, indis¬ 
 criminately, the “ Council of the City,” and the “ Council 
 of the Mayor,” seems to he the original of the Common 
 Council at present existing. 
 
 It was in the time of Edward the First, that the ward re¬ 
 presentation was ori^ated. Two deputies were elected 
 for each of twenty-four wards, to discuss the af&irs of the 
 city, to consent to ordinances, and to grant aids or taxes 
 for the support of the city government. This deliberative 
 body, then,—the communia of the mayor, aldermen, and 
 commonalty—superseded the general folkmote, or assem¬ 
 bly of the householders in &ee pledge, by whom it was 
 elected, and whom it represented, llis system continued 
 for some years, but not without many and serious disputes 
 touching the right of election ; the members of the guilds, 
 or companies, on the one hand, claiming to he the only 
 true citizens, and therefore electors for the common council- 
 men ; and the popuhis, or general inhabitants, being equa- 
 ly urgent in favour of thdr claims, on the other. The dis¬ 
 putes at length ran so high, that the belligerents appealed 
 to the king, who at once addressed a privy seal to the cor¬ 
 poration, commanding them to stay all further proceedings 
 till the matter could be brought before Parliament, The 
 Parliament, however, never interfered, for the magnates, by 
 some means or other obtained the consent of the popvilus 
 that the Common Council should he composed of persons 
 of the wiser and more sufficient of the mysteries, (or 
 companies,) selected hymen of the same mysteries, and not 
 otherwise. 
 
 The disputes were soon renewed, however; and in the 
 early part of the reign of Richard the Second, the citizens 
 
CONSTITDENT PARTS OP THE CORPORATION. 29 
 
 succeeded in recovering a small measure of ttelr original 
 riglits, it being settled, and afterwards confirmed, anno 9 
 Ricb. II., that the Common Council should be composed 
 of persons qualified as well by property ashy sense or sound 
 discretion; and not out of the guilds, mysteries, or crafts> 
 as before. It was also settled tliat the larger wards should ■ 
 increase the number of their representatives, who were, 
 accordingly, augmented by subsequent acts of the Common 
 Council. 
 
 In the City of London, as elsewhere, however, the de¬ 
 mocracy were making a continual effort to recover their full 
 rights and franchises, of which they had been, from time to 
 time, deprived. The settlement made in the time of Richard 
 the second was regarded, as it obviously ought to have been, 
 as a settlementmnly for the time, and binding only upon 
 those who were the immediate parties to it. The privileged 
 class of electors were subjected to constant assaults from 
 the excluded body, who, in time re-asserted their right 
 to the franchise, by taking an active part in the elections; 
 and so firmly do they appear to have established their power, 
 that in 1650, the question was brought before the .Court of 
 Common Council, by the " men of the mysteries,” for the 
 purpose of ascertaining “ whether the right of electing city 
 officers vested in the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and freemen 
 in general; or in the mayor, aldermen, Common Council, 
 master, wardens, and liveries of the several Companies.” 
 The question was decided in favor of the ‘'freemen in gen¬ 
 eral,” by an Act of the Court, “concerning elections,” passed 
 on the 4th of November following, which set out, amongst 
 other things, that, “ by the ancient chatters granted and 
 confirmed to this city, the election of mayor, sheriffs, and 
 other officers of the said city ought to be by the Citizens or. 
 commonalty thereof; whereby it is evident that the whole 
 commonalty, either personally (if without confusion it might 
 be done) or their representatives, chosen by them for that 
 purpose, were to have votes in all such elections,” although 
 “ the masters, wardens, and liveries of the several companies, 
 have taken upon them (to the exclusion of all other citizens) 
 to make the said elections.” And it then proceeds to enact, 
 that “ from henceforth the election of the mayor and sheriffs, 
 
30 COSSIIXUEST PAKTS OF THE COEPOEATION. 
 
 tuigesses for Parliamenl^ and all officers of and belonging' to 
 this city, shall be made in the Common Hall,” by “the 
 aldermen and common councilmen of every ward, and the 
 like number of other honest men of each %ard, to be cho¬ 
 sen yearly for that purpose, in the wardmote to be held ly 
 the inhahitants of the same ward.” 
 
 This was a large concession, for it gave the right of elec¬ 
 tion, as wiE be seen, not to the “ citizens generally,” but 
 to the “ inhabitants of the ward,” without any special qua¬ 
 lification, the number of whom j\Ir. AVton states’ to have 
 increased &om 73,000, in 1631, to 103,000, in 1664. They 
 must, therefore, have formed a very important proportion of 
 the “ inhabitants of the wards” to whom the constituency 
 of the electoral and consultative commonalty was conceded. 
 In 1692, infect, the votes of the non-freemen had become 
 so numerous, and they asserted their pretensions with so 
 much pertinacity, as of right, that it was deemed necessary 
 to ascertain and decide in whom the right of eiection did in 
 reality vest; and the decision was promulgated by an Act of 
 Common Council of that year, in favour of “freemen house¬ 
 holders, paying scot and bearing lot.” 
 
 The practice of non-freemen voting at the elections ap¬ 
 pears still to have prevailed, however, for in the year 1711, 
 we find another act of Common Council, for regulating the 
 election of aldermen, in which it is ordered that “ none but 
 freemen paying scot and bearing lot, shall have a right to 
 poll for aldermen.” But the ordinances of the Common 
 Council, and the proclamations of the executive, were alike 
 unavailing. As the freemen made war against the exclusive 
 pretensions of the livery, so the non-freemen made war 
 against the.exclnsive pretensions of the freemen, and for 
 twenty-five years every contested election, whether for al¬ 
 dermen or common conncilmen, became the increasing 
 occasion ofpopular strife, not only between the rival can¬ 
 didates, and the voters and returning ofiicers, but between the 
 Courts of Aldermen and Conunon Council, and the mem¬ 
 bers of the same Courts, also. This led to .an application to 
 Parliament, and after a strong and protracted opposition by 
 one patty, and as energetic and persevering an effort by the 
 * ConHneiit. Law App. 
 
CONSTITOENT PARTS OF THE CORPORATION. 31 
 
 Other, the Act which now regulates the city elections (11 Geo. 
 
 1, c. 11) was passed, in 1725. Theeffectof this Act, which 
 confined the right of election to freemen householders, pay¬ 
 ing seot and hearing lot, who have resided for twelve months, 
 was to disfranehise upwards of 6,000 non-freemen, renting 
 premises at from ^16 to £200 per annum, who were amongst 
 the most wealthy inhabitants of the city, paying to ward 
 and parish rates from 40s. to £10 per annum; and nearly 
 5,000 freemen householders, occupying premises under £10 
 per annum value. 
 
 Early in 1843, a movement was made towards the repeal 
 or amendment of this Aet, by which the franehise was 
 so much restricted, the representation rendered so unequal, 
 and the duration, expense, and uncertainty of the muni¬ 
 cipal elections so seriously increased. It was referred 
 to a committee of the Court of Common Council to 
 prepare a Bill for this purpose; hut instead of doing that, 
 they reported to the Court, recommending, that before the 
 details were embodied in a Bill, they should be submitted to 
 the Court of Aldermen, the freemen in the several wards, 
 s.nO Her Majcsti/’s Ministers, as guardians of the public in¬ 
 terests ! Whatever the Court of Common Council may now 
 say, or pretend to the contrary, therefore, it is quite clear that 
 this their committee evinced no great spirit of independence, 
 and no great desire for reform; and the Court placed itself 
 on a level with its committee, by receiving and adopting 
 the report. Nay, the Court went still further than this, for 
 it passed resolutions suspending the labours of the com¬ 
 mittee, declaring that it was the bounden duty of that Court 
 “to protect the freemen in the full enjoyment of their elec¬ 
 tive franchise; that to sanction any measure having for its 
 object the admission of non-freemen to a participation of the 
 franchise, would be a dereliction of such duty, and an act 
 of great and manifest injustice to our constituents and fellow 
 citizensand that it was highly inexpedient to apply to 
 Parliament for a reform of . evils, whether real or supposed, 
 in the municipal institutions of this city.” They therefore 
 recommended that the obligation of taking up the freedom 
 • should he enforced upon all persons carrying on business, 
 wholesale or retail, within the city. - 
 
32 COSSTITBEST PARTS OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 It cannot -well be said, then, that tbe Conit of Common 
 Council has evinced any ^eat desire to enlarge tlie civic' 
 constituency. Alderman Humphrey, in proposing a resolu¬ 
 tion in the Court of Aldermen for an alteration of this law, 
 in January last, truly observed, that as the law stood, the 
 voters must not only be citizens, who keep houses or ware¬ 
 houses, and pay scot and beat lot, but that they must sleep, 
 either by themselves or their servants, within the ward. 
 He leeolleeted that when he presided at the election for 
 Alderman in the ward of Bread-street, he had had experience 
 of that doetrine, having observed the rejection of the votes 
 of many of the most respectable and influential men on 
 that occasion, because they could not prove the fact of 
 sleeping in the ward. Such a system, he remarked, inevita¬ 
 bly threw upon men who ought not to have such authority 
 the power of electing whom they might prefer, and leaving 
 the superior classes in the ward unrepresented. His inten¬ 
 tion was to throw open the fianehise to all persons paying scot 
 and bearing lot in the City of London, whether they were 
 fteemen or not. There were in all the wards, he said, indivi¬ 
 duals who were not free, and who would not be free; but 
 who bore the great burden of city taxation ; and no one in 
 Ms senses could, at this time of day, say, that they were not 
 entitled to votes in the election of those who were to impost- 
 taxes upon them. Generally speaking, the merchants were 
 See, but they were proscribed from the privilege of voting, 
 because they thought it was advisable to sleep in the suburbs 
 after the toils of the day. He wished.to establish the con¬ 
 stituency of the Aldermen and the Common Councilmcn 
 upon the basis of the existing Parliamentary constituency. 
 He proposed, too, to limit the duration of election for mem¬ 
 bers of the two Courts upon the Parliamentary principle of 
 the Reform BUI; that is, to a single day. 
 
 Thus stands the matter of the municipal franchise at pre¬ 
 sent ; it is to be hoped, that concunently with an extension 
 of that, there wUl be a revision of the wards, or electoral 
 districts; forasmuch as it is almost immaterial who are the 
 electors in the three or four large wards, so long as the small 
 wards, in which the representation is a matter of private 
 arrangement amongst four or five persons, have the great 
 
CONSTITUENT PAKTS OF 
 
 CORPORATION. 33 
 
 preponderance of members in tlie Court of Common 
 Council. 
 
 It is true, that in 1840, an Act was passed, for the purpose 
 of rendering the representation of the several wards more in 
 conformity with the number of citizens resident in each, and 
 also its rateable property. By this Act, the number of the 
 Court was reduced—by striking off from some of the smaller 
 wards, and adding to the larger ones—to the number of 206. 
 A glance at the present state of the representation, however, 
 will show how inadequately it exists; how futile, in fact, 
 the civic representative system really is, and how much a 
 reform of it is, therefore, really needed, to put an end to 
 what is now but a mockery and a farce. Just look at the 
 fact, that while seven wards, containing 10,289 bouses, and 
 rateable property to the amount of £458,688, have but 
 eighty-four representatives in the Common Council, eighteen 
 wards, having but G,1 y 7 houses, and £397>036 of rateable 
 property, have one hundred and twenty-two representatives 
 there! Look at the fact, that while the wards of Tower, 
 Cheap, Bridge, Bread-street, Billingsgate, Langbourne, and 
 Farringdon Within, having but 3,229 .houses, return sbsly- 
 two members to the Court of Common Council, the ward of 
 Farringdon Without, with 3,030 houses, returns but sixteen. 
 To talk of representation, with such inequalities as these, is 
 ridiculous. It exists but in name, and as a mockery. 
 
 Having thus glanced at the imperfect state of the repre¬ 
 sentation of the citizens of London in the Court of Common 
 Council, as well as at the various changes that have taken 
 place in the constituent body, by whom the members of 
 that Court are returned, it may be well just to glance at the 
 powers which it exercises, as a branch of the civic Corpo¬ 
 ration, inasmuch as this will suggest additional reasons, 
 should they be thought wanting, for such an alteration in 
 the constitution of the Court as would make it, in fact, what 
 it is in theory, the representative body of the Commonalty 
 of the City of London. At present, it is no more a repre¬ 
 sentative body than was the House of Commons, under the 
 rotten and corrupt system which gave to Old Sarum, Sud¬ 
 bury, Aldborough, and similar places, the power of returning 
 a majority of its members. 
 
34 : COXSTIIUEXT PARTS OF THE CORPORATIOX. 
 
 I have already stated, generally, the representation of 
 the different 'srards. It may he Tvell to do it more specifically, 
 it stands thus:— 
 
 Bassishaw and Lime-street wards return each 4 members. 8 
 
 Dowgate, Candlewicfc, Comhill, Cordwainers, Queeiihitlie,Vintry, 
 
 and 'Walbrook each 6... 42 
 
 Billingsgate, Bread-street, Bridge, Broad-street, Cheap, Coleman- 
 street, Cripplegate (Tsithin and without), Castle Bayard, Alders- 
 
 gate, Aldgate, Langboum, Tower, and Portsoken, each 8 . 112 
 
 Bi^opsgate and Farringdon ‘Within, each 14-. 28 
 
 Famngdon "NVithont . IG 
 
 Total 20G 
 
 The Court of Common Council possesses and exercises 
 very great powers. It is a legislative, as well as an execu¬ 
 tive body; and it has, from tune to time, passed acts and 
 ordinances, not only for its own regulation, hut for defining 
 the qualifications of corporators and citizens, for regulating 
 the office of aldermen, and, as I have shown, for limiting, 
 extending, and fixing the electoral body, which it is clearly 
 warranted to do, under the fourth charter of Edward the 
 third, which was merely declaratory of the ancient right of 
 the Corporation, to “apply and ordain a convenient remedy,” 
 where “ any customs theretofore used and obtained proved 
 hard or defective, or any matters newly arising needed 
 amendment, and no remedy had been previously applied.” 
 
 In the exercise of a similar power, the Court has imposed 
 fines for not accepting the office of Mayor, Alderman, or 
 Sheriff, when elected thereto; and when elections to other 
 offices are not regulated by charter. Act of Parliament, or 
 immemorial usage, they have been settled by the Common 
 Council, which itselfr elects the Town-clerk, the City 
 Solicitor, the Kemembrancer, the Judges of the Sheriff’s 
 Court, the Coroners, Clerk of the Peace, two of the City 
 Pleaders, the Bailife of Southwark, the Commissioner of 
 Police, the Marshals and Marshalmen, the Master of the City 
 of London School, the Commissioners of Sewers, and a host 
 of subordinate officers, such as “Sergeant-carver,” “Sergeants 
 of the Channel,” “ Common Crier,’ A-eomen of the Water¬ 
 side,” “Sword-bearer,” “Sword-bearer’s young man,” &c. 
 
 Thus, the Corporation of London possesses a much larger 
 
COXSTITUENT PARTS OP THE CORPORATION. 35 
 
 power of legislation than is possessed by any other Corpora¬ 
 tion in the kingdom. “It is the foundation,” says Sir 
 Orlando Bridgman, once Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, 
 “ of most of the ordinances in force in London for the govern¬ 
 ment of the City, which would he shaken if you take away 
 this pillar, and leave to London no more power, touehing by¬ 
 laws, than you do to every ordinary Corporation or eom- 
 pany.” 
 
 This legislative power has sometimes been exercised on a 
 very extended scale. Thus, brokers and faetors were eom- 
 pelled to he free of the City, and to submit themselves to the 
 approval of the Court of Aldermenall broad-cloth was 
 required to ho brought to Blackwall Hall, to be searched; 
 every foreigner selling goods usually sold by weight, was 
 compelled to bring them to be weighed at the king’s beam; 
 draymen and brewers’ servants were prohibited from being 
 abroad with their drays or carts after certain hours; brick¬ 
 layers were restrained from plastering with lime, and plaster¬ 
 ing with lime and hair was confined to the plasterers; while 
 bakers of biwvn bread were prohibited from making w'hite 
 bread, ct e coimerso. 
 
 The only important instanee in whieh the Corporation 
 permitted the legislature to interfere with its powers .and 
 constitution, was in 1725, by the passing of the City Election 
 Act (11 Geo. 1, c. 18), and this appears to be the ehief thing 
 that now stands in tlie way of eivic refonners. The dispute 
 that has existed for some time between the two Courts—the 
 Court of Aldermen, and the Court of Common Council—is 
 occasioned by the difference of opinion they entertain relative 
 to the operation of this Aet; the Court of Common Council 
 insisting that it does not restrain the Corporation from alter¬ 
 ing the qualification for members of that Court; while the 
 Court of Aldermen maintains the opposite doctrine, and 
 insists upon the necessity of an Act of Parliament to deal 
 with that subject. 
 
 That the Court of Common Council has no power to alter 
 the qualification of the electors for Aldermen or Common 
 Councilmen, is obvious enough, seeing that the Corporation 
 has no power to overrule an Act of Parliament, and that the 
 Aet in question limits the right of voting at wardmote elee- 
 
36 CONSTIICEST PARTS OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 tions to fteemen householders, paying scot and lot, and the 
 sole inhabitants of the houses in which they respectively 
 reside. But it is not so clear that the Corporation itself can¬ 
 not now regulate the qualification for a seat in the Court of 
 Common Council. We are very much in the dark, however, 
 and the Corporation being without any general governing 
 charter, but existing by prescription, and acting under various 
 charters and Acts of Parliament, many of which are merely 
 declaratory of ancient rights, customs, and usages, it is 
 hazardous to decide peremptorily, without a more extensive 
 and careful search than any private person or civilian can be 
 expected to undertake. All that we know is, that by resolu¬ 
 tions of the Courts of Aldermen and Common CoimcU (a. d. 
 1710, and 1716), both being declaratory of an ancient 
 custom, no pcRon can be elected Common Councilman for 
 any ward, who is not a householder of that ward; and it is 
 reasonable to infer that the Corporation, having thus defined 
 the qualification, may vary it, as it shall think fit. 
 
 Another point involved in this dispute between the Courts 
 is, whether the Court of Common Council has the right to 
 originate any legislative measures of reform. But that seems 
 scarcely to admit of doubt, for although the terms of the 
 charter of Edward the Tliird, to which reference has been 
 already made, describes the legislative power of the Corpora¬ 
 tion as existing in “the Mayor and Aldermen, with tlw assent 
 of the commonalty;” yet, as was observed, in the case of the 
 King t. Westwood, “a power of making bye-laws, given by 
 charter to a select body in a Corporation, does not by impli¬ 
 cation take away the power of making bye-laws, wliich has 
 previously existed in the body at large; for, otherwise, many 
 regulations which are essential to the good government of the 
 Corporation would be prevented from being made. Besides,” 
 as Mr. Pulling observes,'" “ that the Court of Common Council 
 is the assembly in which all internal legislation in the City of 
 London is to be conducted, is obvious; for in no other coqjo- 
 rate Court are the Mayor, commonalty, and citizens; or the 
 Mayor, Aldermen, and commoners of the City represented.” 
 This agrees with what the Lord Cliief Justice Coke, who had 
 been Becorder of the City of London, says, of the constitution 
 
 • Observation on the Disputes, &c. p. 14. 
 
CONSTITUENT PARTS OF THE CORPORATION. 3‘f 
 
 and powers of tlie Common Council. " This Court,” he 
 observes, “has some resemblance of the high Court of Parlia¬ 
 ment, for it consists of two houses, m., the one of the Mayor 
 and Aldermen, and the other of such as be of the common 
 assembly, resembling the whole commonalty of London. In 
 this Court they make constitutions and laws, and these being 
 made by the Mayor and Aldermen and commonalty, do bind 
 within this City and the liberties thereof; they of the com¬ 
 mon assembly do give their assent by holding up their 
 hands.” 
 
 But if the Common Council be the assembly in which 
 legislation must be necessarily condueted, it is absurd to 
 maintain that legislation must be originated in the Court of 
 Aldermen; and as for the formula of the charter of Edward 
 the Third, it need no more be taken as indicative of such a 
 course of proceeding, than the usual formula in an Act of 
 Parliament—" Be it enacted by the Queen’s most excellent 
 majesty, by and with the consent,” &c., must be taken as in¬ 
 dicative of all Acts of Parliament originating with the Crown 
 —which we know they do not. 
 
 Another thing wholly inconsistent with this assumption of 
 power in the Court of Aldermen, is the fact, that Aldermen 
 formerly claimed and exercised a negative vote in all the 
 proceedings of the Common Council—a thing which would 
 have been quite unnecessary, if the Court of Aldermen 
 possessed the exclusive right of originating legislative 
 measures, which is a much more effective power tlian a 
 negative vote in the lower chamber. This negative power 
 of theirs, however, was much and long contested by the 
 commonalty, and although the dominant party obtained the 
 sanction of it in the City Election Act (sec. 15), such was the 
 continued resistance offered to it, that the clause was re¬ 
 pealed by the 19th Geo. L, c. 8, as it had in like manner 
 been taken away before, by an ordinance of parliament in 
 the year 1648, which directed that the Council might not be 
 dissolved by the authority of the Mayor, but should continue 
 its sitting so long as the majority might think fit. 
 
 Taking all these circumstances into consideration, there¬ 
 fore, I have little doubt that the Court of Common Counci 
 is strictly correct in claiming the right to originate such 
 
38 COXSTITDENT PARIS OF IHE COEPORATIOX. 
 
 measures of le^lation or regulation as they shall deem the 
 Coqjoiation or the municipal institutions to require. 
 
 The powers of the Court of Common Council over the 
 Coqmration flmds and property are unlimited. By a stand¬ 
 ing order of February 11th, 1G?5, no considerable sums of 
 money can be disbursed out of the chamber without its 
 assent; by another order, no bill exceeding £100 in amount 
 can be paid without its previous consent ; by a standing 
 order of December, 1840, the annual statements of the Bridge 
 House estates, and of the receipts and expenditure of the 
 Chamberlain, are required to be presented by a certain day; 
 and the several law officers, and the respective committees 
 are bound to furnish their bills, and have them reported upon, 
 before they can be discharged. The Common Council has 
 also the foil power of ordering the application of the common 
 seal—that is, the disposition of the Corporation landed 
 property. In point of fact, this Court, either by itself, or by 
 its committees, exercises a complete control, or should do so, 
 over the whole of the City revenues and the Corporate 
 property; and if the Court of Aldermen has hitherto—as it 
 no doubt has done—appropriated a considerable sum of 
 money, annually, without the assent of the Court of Com¬ 
 mon Council, it is simply because this Court has not properly 
 discharged its functions, and done its duty to the citizens 
 whom it purports to represent. This brings us back to the 
 point whence we started; namely, the necessity of such a 
 change in the constitution of the Court as shall make it a 
 real representative body, instead of what it is now, a mere 
 shadow and a mockery—a nest of jobbing lawyers and astute 
 surveyors and valuers, who manage to get into their own 
 hands the complete regulation and control of the corporate 
 property and municipal funds and patronage, to the great 
 loss and detriment of the citizens, and to the prejudice of 
 the metropolis at large. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LIVERY COJIPAMES AND THE CITY 
 FRANCHISES. 
 
 It remains to furnish some description of the City Com¬ 
 panies, in order to complete this sketch of the Corporation 
 of London, and of the several rights, powers, and immunities 
 which its respective parts severally and jointly possess. It is, 
 however, more difficult to deal with tins branch of the sub- ■ 
 ject than with any one of those that have gone before, 
 inasmuch as both the origin and powers of the city guilds, are 
 involved in obscurity. 
 
 The learned Camden derives the gUdated mysteries &om a 
 Saxon word coincident with the principle of an associated 
 district in frankpledge. “ The origin of these gilds and 
 fraternities,” says he, “ is said to be from the old Saxon law, 
 by which neighbours entered into an association, and became 
 bound for each other, to bring forth him who committed any 
 crime, or to make satisfaction to the parties injured; for 
 which purpose they raised a sum of money among themselves 
 and put it into a common stock, whereout a pecuniary com¬ 
 pensation was made, according to the quality of the offence 
 committed. Hence came our fraternities and gilds; and 
 they were in use in this kingdom long before any formal 
 licences were granted to them: though at this day they are 
 a company combined together, with orders and laws made 
 by themselves, with their princes’ licence.” 
 
 These fraternities appear to have been both religious and 
 secular. The former, as noticed by Stow, were attached to 
 certain churches, and devoted to the religious services upper- 
 
THE LITEKT COMPANIES 
 
 taming to a cliantry; differing from sucli a foundation only 
 in the associated proprietorship 'which constituted them 
 fraternities. The secular guilds, at first a kind of mutual 
 benefit society, gradually, and -with the progress of the arts 
 and the trading avocations of the citizens, became, many of 
 them, a sort of trades’ union, also; the object being to sur¬ 
 round their own “mystery,” or craft, by certain protections, 
 and to prevent any other than such as belonged to their 
 fraternity from carrying on the trade or business. This, in 
 feet, became the chief object of association, and various trade 
 guilds were formed, which obtained charters of incorporation, 
 at an early period after the conquest, asgildated mysteries, 
 with a perpetuity of succession. 
 
 TJntU the accession of the house of Laneaster, how¬ 
 ever, the charters of the companies contain no words of 
 incorporation, nor any expression which can be considered 
 as conferring on their members any distinctive municipal 
 advantages. They were a portion of the community asso¬ 
 ciated among themselves for peculiar purposes, but still 
 within the general incorporation of the communitas.'^ 
 
 The progress of wealth, population, and the useful arts, 
 produced, in the course of time, that subdivision of the com¬ 
 munity into guilds of particular trades called Companies, 
 which thus became avenues for admission to the general 
 franchise of the municipality, since these fraternities became 
 important bodies in which the whole community was enrolled. 
 Each had its common hall, made bye-laws for the regula¬ 
 tion of its particular trade, and had its common property; 
 while the rights of the individuals composing them, as 
 members of the general community, remained the same. 
 
 This is a veryimportant fact, and has an Important be!xring, 
 moreover, upon the reform of the Corporation of London. 
 Although the giants of incorporation to the companies give 
 them perpetual succession, and a distinet legal and political 
 existence, enabling them, as amongst themselves, to manage 
 and direct their o'wn affairs, yet, according to the custom of 
 the City, none of them possessed any proper internal power, 
 except ■with the assent, or under the supervision of the general 
 
 • 2 Kep. Municip. Corp., p. 25. 
 
AND THE CITY FEANCHISES. 
 
 41 
 
 civic legislature.* And although the civic control over them 
 has been greatly diminished by the carelessness and laxity 
 of the municipal authorities, the customs and privileges 
 of the City of London being declared to remain in force, 
 ‘usedoriisiisei, (7th Rich. II.) the powers of the corpora¬ 
 tion over the trading companies can by no means be con¬ 
 sidered as obsolete. 
 
 These chartered companies, eighty-two in number, I believe, 
 hold charity funds, and trust estates for general purposes, to 
 the annual amount of ^85,000, even upon their own reluc¬ 
 tant and suspicious showing; but they claim as private 
 property all the funds in their hands, not entrusted to them 
 for specific objects, whether arising from the surplus revenue 
 of charity estates, or otherwise. And when to this is added 
 what has been previously stated, that they long claimed and 
 exercised the power of requiring all persons in their respective 
 trades, residing within certain limits, to become members of 
 their several Companies, which could be done only upon 
 the paj'inent of certain fees, in many cases considerable in 
 amount, and that the most wealthy Companies make their 
 freedom dependent upon tlie payment of excessive fees (as 
 £116, in the Merchant Tailor’s Company), it will be appa¬ 
 rent that no reform of the corporation will suffice, unless it 
 includes these guilded companies. 
 
 This will appear still further when it is seen what gross 
 abuses, both administrative and pecuniary, have crept into 
 most of the city companies. In nearly all their old charters of 
 incorporation, the regulations laid down for their government 
 were on the most popular basis. The charter generally 
 named a day on which the whole fraternity was to assemble, 
 and elect for themselves officers for the en,suing year, as 
 well as make such other ordinances among themselves as 
 should seem most necessary and fit for the better government 
 of the fraternity. All such popular election and manage¬ 
 ment has long since ceased to exist. The great body of the 
 livery have been deprived of their rights, and a self-elected and 
 self-perpetuating body, known as the masters and wardens, 
 who claim the entire property of the fraternity, to be abso¬ 
 lutely disposed of, at their own free will and pleasure, is 
 now the ruling power. 
 
 *2 Kep. M. C., p. 13. 
 
42 
 
 LIVERY COMPANIES 
 
 3Ir. Franks, in a letter addressed to ^ord Althorpe, on the 
 Merchant Tailors’ Company, published 1833, has given this 
 as the answer returned, by the Clerk of that Company, to the 
 court of King’s Bench, to an application for an account of 
 its annual receipts and expenditure. “ The right to 'call 
 for such information is denied, as the entire property be¬ 
 longs to the Master and Wardens only, and not to the 
 natemity—is curs absolutely to be disposed of at our 
 own &ee wills and pleasure.” Setting up a claim of this 
 kind, we can scarcely be surprised to find them dealing 
 with the property they hold in a free and reckless manner. 
 Mr. Franks has shewn that the ordinary expenditure of tlie 
 Merchant Thors’ Company was, during the years 1826 to 
 1839, at the average rate of about £19,000 a-year, although 
 their legitimate disbursements were no more than £1,200, 
 and their charitable disbursements no more than £5,000. 
 As a sample of expenditure, the following extract from the 
 minutes of the Court, July 28th, 1814, at a meeting of the 
 Master, M’ardens, and Assistants, is given:— 
 
 ‘■Resolved, That thanhs be given to Hr. J. C. Hanbary, for his dis- 
 tingiushed abnitv as Master, on the occasion when the Foreign Kings dined 
 at the Hall, on the ISthJune.” 
 
 “Resolved, That i piece of PiiiE be peesexied to Mr. J. C. Hanbury 
 on the occasion, valne One Hnndred Guineas.” 
 
 “ Resolved, That the thanks of the Court be given to Messrs. A. J, Nash, 
 Coles Child, G. A. Nash, and W. Costeker, the Wardens.” 
 
 “ Resolved, That a piece of Plate be peesexied to each of those 
 
 “Resolved, That the thanks of the Court be given to the Clerk, Mr. 
 Teasdale, Asn a piece of Plate be givex' to him foe nis seevices on the 
 
 The mode in which the Masters and Wardens obtain the 
 moneys they expend in this and other extravagant ways, is 
 this: They are the trustees of various charitable bequests, 
 out of which, by strictly adhering to the letter of the donors, 
 they manage to get a large surplus. Thus, in the year 
 1615, Sir M'illiam Craven granted several messuages and 
 tenements in Lombard Street, in trust to the Merchant 
 Tailors’ Company, to pay annually £150, in specified sums, 
 to decayed freemen and others, allowing the sum of £6 to 
 the Master and Wardens, the Clerk, the Beadle, the Clerk 
 of the Bachelors, and t ee Beadle of the Bachelors of the 
 
and the city franchises. 
 
 Company—thus clearly showing that his wjill was that all 
 excepting that sum should be disbursed as he had pre¬ 
 scribed. But what does the Company, or rather the Court 
 of the Company do ? Why, they most conscientiously pay 
 the several sums specified to the poor freemen and others, 
 making in the whole £130 ; but inasmuch as the property 
 now produces between £600 and £700 a-year, they as con¬ 
 scientiously appropriate the surplus to tliemselves, and claim 
 and exercise the absolute right of expending it as they 
 please. It is in this way that the Merchant Tailors and 
 most of the other guilded companies obtain those large sums 
 of money which the Courts of those Companies expend 
 upon eatmg and drinking, in making excursions, and in 
 voting to each other pieces of plate. 
 
 It is scarcely to be wondered at, under these cireum- 
 stanees, that many of the Courts of the Companies should 
 become snug family nests. Just look at the family list 
 whieh the Mercers’ Company possessed about ten years 
 since; and, I presume, that it is scarcely dllFerent now :— 
 
 Palmer, Francis, 
 
 Palmer, Ai-chdale, 
 
 Palmer, Rev. W. J., 
 
 Palmer, George, Senr., 
 
 Palmer, George, Jun., 
 
 Palmer, Sir Ralph, 
 
 Delai'osse, J. K„ Partner of 
 
 WUsoa, L. P., Partner of 
 G. Palmer, 
 
 Sutton, George F. P., 
 
 Sutton, Robert, Senr., 
 
 Sutton, Robert, Jun., 
 
 Sutton, James, 
 
 Sutton, Rev. John. 
 
 Totton, S. D., 
 
 Totton, Rev. W., 
 
 Totton, Rev. W. C., 
 
 Watney, Daniel, Senr., 
 
 Watiiey, Daniel, Jun., 
 
 Watney, J. P., 
 
 Watney, Thomas, 
 
 Watney, John, 
 
 • Clerk to the Company. 
 
 Lane, W. H., Surve; 
 Company, 
 
 Parker, Jos. Senr., 
 Parker, Jos. Jim., 
 Parker, Rev. Samuel, 
 
44 
 
 THE LIVERY COMPANIES 
 
 Originally, the trading companies were placed under the 
 visitation and control of the Lord Mayor and Court of 
 Aldermen, who possessed a power to hear and determine 
 all compLiints that might be made by any member of the 
 Guilds or fraternities, and to compel the Masters and 
 Wardens, even by imprisonment of their persons, if neces¬ 
 sary, to do justice and comply with their decisions. This 
 power was most careMy preserved to tlie Mayor and 
 Aldermen, by all the Chatters granted to the Companies, 
 and was not unfrequently exercised but the select bodies, 
 who wished to manage the affairs of their respective Com¬ 
 panies, in a quiet and snug manner, adopted a most effectual 
 measure for nullifying this controling power—They resolved 
 that whenever one of their Lively should be elected aii 
 Alderman, he should at once, and, as is understood, without 
 payment of the usual fees, be placed on the Court. He thus 
 obtained an immediate interest in winking at their conduct, 
 by partaking of all the patronage and privileges they held. 
 
 But the principal thing to be here noticed is the Livery of 
 the city companies, inasmuch as it is that body which 
 exercises certain powers, as a part of the corporate body, 
 and independent of the citizens at large. Jlost of the com¬ 
 panies consist of two classes of freemen ; originally, as it 
 would seem, the Jlasters, who were entitled to wear the 
 livery or clothing of the company, and the Yeomanry at 
 large, mostly consisting of the workmen. The power of 
 calling to the Livery rests in the Court, or ruling body,tvhich 
 is self-constituted, and claims and exercises an absolute 
 power in the administration and management of all the funds 
 and property of the Company. 
 
 These Liverymen, as we have seen, originally claimed the 
 sole right of forming the council of the Ma 3 -or, and subse¬ 
 quently of the representative council; as, also, the exclusive 
 right of exercising the municipal franchise; and although 
 
 • According to the custom which prevailed in the city, in relation to 
 these minor commonalties, they possessed no proper internal power of 
 coercive leaslatioD, eacept with the assent and under the supervision of the 
 general civic legislatnre; (lies. C. Eep., p. 13) and the appointments or 
 eonSrmatioas in their ofices, by the Mayor and Aldermen, of ‘guardians,’ 
 
 ‘ rulers,’ ‘ surveyors,’ &c., as they were variously designated, in the reigns of 
 Edward I, II, in, show that the control of the city was not intermitted. 
 (Ibid.) 
 
AND THE CITY FRANCHISES. 45 
 
 tlie citizens, or freemen householders, at length succeeded 
 in wresting from them the greater portion of these exclusive 
 privileges, they managed to retain the right of nominating 
 the Lord Mayor, and of electing the Sheriffs, Chamberlain, 
 and Bridge-Master; as also the Auditors of the City and of 
 the Bridge-house Accounts, and the four Ale-conners. Pre¬ 
 viously to the passing of the Reform Act, they also exercised 
 the sole right of choosing the Members of Parliament for the 
 City, and are still entitled to vote at such elections, provided 
 they reside within seven miles, have not been admitted to 
 the freedom since the 1st of March, 1831, otherwise than in 
 respect of birth or servitude, and are duly registered 
 aecording to the provisions of the Act. 
 
 The Commissioners thus advert to these exclusive privi¬ 
 leges of the Livery: “ One governing body, the Common 
 Hall, consists exclusively of freemen who arc Liverymen. 
 Supposing that any usefiil purpose is answered by such an 
 assembly, we know of no cheumstanoe justifying this re¬ 
 striction to the Livery; in the first place, no reason has 
 occurred to us for withholding such a right from the general 
 body of freemen; and, secondly, if a selection must be 
 made, we think that a more capricious and unreasonable 
 method of restriction could scarcely have been devised. 
 There are, perhaps, hardly any two Companies in wliich the 
 same circumstances are supposed to create a claim to an 
 admission to the Livery, or an obligation to take it up (for 
 in some Companies it is considered a privilege, and in others 
 a burthen); and in no one does it appear to us that the 
 selection rests upon any principle which can be shown to 
 be apjilicablc with advantage to the distinction between 
 different classes of municipal rights. There is at present a 
 manifest absurdity in attaching political and municipal 
 prhileges to the nominees of Corporations which claim to 
 be private, independent of the city, and irresponsible.”* 
 
 Nothing, indeed, can well be more anomalous or unreason¬ 
 able than the exercise of these powers by the body of the 
 Livery,who, though a large proportion of them, non-residents, 
 pajung no scot, and bearing no lot, nevertheless elect the 
 Chamberlain,who is the treasurer and paymaster of the City; 
 
 Second Report, p. S. 
 
46 
 
 THE EIVEEY COMPANIES, ETC. 
 
 the Auditors of the City Accounts; and the Bridge-masters, 
 or two Wardens of London Bridge, and Cash-accountants of 
 the Bridge-house estates! Strange, that those who con¬ 
 tribute nothing to the fimds, should have the exclusive 
 power of nominating those who have the custody and 
 auditing of them! 
 
47 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 VAEIATIONS IN THE CITY EEANCHISBS. 
 
 Let me now just bring into one view what has been said 
 as to the electoral rights and franchises of the citizens of 
 London, and give a reference to such authorities as have 
 been quoted, or may be cited, in proof of the usurpa¬ 
 tions and encroachments that .have been made on popular 
 rights in modern times 
 
 A.D. 1100.—The first charter of Henry I. The citizens to 
 choose as sheriffs whom they will. 
 
 A.D. 1216.—Tlie fifth charter of John. Tlie harms* of the 
 City of London to choose to themselves a Mayor. 
 
 A.D. 1253.—The sixth charter of Henry III. recognises the 
 right of the citizens to choose the Mayor. 
 
 A.D. 1316—Complaint having been made of the mode of 
 summoning citizens to attend elections and public assem¬ 
 blies, Edward II. granted a constitution for the better 
 government of the City, in the first article of which it 
 is enacted, that “the Mayor and Sheriffs of the same 
 City be elected by the citizens of the said Citywhich is, 
 in a subsequent article defined to be those “who be in scott 
 and lot,” and had been admitted to the freedom. 
 
 A.D. 1347,21 Edw. III.—At a meeting of the Mayor, Aider- 
 men, and an Immense commonalty, certain wardsmen were 
 elected to come to Guildhall, when they should be warned, 
 for the business of the City. This seems to have been the 
 origin of the Common Council.—(Lib. F. 136.) 
 
 * Baboses, Mat. Paris, sub akko. 1253, sajs, That the Citizens’, or men 
 of London, in respect of the dignity of the city and ancient Uberties of the, 
 citizens, were wont to he called Baboks.” 
 
48 VAKIATIOXS IN THE CITY FRANCHISES. 
 
 A.D. 135], 25 Edw. III.—The Mayor, apparently ivithont 
 any authority, departed from the ancient customs, by send¬ 
 ing a precept to certain Companies, requiring them to as¬ 
 semble their good people, and cquse four to he chosen, to 
 consult Tvith the Aldermen and the Sheriffs, on the bu¬ 
 siness of the City.—(Lib. F. 206.) 
 
 A.D. 1365, 39 Edir. III.—^At a meeting of an immense 
 Commonalty, assembled in the Great Hall, the Mayor 
 was elected, and general ordinances iTerc made.—(Lib. 
 ag. G. 173, B. 39.) 
 
 The trading companies again got the ascendency, for 
 in the year 
 
 1367, 41 Edrv. III., it ivas resolved by the Common Coun¬ 
 cil, that the great mysteries should choose sis, the lesser 
 four, and the least two persons, .ind return their names to 
 the Slayor, who were to remain in the office of Common 
 Council* for the year.—(Lib. F. 206, H. 46-) 
 
 The ffeemen again triumphed, for in 
 
 1384, 7 Bich. IL, it was enacted that the inhabitants of the 
 wards should be summoned to the elections, instead of 
 the mysteries, or trading companies.—(Lib. H. 173,197.) 
 
 It was not till 
 
 A.D. 1467,7 Edw. IV., that mention was made of livery¬ 
 men. At a Common Council then held, it was agreed 
 by the Mayor and Aldermen [without the assent of the 
 Commonalty], that the Masters and IVardens of every 
 mystery of the city should come in their liveries, and 
 other honest men, for that purpose specially summoned. 
 -(Lib. L. 53.) 
 
 A.D. 1651.—An Act of Common Council, passed Nov. 4tli, 
 set out, that by the ancient charters, &c., the election of 
 Mayor, Sheriffs, and other officers of the said city, ought 
 to he by the citizens, or commonalty thereof.—(No. 41, 
 Fo. 6-5-6.) 
 
 A.D. 1692.—The right of election again declared to he in 
 the freemen householders, paying scot and hearing lot. 
 
 AD. 1711.—A similar act of Common Council passed. 
 
 1725.—The Act of Parliament, 11 Geo. L, c. 18, confirmed 
 the freemen householders in the possession of their 
 franchise. 
 
VAKIATIONS 
 
 THE CITY FRANCHISES. 49 
 
 Thus, it is 'be3'oncl all doubt, that the franchise of the 
 City of London, for the election of all the corporate 
 officers, from the Mayor downwards, and even for the 
 Sheriffs, was originally in the freemen—that is, citizen- 
 householders ; and that the rights and franchises claimed 
 and exercised by the Livery are usurpations upon that 
 common right, against which the Commonalty perseveringly 
 struggled through a long period of time, often being suc¬ 
 cessful, and often being defeated by the ruling bodies, who 
 ultimately succeeded in securing for the Livery that portion 
 of their usurped powers which they still exercise, to the 
 manifest wrong and injury of the Freemen at large. "' 
 
 * “ In the reign of Richard the II., (a.d 1380) the Common Council in its 
 in-esent form, by a delegation from the wards, was established by an ‘ Act of 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HEVENTjES of the COEFOEATIOJf. 
 
 I >vw approach TVhat I do not doubt will be deemed by' 
 the majority of readers by far the most interesting, as -well as 
 important, part of the subject—namely, the monetary affairs 
 of the City of London; the income and expenditure of the 
 Corporation. That this income is large, and the expenditure 
 excessive, I shall have no difficulty in proving. The great 
 difficulty is to select &om so wide a subject some of the most 
 important or striking items, without making a false impres¬ 
 sion as to the whole; and to give such a condensed view of 
 the entire matter as to afford some adequate idea of both the 
 monetary power and the monetary delinquencies of the 
 Corporate body. 
 
 The income of the Corporation Is derived from various 
 sources; as, local rates; street, market, and river tolls and 
 dua; ffeedom and other fines; and rents, quit-rents, and 
 fines payable for renewal of leases of landed and other pro¬ 
 perty, acquired from time to time, by grant or purchase. It 
 has been already stated, that the ancient free gilds were so 
 called because they had a common contribution from all the 
 members, for mutual protection and comfort; and, in like 
 manner, it is stated* to be an ancient usage and custom of 
 the Cify of London, for aU inhabitants within the City and 
 liberries, as well freemen as non-freemen, and as well 
 strangers horn as English, to be subject and contributing to 
 the common charge for repairing the ways, highways, &C. 
 In conformity with this custom, and in confirmation of it, it 
 was provided, by the articles agreed to by the Corporation 
 * Bep. Conmiitfeeof Com. Council, 16th June, 1810. 
 
REVENUES OF THE CORPORATION, 
 
 51 
 
 of London in the conference TOth the Crown, in the reign of 
 Edward the Second, that all persons helng in the liberty of 
 the City, and enjoying its liberties and free customs, and all 
 non-resident freemen carrying on trade within the City, 
 should be in soot and lot, and share or partake in all burthens 
 for maintaining the Corporation, on pain of disfranchisement. 
 
 Let us now see what the funds dealt with by the Corpora¬ 
 tion amount to. I take the year 1845, omitting the 
 fractions:— 
 
 Rents and quit-rents, and renewing fines 
 
 Markets, tolls, and duties. 
 
 Bequests ..._. 
 
 Brokers’rents and fines . 
 
 Admissions to freedom of City . 
 
 Interest on Govenuuent securities . 
 
 Casual, sundry, and incidental receipts ,. 
 
 Sale of premises and securities . 
 
 Rents and other income due . 
 
 Navigation fund. 
 
 Sewer rate fund.-. 
 
 Consolidated rate . 
 
 Bridge House estates . 
 
 Irish estates ,, 
 
 Charity estates . 
 
 . E01,586 
 95,678 
 
 27,701 
 
 32,322 
 
 16,909 
 
 21,389 
 
 53,997 
 
 37,833 
 
 9,000 
 
 3,500 
 
 Add to tliis the following;— 
 
 Chartered companies’ funds Sc trust estates 485,685 
 
 Parooliialchai’itiesintheCity. 38,703 
 
 Produce of the Irish estates . 8,000 
 
 Poor’s rate of the unions and parishes.... 90,000 
 City royal hospitals . 128,703 
 
 4756,147 
 
 Hence it appears that the income of the Corporation itself 
 amounts to the large sum of ^405,820; and if to this be 
 added the funds of the chartered companies, of the city 
 royal hospitals, and of the parochial charities, and the poor’s- 
 lates, it will be seen that the funds raised and expended in 
 the City of London, for the civil government, magistracy, 
 police, and prisons, the support of the poor and the sick, and 
 the education of the poor and other children, amount to 
 more than THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION sterling 
 
EEVENVES OP THE CORPORATION. 
 
 It may be thought that it is not tight to mix up with the 
 Corporanon-fonds such as are not under its immediate 
 control. I feel that there is some force in the objection, and 
 hence I have kept the two classes separate. At the same 
 time, I cannot help thinking with Jlr. Hickson'" that a sound 
 measure of municipal reform would give to the City and the 
 metropolis at large the means of economising every branch 
 of local expenditure; and that, if this be not a power which 
 at present belongs to the Corporation of London, it is time 
 to consider what power it does possess t for wiiat good object 
 (if any) it exists; whether, should its utility be proved, its 
 usefulness cannot be increased; or, if this be impracticable, 
 whether the Corporation might not be dispensed witli 
 altogether, and be replaced by institutions less expensive, 
 perhaps, yet more comprehensive in their functions, and 
 better deserving the confidence of the public. 
 
 I have no means of knowing in what manner the great 
 bulk of the trust estates of the Corporation of London is 
 managed at the present time; but there is no room to doubt 
 as to the gross mis-management of the City estates at no 
 remote period. It was stated by Mr. Williams, the present 
 member for Coventry, in his evidence before the Commission 
 of Inquiry, in 18.34, that the City estates consisted of upwards 
 of 0,000 tenements; that of these were 600 in Maddox- 
 street, Hanover-square, and that neigbourhood, the rent of 
 which was not much above £3,000 a year, averaging less 
 than £6 each. They were let on leases renewable for ever, 
 at periods of fourteen years, on the payment of renewal fines, 
 not exceeding seven years’ rent; and some of them were 
 .again let at £300, or £400 a year! To the lettings in the 
 City the same remark, he said, would apply. They were all 
 much below their real v<alue. And in a letter addressed by 
 the same gentleman to the editor of the Morning Chronicle, 
 .Tan. iOth, 18-34, he says, speaking of himself, as one of the 
 City auditors, ‘’'In order to avoid reading all the leases, 
 which could not be done before Midsummer-day, when the 
 auditors were obliged to make their report, they ende.a- 
 voured to obtain tijis information &om the City officers in 
 attendance npon them. They were told that the number 
 
CORPORATION. 
 
 ,53 
 
 ■was about 7,000. They asked if they •were sure there were 
 6,000? Their answer was, undoubtedly.” By the same 
 process of inquiry, the auditors aseertained the number of 
 tlie houses situated within the City to be about 2,000, 
 which were let for £33, 365 4s. 5d., averaging less than £17 
 each per annum, although many of them, in the principal 
 streets, arc re-let at from £100 to £250 a year. 
 
 There is no doubt, too, that the Corporation has, by its 
 mismanagement, lost that control over some particular funds 
 which it once possessed. Thus it is with the five royal 
 liospifals—St. Bartholomew’s, St. Thomas’s, Bethlem, Bride¬ 
 well, and Christ’s,—the order, rule, disposition, and govern^ 
 anco of which were originally vested in the Mayor, Aider- 
 men, and Commonalty of the City of London, “for the only 
 relief of the poor, sick, and needy persons, so that for ^ the 
 future a greater number of poor, needy, sick, and Indigent 
 persons might be refreshed, maintained, comforted, found, 
 healed, and cured of their infirmities frankly and freely, by 
 physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries, with stipend, salary, 
 and wages, only to attend for that intent and purpose; so 
 that all impotent persons not able to labour should be re¬ 
 lieved by such hospitals and abbey; and that all sturdy 
 beggars not willing to labour should be punished; so that, 
 with God’s grace, few or no persons should be seen abroad 
 to bog or seek alms.” 
 
 Hence it appears, tliat the original design of these mag¬ 
 nificent institutions was to form a complete provision for 
 the poor of the City of London, over whom, as well as over 
 these institutions, the Corporation had complete power given 
 to it by charters of Henry the Eight and Edward the Sixth, 
 which were confirmed with all the other City charters by 
 Act of Parliament, and ought not to have been departed 
 from. The practice of selling its various offices of trust .and 
 emolument, however. Included the royal hospitals, governor¬ 
 ships in which became obtainable upon payment of a stipu¬ 
 lated sum. Thus, a governorship of Christ’s Hospital has 
 been made purchaseable for £400; and in 1836, the number 
 of governors being 406, no fewer than 313 had attained to 
 this position by purchase. In pursuance of an agreement 
 made in 1783, and confirmed by 22 Geo. III., c. 77, and an 
 
54 
 
 REVENUES OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 act of Common Council, in February, 1783, the present 
 Rovemors of these hospitals consist of the Lord Mayor and 
 Aldermen, twelve members of the Court of Common 
 Council to each hospital, and certain life governors, either 
 nominated by the Aldermen (each of whom, upon his elec¬ 
 tion, may name a governor, who is expeeted to give a bene¬ 
 faction of £200), or chosen on account of a donation of 
 £400 to Christ’s Hospital, or of £50 to cither of the others. 
 The Corporation, therefore, still retains a real power over 
 the royal hospitals, though considerably less than it ought 
 to have had; and there is no doubt that it might be exerted 
 much more beneficially than it now is, were the fittest men 
 selected as its depositaries. 
 
 1 have not space to notice particularly the several sources 
 of income of the corporate body, or it might easily be shown 
 tliat many of them are of a most obnoxious description. 
 T’uus, the net revenue derived from the exactions on stalls, 
 standings, &c., in the five martets, is nearly £11,000 a- 
 year; the tolls levied on non-freemen’s carts entering tlie 
 city are probably not less than from £8,000 to £9,000 a-year: 
 and the duties levied on coals, com, wines, oils, &c., ex¬ 
 ceed £185,000. Tliere is no doubt, that if the other and 
 ordinary sourees of revenue possessed by the Corporation 
 were as sedulously enforced and as economically employed 
 as they ought to be, these obnoxious exactions might be 
 altogether dispensed with; as also a large proportion of the 
 rates levied for the relief of the poor, the construction of 
 sewers, and the paving, lighting, and cleansing of tlie 
 
 The police, poor, sewerage,paving, lighting, and eleansing 
 of the City of London cost the eitizens an annual expenditure 
 of about £180,000, the civil government of the City, neatly 
 £-30,000 a-year, and the pensions granted to Aldermen’s 
 rehitions and other favoured persons, upwards of £7,000. 
 llTiat advantage, it may be fairly asked, do the citizens de¬ 
 rive from the administration of a Corporation! I must re¬ 
 serve for the present, however, what is to be said about the 
 eipcivliture of,the city funds. My object here is merely to 
 indicate their amount—a matter upon wliich I have reason 
 to think that even many citizens are but very imperfectly 
 
REVENUES OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 informed; and also to direct attention to the objectionable 
 sources from -whicli some portions of them are derived. Let 
 me conclude this part of my subject with a quotation from 
 the writer to whom I have more than once referred. 
 
CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 EXPESDITUEE OE THE COBPOEATION. 
 
 I HAVE already stated, in aggregate and in detail, tlic 
 revenues of the Corporation. I must not here do more than 
 just recal them to the recollection of my readers, and sug¬ 
 gest the mighty capital which those revenues represent. 
 
 The funds annually passing through the hands of the 
 Corporation itself, then—independent of companies, hospitals, 
 and local trusts and taxes—amount to the enormous sum of 
 nearly £40.5,000. These are the revenues of the Corporation 
 proper, and about which there can be no dispute. They 
 appear upon the face of the Corporation accounts, published 
 from year to year. 'UTiat amount of capital does such an 
 income represent? HTiy, if supposed to be invested at 
 three per cent., it represents a capital of more than thip.tee.v 
 uiiLio.Ns Axn A HALF Sterling! Now, must it not strike 
 everybody to whom this fact is made known, that a Corpo¬ 
 ration with such a sum to dispose of, must be constituted of 
 extremely blundering, or of extremely profligate men, if the 
 inhabitants of their City are more heavily taxed than those 
 of any other city or town of corresponding extent and popu¬ 
 lation throughout the united kingdom r There can be no 
 doubt that such would be the conclusion arrived at. And 
 that is the case with the Corporation of the City of Lon¬ 
 don! That there is sad mismanagement, there can be no 
 doubt I have already given a specimen in reference to the 
 City estates. Other specimens might be given, although of 
 noi, perhaps, so glaring a nature as those, notwithstanding 
 the difliculty there must obviously be in discovering cases of 
 the kind. It is not so difficult, however, to detect or 
 
EXPENDITORE OF. THE CORPORATION. 57 
 
 discover tlie useless, improper, and profligate expenditure of 
 the Corporation funds; and to this subject T purpose now to 
 confine myself. 
 
 The first thing that forces itself upon one’s attention, in 
 examining the expenditure of the Corporation, is that portion 
 of it which goes for the maintenance of its head and repre¬ 
 sentative—the Lord Mayor. There are many persons, I 
 believe, who are under a great delusion upon tliis subject. 
 It may be well to set them right. 
 
 In the “Statement of the Produce and E-xpenditure of the 
 City’s Estate,” there appears, under the head of “Expenses 
 of the Civil Government of the City,” certain items of allow¬ 
 ance to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, which 
 amount (those for his own exclusive appropriation) to the 
 sum of £5,947. And this sum is generally quoted as the 
 cost of the great dignitary who fills the civic chair. This is 
 a serious mistake, however. The cost is much larger; The 
 return made by Sir Peter Laurie of the allowances during his 
 year of office, gives the sura at £7,904, which may be taken 
 as the standard allowance upon an average of years. 
 
 Now, let this sura annually voted to' the Lord Mayor, he 
 compared with the salaries paid to some other great func¬ 
 tionaries, at least equally useful, it may he presumed, if not 
 quite so ornamental, as the Lord Mayor of London. Well, 
 then it is more than six and a half times as much as is paid 
 to cither of the Secretaries of State in the United States 
 Government, and more than half as much again as is paid to 
 thc'President of that Government. Or to confine the com¬ 
 parison to our own extravagant countr3n It is nearly 
 £2,000 a year more than is paid to the Vice-Chancellor; it 
 is equalito what is paid to the Lord Chief Justice; it is 
 £2,904 a year more than is paid to a puisne judge in the 
 courts of Westminster Hall; and the like amount in excess 
 over what is paid to each of the principal Secretaries of State. 
 There are not a few persons who deem the salaries paid to 
 these several official personages as excessive. What must 
 they think of the allowance to the chief magistrates of the 
 City? 
 
 But, in point of fact, the “ allowance” to the Lord Maj’or 
 constitutes a very iiiconsiderahle proportion of his cost, as 
 
58 
 
 EXPEKDITURE OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 may be seen by the following statement, wbieb is taken &om 
 the Beport of the Sub-revenue Committee of 1836, since 
 which time no alterations have taken place in the respective 
 items, which are severally given in the report, although 1 am 
 obliged to give them in the aggregate 
 
 Salmesand aUo^ces . £ 7,90-l 
 
 Salaries, &c. to officers connected with mayoralty 5,996 
 £ 2 ^ 0 ^ 
 
 To some of these charges, Jlr. Pearson takes exception, as 
 improperly attached to the Mayoralfy* but I believe that no 
 person will be disposed, after a careftd and dispassionate 
 examination of his reasons, and even going so far as to take 
 his opinion and authority against that of Jlr. Montague, 
 clerk of the City-works, who furnished the estimate of the 
 value of the ground and building expenditure in relation to 
 the Mansion-house, to make a larger deduction ftom this 
 sum than i£3,197; which will leave the expenses of the 
 Mayoralty at £21,8.37. It is, indeed, a most exorbitant 
 expenditure. And it is as unnecessary as it is exorbitant. 
 It is, for the most part, for mere ostentation; and that of 
 the most vulgar description. The extravagance has long 
 been laughed at, as well as tolerated, simply because those 
 who paid for it were not aware that they were doing so. I 
 recollect the time—it is not many years since (April 15 th, 
 18.34) when Mr. Charles Pearson thus spoke of this costly 
 civic finery, and of the necessity there was that it shoul^be 
 shorn of its splendour:—^"The time has arrived when the 
 civic exhibitions, with the Mayor as chief performer, can no 
 longer be tolerated. I have, in disguise, mixed with the 
 attendant crowd on a Lord Mayor’s day, and I declare that 
 the whole parade is the subject of the most contemptuous 
 sneering, even amongst cMdren; and the apprentices, 
 instead of being moved, as in the days of Whittington, with 
 the spirit of competition and glory, at seeing the gilt coach, 
 laugh aloud, as it trundles along. This scorn and contempt 
 are the result of the attempt to call back people to the recol¬ 
 lections of their childhood. This is no time for puerihties. 
 Pantomime has been driven even &om its proper sphere, and 
 * Address,?. 164. 
 
EXPENDITURE OF THE CORPORATION. 59 
 
 surely the pantomime and clownish displays of civic bar¬ 
 barisms can no longer be cherished.” I will not weaken the 
 force of this, by anything of my own. Everybody, but those 
 who thrive upon it, feels that the days of barbaric pageantry 
 have passed away for ever j and that it is only in a vain and 
 vulgar desire to preserve the love of it amongst the citizens 
 of London, that a large proportion of the sum of nearly 
 £22,000, is expended upon the mayoralty of their City. 
 
 Next to the cost of the Lord Mayor, the chief part of 
 which is for mere vulgar show, stands the cost of the City 
 magistracy- justice, and police, which may be regarded as 
 institutions of real utility, notwithstanding the blemishes 
 by which they are characterised. Take the year 1845, the 
 last for which the returns are made up. The details will be 
 found in the “Statement of the produce and expenditure of 
 the City’s Estate” 
 
 Marshals, Marsholraen, and clothing.£1,435 
 
 Justice-room, Mansion-house. 1,659 
 
 Justice-room, Giuldhall. 1,938 
 
 Disbursements by City Solicitor, &c. 3,457 
 
 Use ot robes for Mayor and other magistrates. 158 
 
 Statutes for Aldermen. 427 
 
 One-fourth part of the expenses of Police force. 9,826 
 
 (The remaining £39,304 is coUected). 39,304 
 
 Extra miscelianeous charges. 1,188 
 
 Expenses ofthe three prisons.• . . . 21,179 
 
 Officers administering justice . - .. 9,424 
 
 Office of Coroner. '981 
 
 Conservancy of Thames and Medway.10,788 
 
 Magistracy of Soutliwai’k, Sc. 731 
 
 Making a total of.£102,495 
 
 This is undoubtedly a very large sum to be swallowed up 
 by the magistracy and police of a population of 125,000; 
 and it will not be very much diminished, if we take from it 
 what we should be required to do, in consideration of the 
 expense incurred in the several prisons, and at the Central 
 Criminal Court, on account of persons who constitute |no 
 part of the population of the City of London, 
 
 The whole of this expenditure, too, is under the sole 
 direction and management of the Court of Aldermen. The 
 Court of Common Council has no voice in the matter. The 
 irresponsible body in the upper chamber do as they like with 
 
EXPEXDITCKE OF THE CORPOEATIOX. 
 
 the City funds; and that there are several very ugly items 
 in their expenditure must strike every one who glances over 
 the accounts. "Wliere can he the necessity, or propriety, for 
 example, of incurring a charge of £158 a year, for the use of 
 rohes for the sitting magistrates ? iso metropolitan magis¬ 
 trate deems it necessary to wear such a badge of office; and 
 why should a City Alderman be unable to dispense justice 
 without being dressed up in such fantastic style: Besides, 
 see how one expense entails another. The magistrate must 
 be dressed with mazarine and fur; and thence follows the 
 necessity of the Inquests being decorated in a similar way; 
 and this entails upon the several wards a considerable item 
 of expense. Really, it is time that all this vain show .and 
 sHly decoration was brought to an end. 
 
 The Aldermen, as I have said, claim and exercise the 
 exclusive right of making the payments connected with 
 magistracy, administration of justice, police, &c. And they 
 do not stop there, but thrust their unauthorized hands into 
 the civic purse for all and every purpose. They exercise 
 the power oigiving amv the City money, without a vote of 
 the representative body; and that they do with a very libeml 
 hand. In the year, 1845, for exfimple, they g£ive away the 
 ,sum of £2,146, of which £1,304, was distributed .amongst 
 their own relations! 
 
 They have, too, another, and even a still more exceptionable 
 mode of giving away the moneys belonging to the citizens. 
 Thus, for example, it is often found that an officer’s salary- 
 being fixed by the Corporation—^no doubt, upon what is 
 believed to be a proper scale—the Court of Aldermen is per¬ 
 petually stepping in, and giving lumps of money to increase 
 such salaries. Take the following by way of example 
 
 “ To s. K. Goodman, pnncipal clerk in the justice-room, Mansion-house, 
 one vears’s salary, £-500. To him more, in hen of freedoms, granted by the 
 Court of Aldermen, for trro years, £300.” 
 
 “ To J. A. Knott, inspector of weights and measures, one year’s salary, 
 £1-50. To him more, a gratuity, in testimony of the approbation of the 
 Court of Aldermen, £52 lOs.” 
 
 “ To John Harwood, ditto, for one year’s salary, £150. To him more, a 
 gratnity in testimony of the approbation of the Court of Aldermen, £52 1 Os.’’ 
 
 This practice is a very bad one. If the salaries ate not 
 adequate to the duties performed, they should be increased; 
 
EXPENDITURE OE THE CORPORATION. G1 
 
 and not be made up by gratuities from the Court of Aldermen. 
 
 I think it admits of no doubt, that the power of the Court 
 of Aldermen over the City cash is by far too large and abso¬ 
 lute. Of the sum of £230,000, exhibited as the receipts of 
 the year 1845, the Court of Aldermen expended £60,000, 
 without the conourreuce or assent of the Court of Common 
 Council—without in any way consulting or conferring with 
 that Court. Such a practice is not tolerated anywhere else. 
 It is the representative and responsible body that votes away 
 the publle money in Parliament; and so important is that 
 power deemed to be, that it is not permitted to the House 
 of Lords to make any, even the slightest, alteration in a 
 money bill, which must always originate in the Commons. 
 The Court of Aldermen, however, exercises a power far 
 beyond all that has ever been thought of for the House of 
 Lords; for it not only deals thus absolutely with the Corpo¬ 
 ration-funds, but its several members, after having disposed 
 of above a fourth of the aggregate revenues, in their own 
 Court, take their places in the Court of Common Council, 
 and there help to vote away the remaining three-fourths.’ 
 This is, unquestionably, one of the things which c.all 
 most imperatively for reform. 
 
 But we must be just. The members of the Court of Com¬ 
 mon Council cannot go free from censure, for their part in 
 the expenditure of the Corporation-funds. I have already 
 glanced at the proofs furnished of their mal-administration of 
 the City estates. Let us now see whether there is not 
 something to be fairly found fault with in their mode of ex¬ 
 pending the moneys which those estates and other sources 
 of revenue bring into their hands. 
 
 It is generally known, I believe, that the managment of 
 the Corporation affafrs is—not by the Court, either of Aider- 
 men or of Common Council, in or by both Courts, as Courts, 
 but by committees formed of the members of each. These 
 committees are fourteen or fifteen in number;* and they have 
 been denominated, by Mr. Charles Pearson, “the eyes and 
 cars” of the Common Council. To have done them justice, 
 they should have been represented as its mouth, also; ex. gr. 
 Appendix xiv. of the Report of the Sub-revenue Committee 
 * See .Appendix. . 
 
62 
 
 EXPESDITCKE OF THE CORPOKATION. 
 
 of 1836, comprises a statement of the alloivances and dis- 
 buisements of the several committees of the Corporation, of 
 the Commission of Sewers, and of the Irish Society, in the 
 year 1833, which is as follows 
 Cm Lasds ComnmE— 
 
 Allowance.£700 0 0 
 
 Summer Esenraon. 150 0 0 
 
 - ESoO 0 0 
 
 BamoE Horsn Estates Cojduttee— 
 
 Allowance. 500 0 0 
 
 Coach hire . 
 Gsesham Co-'orirrET— 
 Coasnssios or Sewebs- 
 AUowance . . 
 
 For tea and coffee 
 Sommer excursion 
 XaVIGATIOX COHSUITEE- 
 Allowance . . 
 
 SnmmereTCniaon 
 Coach hire, &c. . 
 
 C64 13 0 
 100 0 0 
 
 Coal axd Cobs Committee— 
 
 Gesebal Pcbposes ConmTTEE— 
 Allowance .... 
 Smnmer escursion 
 
 Lo-sdos Bbidge CoininiEE— 
 Disbnisements 
 
 OmcEBs ASD Glebes CoamnEE 
 SECosDABns Com uriEE 
 COBS-StETEBS COJCnTIEE 
 
 Uembers for attendance . . . . 411 2 G 
 
 Tavern espenses. 460 19 1 
 
 Erpensesofdepntations to Ireland . . 352 I 3 
 
 - 1,224 2 10 
 
 Makmg a grand total of £6,584 IGs, ; to which lias 
 to he added, £468 17s., expended by the Nightly Watch 
 Committee, tlie City of London School Committee, and the 
 Blackfriars Bridge Committee, and which makes an aggregate 
 sum expended by the committees, for the year 1833, of no 
 less a sum than £7,05313s. 
 
 I am aware that the exposure made by the Sub-revenue 
 
EXPENDITURE OF THE CORPORATION. 63 
 
 Committee, from -wliieh this statement is taken, and the indig¬ 
 nation Tvliich the profligate expenditure of the Corporation 
 revenues, as made knotvn by them, excited throughout the 
 City, led to a revision of the charges for eating and drinking, 
 and making exeursions, hy the several committees; and that 
 Mr. Charles Pearson has given the entire sum thus expended^ 
 for the year 1841, at £2,625. There is a return, however, 
 which shows the expenditure of these committees, for the 
 three years ending 1842, at upwards of £12,000. 
 
 A glance at the management of the Irish Society will tend 
 to throw a little light upon the mode in wliieh some of these 
 committees not only expend the moneys that pass into their 
 hands, but administer the estates also. 
 
 This body, or committee, has the superintendence and 
 management in chief of vast possessions in the counties of 
 Derry and Coleraine, originally granted to the City of London 
 by King James 1st., in consideration of the sum of £40,000, 
 and settling those parts, under certain regulations, witli 
 English and Scottish Protestants. 
 
 These counties, with the exception of the City of Lon¬ 
 donderry and the town of Coleraine, and certain fisheries, 
 were afterwards divided into twelve equal portions, .and 
 granted to the twelve Worshipful Trading Comp.anies, on 
 payment of the sum of £3,333 6s. 8(f. each, being one- 
 twelfth of the sum of £40,000. The Charter confers on the 
 Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council the right of 
 nominating twenty-six citizens, of whom six must be Aider- 
 men, to form this body called the Irish Society. 
 
 Let us now see how it manages to discharge its trusts.— 
 Mr. Hickson has given the expenditure of the society for 
 tlie year 1848, of which the following is a summary;— 
 
 Law Expenses 
 
 Salaries. 
 
 Pensions . 
 
 Members for attendances . 
 Incidental expenses 
 
 Charities 
 
 Public Improvements 
 Interest on Loans . 
 
 £5,803 16 6 
 1,231 13 i 
 495 0 0 
 527 12 0 
 
 1,312 3 4i 
 
 
 420 12 2 
 
 £12,0% 19 li 
 
64 EXPESmiDRE OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 And what may it he supposed were the receipts ? They 
 amounted to £7,982 4s. Agd.; so that there was an actual 
 loss, on the year, of £4,714 14s. M. 
 
 This account,” says Mr. Hickson,'- “ reminds us of the 
 custom amount Eastern princes, when they wish to ruin a 
 subject, of making him a present of an elephant, which must 
 he kept in honour of the giver, and which presently eats the 
 poor man out of his house and home. The Irish Estates 
 are becoming an elephant, in this sense, to the Corporation 
 of London.” 
 
 But Mr. Charles Pearson protests against the fairness of 
 advancing this account against the Irish Society. The ex¬ 
 penditure in law, for that year, amounting to nearly £6,000, 
 is said to have been an extraordinary expenditure, arising 
 out of certain unhappy disputes between the Corporation 
 and certain of the Trading Companies, which had ended in 
 suits in Chancery, “long arrays of bills, answers and de¬ 
 murrers; supplemental, amended, and revised bills and 
 answers; motions for receivers; brigades of solicitors, and 
 arrays of gentlemen of the long robe, comprehending every 
 attorney and solicitor-general, both in the present and former 
 administrations, now in practice, together with a long list of 
 seniors and juniors.” But it must be remembered, that 
 heavy law charges were not confined to the years 1842-3. 
 For the year 1841-2, they were £893; and during the 
 eight years, fi^m 1824 to 1832, they amounted to £8,039. 
 
 Besides this, it should be borne in mind, that had the 
 Corporation been attentive to its duties, such disputes as 
 these could hardly have arisen. The fieemen and liverymen 
 of the Trading Companies ate the constituent body of the 
 Corporation of London, which, in turn, is the constituent 
 body of the Irish Society; and both the Companies and the 
 Irish Society are, or were, and should be, under the control 
 of the Corporation itself. 
 
 But now that these formidable and absorbing Chancery 
 suits are terminated, what evidence does the Irish Society 
 give of an improved course of proceeding, and a better ad¬ 
 ministration of its trusts? Let us see. Turning to the , 
 
 West. Rev. toL xxsdx, p. 546. 
 
EXPENDITURE OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 65 
 
 “General Statement of the Receipt and Expenditure” of the 
 society, for the year 1845,1 find the result to he this 
 
 Law and Parliamentary expenses.£1,781 
 
 Salaries and Pensions.2,273 
 
 Interest on Loans.440 
 
 Incidental expenses, rents, schools, Ssc.4,000 
 
 AUowance to the members.527 
 
 Making the total cxpenditm'e .... £9,021 
 
 The income was hut £10,274; of which £1,527 was re¬ 
 ceived, through Alderman Wood, from the Skinners’ Com¬ 
 pany, for taxed costs in the appeal to the House of Lords. 
 Deducting that, therefore, the expenditure of the society 
 exceeded the income, during the year 1845, hy the sum of 
 £274. The elephant still shows Itself! 
 
 But let US take a glance at the balance-sheet of the last 
 year (1846), which has just been delivered. Here we get 
 
 Law and Parliamentary expenses . . . £3,048 12 4 
 
 Salaries and Pensions. 2,340 0 0 
 
 Interest on Loans. 367 0 0 
 
 Incidental expenses, rents, &o. 2,639 0 0 
 
 Schools, 8tc.2,581 0 Ot 
 
 Al’owances to members, for attendances, Ssc. . 590 15 0 
 
 Depntations. 400 0 0 
 
 Making a total of.£12,560 0 0 
 
 The income was £8,522; so that the deficiency between 
 the income and the expenditure was, on the last year, no less 
 than £4,044. 
 
 It would appear, therefore, that there was not much cause 
 ofjust complaint against Mr. Hickson, when he exhibited 
 the balance-sheet of the society for the year ending February, 
 1843, as affording an illustration of Corporation manage¬ 
 ment. I have taken the last two years, and the result is 
 nearly as bad; thus; for the year ending February, 1843, 
 the excess of expenditure over income was £4,714; for the 
 year ending February, 1846, it was £274; and for the year 
 ending February, 1847, it was £4,044. The appetite of the 
 elephant grows by what it feeds on! 
 
 • Mr. Alderman Humphrey is reported to have stated in the House of 
 Commons, on the 18th ot March last, on Mr. S. O'Brien’s motion for an 
 absentee tax, that the Irish Society invariably spent £7,000 a-year in 
 education and religious instruction! 
 
EXPEXUITUEE OF THE COEPOEATIOS. 
 
 Is there not, upon the very face of the thing, something 
 very monstrous ? And then just compare some of the items. 
 The expenses of management, including law and parlia¬ 
 mentary charges, amount to f9,399; while the total sum 
 beneficially expended—that is, in pursuance of the trusts— 
 is no more than ^4,065. So that the cost of management 
 would appear to be mote than 200 per cent! It is no 
 wonder that we find the society constantly borrowing money 
 to enable it to mate an appearance; and in point of fact, to 
 go on with. The sum borrowed for 1843, was £5,500 j for 
 1843, £1,000; and for 1846, £3,000. 
 
 A short time since, a deputation came over fiom the Cor¬ 
 poration of Derry, to present a petition to the Court of 
 Common Council, complaining of the gross mismanagement 
 of the Irish Society. Their charges ag^st the Society are 
 many and grave; but I confine myself to those appertaining 
 to the expenditure of its revenue, of which they allege, 
 that, for the last thirty years, 20 per cent, has been paid in 
 salaries, 16 per cent, expended in law proceedings, 12 per 
 cent, in expenses of membem and tavern charges; and 12 
 per cent, under the head of incidental expenses; making in 
 all, 60 per cent, for management; whilst of the remaining 
 40 per cent., 24 per cent, only found its way to the district, 
 for the benefit of which, as admitted by the Society itselfj 
 the whole was originally designed. 
 
 I cannot venture upon an examination of the accounts of 
 other committees, or of the management of other property 
 belonging to the Corporation; nor do I know that, to ex¬ 
 tend the inquiry, would tend to multiply the ptoofe of 'mis¬ 
 management and exorbitant expenditure. I have said 
 enough to show that there is good reason for inquiry, and 
 also for reform. Let me just subjoin, as furmshing addi¬ 
 tional reasons for suspecting similar mismanagement to that 
 we have seen in the Irish Society, that the debts of the Cor¬ 
 poration are very large, notwithstanding the enormous 
 income it has. Thus, the Bridge-house estates were mort¬ 
 gaged for £750,000; and after expending that trifle, they 
 borrowed £1,000,000 upon the security of the payment of 
 the obnoxious tax upon coals. In schedule E of the Eeport 
 of the sub-committee, of 1836,1 find the foUoxving statement 
 
EXPENDITURE OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 67' 
 
 of moneys then owing“ To sundry persons, for moneys 
 borrowed in aid of the exigencies of the Corporation; 
 £28,000. To the amount remaining of the sum of £150,000, 
 borrowed under the Act for the removal of Fleet-market, 
 £51,000. To the amount borrowed for completing the said 
 market, £31,000. To annuities on lives remaining unpaid, 
 £1,69816s.; to annuities granted on the purchase of two- 
 sLxth parts of the Finsbury estate, £402 10s. To interest 
 on moneys borrowed to answer the exigencies of the Corpo¬ 
 ration, £390 14s. To ditto, on the sum remaining of 
 £150,000, raised under the Aet for the removal of Fleet- 
 market, £892 10s.” 
 
 Pretty decent ^ums these; and when it is lememhered 
 that several of them are only for interest on certain debts, it 
 will be seen that the aggregate amount of debt must be very 
 great, indeed. 
 
CHAPTEE Vm. 
 
 POLICE AND PEISON MANAGEIIENT OF ,THE 
 COBPOHATION. 
 
 I HATE incidentally adverted, in a preceding eliapter, to 
 the police establishment of the City of London; and I have 
 also stated that to the Conit of Aldermen is confided the 
 management of that, and of all other matters appertaining 
 to the administration of justice and the detention of 
 eriininak in the City. These are matters of too much im¬ 
 portance, however, to be passed over with a mere casual 
 remark; and they suggest, moreover, such a specimen of 
 Corporation administration as to ftumish a strong argument 
 against the maintenance of their present powers by the 
 Court of Aldermen. A glance at the police and prison 
 establishments of the City of London must inevitably lead us 
 to a conduaon, that either these institutions should be 
 placed under other superintendence and control, or that the 
 Court of AJdetmen should be made amenable to the influ¬ 
 ences of public opinion, by the periodical election of its 
 members. 
 
 1.—The Cmr Police. 
 
 It must be obvious to even the most careless observer, 
 that the exception of the City of London from the Metro¬ 
 politan Police Act is in itself a most objectionable thing, in¬ 
 volving material expense without any adequate utility or 
 advantage. I say nothing here in favour of Sir Robert 
 Peel’s Act, by which the Metropolitan Police was organized 
 and brought into operation. I am opposed to the principle 
 of centrafization in police, as in other matters which can be 
 
POLICE AND PRISON MANAGEMENT^ 
 
 as well managed by local powers; but if we must have a 
 Metropolitan Police, is it not a most objectionable thing that 
 the City of London should be excepted ftom it ? Here is a 
 body of constables whose police functions are exercised 
 throughout a circle of fifteen miles round the metropolis, 
 but in the very heart of that circuit a single spot, that spot, 
 being the City of London, is excepted, in order that it may 
 set up and maintain a police establislunent of its own. It 
 is quite clear, that, independent of the unnecessary expense 
 involved in maintaining two establishments instead of one, 
 there must be a material diminution of the efficiency, for the 
 purposes of pohce, of what would be found in the mainte¬ 
 nance of a single force, subject to one set of regulations, and 
 governed by one directing power, Mr, Charles Pearson 
 reproves Mr. Hickson for averring, as one of the obvious 
 objections which he made against the maintenance of a 
 separate police establishment in the City of London, that 
 “ the police magistrates of the city held no communication 
 with any police officers but their own, and contribute no in¬ 
 formation to the ‘ Hue and Cry;’ although, on .great emer¬ 
 gencies, the Lord Mayor can invite the metropolitan police 
 force into the City.” On the contrary, says Mr. Pearson, 
 “I have made enquiry at two of the City station-houses 
 adjoining to the metropolitan district, and 1 there found 
 regular and constant entries in their books of the interchange 
 of communications upon the subject of police with the 
 constables of the surrounding locality beyond their juris¬ 
 diction.” All this may be, and no doubt is, quite true; and 
 it is no doubt equally true, as Mr. Pearson states, that “ the 
 officer in command of a distant station of the metropolitan 
 force received a reprimand, if not a dismissal, for having 
 omitted to obey the orders of his superiors in rendering 
 assistance that was required by one of the officers of the 
 City police.” That, however, does not alter the fact; on 
 the contrary, it tends rather to confirm it; namely, that the 
 efficiency of the police, as it exists throughout the metro¬ 
 polis, is materially impaired by its being broken into two 
 forces, each being placed under a separate head and 
 authority. The very circumstance of this officer in com¬ 
 mand of a metropolitan police station exposing himself to 
 
70 
 
 POLICE ASD PRISON MANAGEMENT 
 
 reprimand or dismissal, shoivs that there must be causes of 
 misunderstanding and disagreement between the two bodies. 
 He was reprimanded or dismissed, too, it will be observed, 
 not for refusing the assistance required from him by one of 
 the officers of City police, but for having “ omitted to obey 
 the orders of his superior^’ to render such assistance. Those 
 orders were obviously necessary ,• and as the very claim to 
 uncontrolled authority asserted by the Corporation of the 
 City of London, renders all perfect co-operation and general 
 interference on the part of the metropolitan force impossible, 
 and as the utmost willingness and vigffiance on the part of 
 the City Commissioners of Police would fail to provide 
 instructions for every individual case, it follows, as a matter 
 of course, that the Actions of the police in the metropolis 
 at large are materially interfered with. As Jlr. Hickson 
 truly observed, “a thief living in the City robs in West¬ 
 minster ; a thief living in Westminster robs in the City; and 
 both find themselves comparatively safe ftom pursuitthe 
 amenities that pass between the City Commissioners and 
 the Metropolitan Commissioners j and the Interchange of 
 communications between the two forces, notwithstanding. 
 
 But then it may be said that the other advantages in¬ 
 volved in having a separate police establishment in the City 
 of London afford a full compensation for any such defects 
 as those to which I have adverted. I am &ee to confess, 
 that nothing could, in my mind, offer a compensation for 
 this Interference with and diminution of the functions of a 
 police. Such a force is required and maintained but for one 
 object; i. e., the prevention of those offences to which pro¬ 
 perty and persons are exposed; and if it do not answer this 
 purpose in the most effectual manner, it is comparatively 
 useless as a police establishment. 
 
 But what conceivable compensating quality can the City 
 police establishment offer for this infraction of utility? 
 Perhaps it may be very cheap; and there may be those who 
 think that if a thing be but cheap, its defects are of compa¬ 
 ratively small moment. Well, let us see whether the City 
 police establishment possesses even this miserable recom¬ 
 mendation, The following paragraph, that has just gone 
 the round of the journals, from Douglas Jerrold’s News- 
 
OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 71 
 
 paper, may seem to add to the conclusion that it is very 
 cheap:— 
 
 “How THE RICHEST CiTY IN THE WORLD PATS ITS POLICE.— Many Of the 
 police force of the City of London are at present supporting families on the 
 insignificant sum of 17s; per week, in addition to clothing furnished by con¬ 
 tract at the lowest possible price, and of such quality, that did not each man 
 provide more than a sufficiency of warm under-clothing, he would, during 
 the winter season, soon become unable to follow his occupation. According 
 to the present an*angement, the force consists of five classes, paid by the 
 following scale1st class, 22s.; 2nd ditto, 20s.; 3rd ditto, 19s.; 4th ditto, 
 18s.; and 5th ditto, 17s. per week. Such is the remuneration of men whose 
 duty it is to protect the lives and property of the inhabitants of the richest 
 city in the world.” 
 
 In spite of tliis seeming evidence to the contrary, how¬ 
 ever, I hesitate not to say that the police force of the City 
 of London is not only the worst paid, but the most expen¬ 
 sive force in the United Kingdom. 
 
 Turning to the Statement of the Produce and Expendi¬ 
 ture of the Clt/s Estate, for the year 1846,1 find the cost of 
 the City police to he as follows;— 
 
 One fourth of the police rate from the City Estate . £9,826 Is 4 
 
 Police rate levied on the parishes .... 39,304 i.o 0 
 
 E.vpenses of Police Committee. 200 0 0 
 
 Police-constables attending justice-rooms, &c.. . 820 10 0 
 
 Arthur Taylor, for printing.121 15 0 
 
 £50,274 4 10 
 
 Now, it certainly would not he inferred, from this state¬ 
 ment of the cost of the City force, that its men were the 
 worst paid in the country. But that is, nevertheless, the 
 fact. The original estimate from the Police Commissioners 
 of what would be the cost of watching the City, under the 
 metropolitan police, was £24,650; so tliat the excess of ex¬ 
 penditure by the Corporation, for an obviously less efficient 
 sj'stem—loss efficient not only to the City, hut to the metro¬ 
 polis at large—is £]6,0;10 a-year. Marylehonc parish, 
 wliich contains as many houses and a larger popu- 
 l.ation, while it extends over a much larger area, and is, 
 according to the Metropolitan Police Commissioners, more 
 difficult to watch, on account of the numerous open areas of 
 the private houses, actually costs the parishioners only 
 £20,382 a-year to he watched and guarded by the metro- 
 
72 
 
 POLICE AKD PRISON MAKAGE5IEXT 
 
 politan police. That they are much better protected in the 
 City of London, I do not know. I do know, however, that 
 should any exigency arise in the City to render the aid of a 
 police-constahle necessan", the chances are that the utmost 
 vigilance and activity would fail to procure one in less than 
 a quarter of an hour. Marylebone pav^, however, scarcely 
 more than one-half of the sum paid hy the City of London ! 
 It is not unreasonable to conclude that there must be some 
 mismanagement here. 
 
 From the days of that great and good man, John Howard, 
 whose name stands high on the roll of Christian philan¬ 
 thropists, the subjects of prison discipline, and the treatment 
 of criminal offenders, have occupied the anxious attention of 
 many enlightened men; and during the last twelve or four¬ 
 teen years, the Le^lature and the Government have pro¬ 
 vided and enforced many regulations to diminish the evils 
 previously connected with these important subjects. It is 
 well known to all who have paid any attention to penalogieal 
 subject^ that, untill the passing of 5th Geo. IV., c. 85, the 
 goals of the kingdom, with scarcely a solitary exception, and 
 in spite of all that Howard, Paul, Neild, and other benevolent 
 men had effected by theirunwearied labours—were hot beds 
 of vice and profligacy, and schools, moreover, in which the 
 young and scarcely initiated culprit was educated by the ex¬ 
 perienced and hardened depredator, for all the undertakings 
 and e^encies of a criminal career; “ so that,” to use the 
 words of the inspectors of prisons, “ absolute impunity would, 
 • in many cases, have been preferable to the ruinous effects of 
 commitment to a goal.” 
 
 It may be thought that this averment should be qualified 
 by at least an exception in favour of the City of London pri¬ 
 sons, which are under the sole and unchallenged control of 
 the Corporation. Sorely these must be model establishments 
 of the kind. Here the many and great advantages of a 
 strictly local government and superintendence have no doubt 
 been exhibited. In the goals of Newgate, GUfspur-street, 
 and the City Bridewell, all of which stand immediately under 
 the eye of the Corporation, and which the Corporation most 
 
OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 73 
 
 jealously asserts tlie sole right of regulating, we must, no 
 doubt, find evidences of wisdom, humanity, and an enlight¬ 
 ened policy, which will snffice to cover all the sins which 
 that body may elsewhere and otherwise commit. Alas! no. 
 On the contrary, it may he very safely affirmed, that in no 
 civilized country can there he found penal establishments so 
 notorious for the presence of everything that is morally de¬ 
 structive to the prisoners, and injurious to the community at 
 large.. As Mr. Adshead observes,* “The very soul sickens 
 at the perusal of testimony, both parliamentary and indivi¬ 
 dual, which has been offered from the days of Howard even to 
 the present time; and as the enormities of these city prison- 
 houses may have varied in some degree of atrocity, at different 
 periods, the same deplorably vitiating, soul-destroying system 
 has prevailed, notwithstanffing the parliamentary investiga¬ 
 tions, the reports of inspectors, the presentments of grand 
 juries, the remonstrances of sheriffs, the appeals of benevolent 
 individuals, and there is still, up to 1847, every possible 
 attempt in the Court of Aldermen, to stifle investigation, 
 obstmet improvement, and prevent public discussion. The 
 lips of prison officers are hermetrically sealed, motions for 
 enquiry are evaded and postponed, and any benevolent ap¬ 
 peal to the Court of Aldermen upon the condition of the 
 prisoner, is denominated ‘humbug,’ and is treated with 
 derision.” Strong as this condemnation may be, the proofs 
 of its justice are abundant and unmistakeable. 
 
 Notmthstanding that John Howard had drawn a foightful 
 picture, in 1687, of the demoralising influences permitted to 
 operate in the goal of Newgate, Sir Richard Phillips had to 
 complain of a state of things equally pernicious, thirty years 
 afterwards. “ Among the women,” said he, “all the ordi¬ 
 nary feelings of their sex are destroyed, by their indiscrimi¬ 
 nate association ; the shameless victims of lust and profligacy 
 are placed in the same chambers with others, who, however 
 they may have offended the laws in particular points, still 
 preserve their respect for decency and decorum. In imme¬ 
 diate contact with such abandoned women, other young per¬ 
 sons are compelled to pass their time between their commit¬ 
 ment and the sessions, when of course, it often happens that 
 * The Present Gaol System, &o., p. 28. 
 
74 
 
 POLICE AND PRISON MANAGE3IENT 
 
 the bni is not found against them by the grand jury, or they 
 axe acquitted by the petty jury. To-convey a just idea of 
 these yards, and of the yards in which the prisoners lodge,, 
 the most apt comparison is the engraved representation of a 
 slave-ship, which, a few years ago, was circulated through 
 England with much effect.” Still the demoralizing system 
 was persevered in, and seven years afterwards (1815), Mrs. 
 Fry stated to Mr. Fowel Buxton, that she “found the female 
 side in a situation which no language can describe. Nearly 
 three hundred women, sent there for every gradation of 
 crime—some untried, some under sentence of death—were 
 
 crowded together in two wards and two cells.They 
 
 slept on the floor, at times one hundred and twenty in one 
 ward, -without so much as a mat for bedding, and many of 
 
 them nearly naked.She saw enough to convince her 
 
 that every thing bad was going on.” In short, she concluded 
 by saying, “All I tell thee is a faint picture of the reality; 
 the filth, the closeness of the rooms, the ferocious manners 
 and expressions of the women towards each other, and the 
 abandoned -ffickedness which everything bespoke, are quite 
 indescribable.” 
 
 3Ir. Poynder, two years afterwards, showed that this state 
 of things was not peculiar to one side of the prison—^how was 
 it likely to be so ?—^but that it was common to the sides of 
 both men and women. He states, that in consequence of the 
 association of the prisoners on the men’s side, “some of the 
 worst and most extensive burglaries have been plotted in that 
 prison; forged notes have been fabricated and passed there; 
 and coining itself has been carried on -within its walls.” He 
 fiirther states, that “any man was visited by any woman who 
 chose to inquire for him, and the mete mention of his name is 
 in the same waypermitted to pass all those women who choose 
 to apply for the purposes of general prostitution. The cases 
 of venereal disease always to be found in the infirmary, are, 
 for the most part, if not altogether, contracted in the prison.” 
 
 It could not be pretended, then, that the state of the gaol 
 was not well known; or that it had not been pressed upon the 
 attention of the Corporation, which was answerable for it. 
 Yet, in 1820, twelve years after Sir Richard Phillips had so 
 forcibly dwelt upon its evils, five years after Mrs. Fry’s pain- 
 
OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 75 
 
 My graphic sketch of its interior had keen made public, 
 and three years after Mr. Poynder had reiterated and height¬ 
 ened the effect, by fresh details of all that had gone before, 
 a grand jury closed its labours at the Old Bailey, by present¬ 
 ing the prison of Newgate as the chief cause of “the alarming 
 increase of crime in the metropohs, especially amongst 
 juvenile offenders.” They say that “ the boys and ghls who 
 have been committed for some slight misdemeanours, are 
 forced to associate with the basest and most hardened felons, 
 and are consequently returned upon society^ when the 
 periods of their imprisonment are passed, in possession of all 
 the theory of the most hardened offenders.” 
 
 It is material to observe that these deplorable evils, affect¬ 
 ing both individuals and society at large, were permitted to 
 continue, year after year, and decade after decade, not 
 merely in defiance of the remonstrances and entreaties of 
 those who saw and deplored them, but in defiance also of 
 legislative enactment, the 5th Geo. IV., c. 85, impera¬ 
 tively insisting upon the necessity of classification amongst 
 prisoners, as being indispensable to ail wholesome discipline 
 in criminal gaols. 
 
 It may be thought, however, that I am acting unjustly by 
 the Corporation in going back so far for evidences against 
 them. And so I should be, had they done anything to obli¬ 
 terate the recollection of offences such as those to which I 
 am now calling attention. But if, on the contrary, they 
 evince the same stolid indifference to all the considerations 
 of morality, humanity, and propriety, by which other persons 
 are influenced, as they formerly did, and exercise their pena- 
 logical functions in the same deplorably and culpably mis¬ 
 chievous way in which.they exercised them twenty—forty- 
 sixty years ago, and that, in spite of the expostulations of the 
 wise and the good, the remonstrances of sheriffs, the present¬ 
 ments of grand juries, and the enactments of the Legislature 
 itself; then, assuredly, they are not unjustly exposed to odium 
 and execration by having these remote evidences of their 
 “misdemeanours and conspiracies,” of their “assurance and 
 folly,” of their “ ignorance and vanity,” of their “ flagrant 
 audacity in evil,” as Lord Brougham would probably express 
 himself, culled out from the records, and exhibited against 
 
76 
 
 POLICE AND PRISON MANAGEMENT 
 
 tliem. They themselves set us the example of thus acting', in 
 the way they deal -vrith the culprits that are brought 
 before them. The poor wretch being found guilty 
 of the .offence imputed to him, the dispenser of justice 
 inquires whether he is kno-wn as an old offender. 
 And if it shall turn out to be so, notwithstanding 
 the feet may be, and probably is, that he is indebted for 
 his proficiency in crime to the tuition he has received within 
 the walls of their own prison, he is sentenced to a propor¬ 
 tionately increased punishment. Now, what is “sauce for 
 the goose, is sauce for the gander.” Let the culprit Corpo¬ 
 ration and the culprit thief be dealt with alike impartially. 
 If the Corporation still pursues its evil course, then it is just 
 and meet that its former delinquencies and evidences of 
 vicionsness and depravity should be brought in aggravation 
 of punishment, and be admitted for that purpose. 
 
 Now, then, for the proof that it is so. In 1836—that is, 
 just sixteen yearn after the presentment of the Grand Jury to 
 which I have referred—the Inspectors of Prisons thus 'write 
 of the state of Newgate :—“ The association of prisoners of 
 all ages, and of every shade of guilt, in one indiscriminate 
 mass, is a ftightfiil feature in the system that prevails here; 
 the first in magnitude, and the most pernicious in effect. In 
 this prison we find that the young and the old, the inexpe¬ 
 rienced and the practical offender, the criminal who is smitten 
 with a sense of his guilt, and the hardened villain whom 
 scarcely any penal discipline can subdue—are congregated 
 together, with an utter disregard to all moral distinctions, the 
 interests of the prisoners, or the welfere of the community. 
 In such a state of things, can it be a matter of wonder, that 
 the effects should be such as have been described? Every 
 other evil is aggravated by this; and it would be worse than 
 idle to attempt any remedy for the rest, whilst this most 
 demorafislng intermixture of criminals, of all ages and degrees 
 of guilt, is suffered to frustrate the very ends of prison dis¬ 
 cipline, and to give tenfold-violence to all those mischievous 
 inclinations and passions upon which it is incessantly ope¬ 
 rating, and which it is the design of justice to discourage 
 and repress. Every device by which the fences of pro¬ 
 perty may be overcome is here flamed and divulged to 
 
OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 seady agents. Every fraudulent artifice, every successful 
 trick, every ingenious mode of over-reacliing the cautious, 
 or of plundering the unguarded, is.perfected here, and com¬ 
 municated to those who had not hitherto been initiated in the 
 mystery of crime.” Subsequently they say, “We are com¬ 
 pelled to state, that no circumstances could be imagined 
 more calculated to defeat all hope of reformation, than those 
 / in which a prisoner in Newgate necessarily finds himself 
 placed;” and after enumerating those cireumstances, in 
 detail, they wind-up the whole by this pointed and well- 
 merited reprobation“ If human ingenuity were tasked to 
 devise a means by which the most profligate might be ten¬ 
 dered abandoned to the last degree of moral infamy, nothing 
 more effectual could be invented than the system now 
 actually in operation within the walls of the first Metro¬ 
 politan prison in England.” 
 
 And now, to give the finishing, touch to this dark picture, 
 and to complete the ease against the Corporation, let us 
 hear what the inspectors say of the prison in their report 
 published in 1846:—“An imperative sense of duty has 
 compelled us, year after year, to remonstrate against New¬ 
 gate, as a most objectionable prison; and, on the present 
 occasion, we have no alternative but to repeat our com¬ 
 plaints of it. We have repeatedly entered into details of 
 its radically wrong construction, and of its permcious dis¬ 
 cipline, In whatever light we contemplate this prison, we 
 see in it a school where the juvenile and the immatured 
 offender, or any one in whom there may yet be some sense 
 of virtue remaining, is, by reason of a compulsory gaol asso¬ 
 ciation, perfected in the arts of crime. The result is inevit¬ 
 able.That contamination goes on to a fearfirl extent 
 
 in the wards and yards of Newgate, is not a matter of con¬ 
 jecture or speculation, for every day’s experience demon¬ 
 strates it.” After much more to the same effect, the in¬ 
 spectors seriously urge the following question upon the 
 magistracy—that is, the Aldermen, who are responsible for 
 the management and diseipline of the prison:—“Is it calcu¬ 
 lated to reclaim the guilty, or to protect the innocent?” 
 And they thus reply i—“ On the contrary, it wUlbe evident 
 that the guilty will become more hardened and expert; that 
 
78 
 
 POLICE AKD PEISON MANAGEMENT 
 
 the mnocent-mil be corrapted; and that the inmates of 
 Newgate, when they regain their liberty, will be more dan¬ 
 gerous to society, &om the experience they have acquired 
 in this most defective prison.” 
 
 Need I add anything to these evidences, conclusive and 
 overwhelming as they are, of the gross and culpable neglect 
 of the Court of Aldermen of one of their most important 
 duties, and of the equally culpable neglect of the Corporation 
 at large r I am sure I need not; and yet it might lead to a 
 wrong inference, if I did not show that the same criminal in¬ 
 difference—the same heartless apathy, mth reference to the 
 strongest claims of humanity, and the deepest interests of 
 society, characterise the management of the rest of the City 
 gaols. It is not Newgate alone that constitutes a school for 
 the training of female prostitutes and of criminal offenders. 
 All the prisons under the management of the Corporation are 
 alike exceptions to the improvement which has taken place 
 in prison management and discipline everywhere else. “"We 
 are compelled, by an imperative sense of duty,” say the In¬ 
 spectors. of Prisons, in their last report, “to advert, in terms 
 of decided condemnation, to the lamentable condition of the 
 PBisoxs of the City of London— ^Newgate, Giltspur-street 
 C oMPiEB, and the Cm Brideweh— in which the master evil 
 of gaol association, and consequent contamination, still con¬ 
 tinues to operate directly to the encouragement of crime.” 
 
 Giltspur-street, especially, has, next to Newgate, obtained 
 an unenviable notoriety. The Sun, some time since, in an 
 excellent article on “Prison Discipline,” observed, that the 
 want of room in the prison included want of classification; 
 while want of classification prevented anything like a re¬ 
 medial or beneficent spirit from mingling with the severity 
 of out criminal laws. “Fat ftom encouraging, or facilitating, 
 or, indeed, permitting the return of a young oflender to virtue, 
 it shuts the door of repentance for ever in his face, by placing 
 him in the society, and, as it were, under the instruction of 
 the most experienced practitioners in every species of 
 enormity. The child who has committed a first offence, the 
 adult who has arrived at the fiill maturity of crime, and the 
 veteran, more hardened by his vices than his years, who 
 seems to take a pride in the empire of wickedness, are all 
 
OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 79 
 
 huddled together, breathing the same tainted atmosphere, 
 and assimilating, with a sort of malignant rivalship, to the 
 worst specimen amongst them. Such is the state of that part 
 of the prison known as the Compter, where prisoners untried, 
 and, of course, unconvicted, and possibly innocent, are asso¬ 
 ciated with some of the most depraved characters on the face 
 of the earth. But bad as this division of the prison is, the 
 other division, now known as the House of Correction for 
 the City of London, is by many degrees worse. Here ate to 
 be seen, in the same room, from fifty to sixty male prisoners, 
 of all ages, and of almost all degrees of criminality, sitting 
 together, closely packed on benches, picking oakum. The 
 most disgusting conversation is continually going forward; 
 the most revolting levity pervades the whole demoralised and 
 demoralising mass; and the wretch who might, in the first 
 instance, have been sent there for some slight offence, soon 
 finds the sort of school he has been introduced to, and there 
 treasures up lessons, and forms connexions, well calculated 
 to fit him for the mischievous career which society may be 
 said to have destined and fitted him to run. Immediately 
 above this den of infamy stands the treadmill, on which a 
 similar number of persons are kept constantly at work; and 
 there, as in the oakum-room, their intercourse with each 
 other is perfectly unrestrained, and their conversation dis- 
 tinguised by the same reckless disregard of all decency and 
 order. The sleeping apartments are overcrowded in the same 
 manner, and the same want of classification and amnge- 
 ment, proceeding from the same cause, is observable in the 
 wretched wards devoted to rest and forgetfulness.” 
 
 Am I not warranted in affirming, then, that in the state of 
 the City prisons is to be found abundant evidence of the most 
 culpable negligence, and of the most stolid disregard, on the 
 part of the Corporation, to the very strongest claims, both of 
 humanity and of public duty 1 The City prisons are a national 
 reproach; and if the Court of Aldermen will not reform them, 
 and the Court of Common Council cannot, or will not, inter¬ 
 fere, then the Government should no longer hesitate to 
 deprive them of the powers they have so long and so shame¬ 
 fully abused. 
 
 It is but justice that I should except Aldermen 
 
80 POLICE AND PRISON MANAGEMENT. 
 
 Sir James Duke and Sidney ftom tlie sweeping censure 
 merited by, I fear, the rest of the City magistrates, and the 
 Coipoiation as a whole, inasmuch as these two Aldermen 
 have many times and often urged the subject upon the other 
 members of the Court, and have at last succeeded in inducing 
 a resolution to build a new prison, to supersede the use of 
 Giltspnr-street Compter. 
 
81 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RECAPITULATION, AND REMEDIES EOR ABUSES. 
 
 Having completed this brief examination of the Corpora¬ 
 tion, it remains only that I should, with similar brevity— 
 more in the way of hint or suggestion than anything else— 
 wind up the whole by a few general remarks, and an attempt 
 to bring into one view the several matters which must neces¬ 
 sarily be included in any eiScient or substantial reform. 
 
 The only sound and sufiicing reason that can be put for¬ 
 ward for maintaining the Corporation of the City of 
 London, or any other Corporation, is, that it is an instnunent 
 of good local government. It is not the mere name of a 
 municipal institution, or the pageantry and patronage con¬ 
 nected with it, that will suffice to justify its maintenance. 
 If it is not useful, as an instrument of local administration, it 
 must be mischievous. While it fails to perform, on 
 behalf of those over whom it exercises its powers, what is 
 necessary for them as a munieipality or community, it 
 prevents the imperial legislature from interfering, as it might 
 otherwise do, to direct and compel the performance of those 
 tlungs which the wants of the eommunity call for. 
 
 The duties or functions of a local government are legislative, 
 executive, and judicial; and they embrace every thing 
 appertaining to 
 
 Magistracy and Police; as watch and ward, including the 
 prevention of crime, and the apprehension of criminals; 
 the administration of justice; the management of pri¬ 
 sons, &c. 
 
 The maintenance of highways; including paving and light¬ 
 ing, the making and repairing of roads, and the securing 
 of all necessary facilities for traffic, &c. 
 
82 
 
 KECAPIinLATION, AND 
 
 Sanitari/ regul(Uions, as sewerage, drainage, ventilation, 
 the suppression of nuisances, the supply of water, &c. 
 
 Edimtion, elementary, industrial, &c. 
 
 The reli^of the poor, the tending of the sich and maimed, 
 and the suppression of mendicancy, by the maintenance 
 of proper workhouses and public hospitals. 
 
 Now, it is obvious that these functions cannot be dis¬ 
 charged and these objects be secured, without the expenditure 
 of money; which money must be derived either from accu¬ 
 mulated property held in trust for municipal purposes, or 
 &om rates and taxes levied upon the municipality. This, 
 then, brings after it another corollary; i. e., that the body 
 discharging these functions and administering these trusts 
 should be the representative of the community affected by its 
 administration, and on whose behalf it acts. Well, then, it 
 seems to foEow, that— 
 
 1. Everyone who contributes to the fund appropriated to 
 municipal purposes, or who has a common right in it—that 
 is, every one paying scot and bearing lot-^hould have a 
 voice in the election of those who constitute the governing 
 body. In the City of London it is not so, although it is in 
 every other corporate town in the kingdom. In London, the 
 Lord Mayor is chosen by the Aldermen, out of two of 
 their own body, by the livery; while the Aldermen and 
 members of the Court of Common Council, who, with the 
 Lord Mayor, constitute the governing body, and make laws 
 and impose taxes affecting every resident in the City of Lon. 
 don, are elected by the freemen householders, only. The 
 former is, as we have seen, an innovation upon the ancient 
 custom. OriginaEy, the municipal body consisted of the 
 resident and trading inhabitants, sharing in the payment of 
 the local taxes, and the performance of the local duties, 
 without distinction. These constituted the unmicipaEty. 
 The municipal fianchise was substantiaUy a household one. 
 To this the practice should be again conformed, not merely 
 as the equitable one, but as the poEtic one, also; Inasmuch 
 as the want of power in the Corporation to enforce the free¬ 
 dom upon wholesale dealers, and the growth of puhEc opinion 
 against enforcing it upon retaU dealers (excepting licensed 
 
REMEDIES EOU ABUSES. 
 
 83 
 
 victuallers, ivlio are most unfairly compelled to take up their 
 freedom before they can obtain a licence), is reducing the 
 number of fceemen-householders to a comparatively small 
 number, -which will very soon constitute the minority, if it 
 do not so now. Such a state of things should not be tolerated. 
 It is as great an anomaly and a reproach as the rotten 
 borough system formerly was. ^ 
 
 2. To render the representative system real and substan¬ 
 tial, the electorial districts, or wards, must be made more 
 equal in size and population. At present, eighteen waids> 
 containing 6,000 inhabitants, return 18 Aldermen, and 122 
 Common Councilmen; while seven wards, containing neatly 
 double the number of inhabitants, return only 7 Aldermen, 
 and 84 Common Councilmen. There is no representation in 
 
 3. The Aldermen, who are not merely magistrates, but 
 who constitute a legislative and executive body of themselves, 
 and form also a part of the general Coiut, should be tendered 
 responsible to those whom they are said to represent, by 
 periodical election.t It is singularly inconsistent to insist 
 upon the importance of making the Common Council a 
 strictly representative body, and its members directly respon¬ 
 sible to the municipal body, while the Court of Aldermen, 
 whose power is by far larger, and whose members, individ¬ 
 ually, discharge more important functions, is composed of 
 men who are elected for life, and who therefore openly 
 declare that they will not be controlled or influenced by any 
 representations or remonstrances from the constituent bodies. 
 
 * The wards are very unequal in size and population j the consequence, of 
 coui’sof is, that the elective right is very unequaily distributed throughout 
 the city.—Municip. Corp. Rep., p. 7. 
 
 t A very important question as to the Common Council is, whether the 
 Aldermen ought to continue members of it, or whether the whole of it 
 should he periodically elected. It seems clear to us that the Aldermen have 
 become unpopular, as members of the Common Council, in consequence of 
 them holding seats in the legislative body, from which they cannot be dis¬ 
 placed by the constituency. Again, the performance of them other functions 
 is watched with a jealous and unkind feeling, which is, we consider, mainly 
 attributable to their position in the Common Council. The tmidn of the 
 two characters produces this embarrassment, that at present the legislative 
 
84 
 
 EECAPITUIATION, A\D 
 
 4. The Corporate Companies should be placed under a 
 controlling power; their ftmds should be publicly known, 
 and be wholly appropriated for charitable or public purposes 
 in accordance -mth the intent of the original donors, where 
 the property is held in trust; and the system of self-election 
 and secret management which now obtains in the ruling 
 body of each company, should be put an end to, and all its 
 members be placed upon an equality, in the participation of 
 their own funds, and their eligibility for office. These com¬ 
 panies acknowledge to the possession of a revenue of 
 £85,685 a-year, derived from trust estates; but beyond that 
 they have revenues which they insist are their own, which 
 they expend as they please, and of which they will render 
 no account. Thus, for example, if a testator left to any one 
 of these Companies a piece of land then worth £10 per 
 annum, directing that the sum of £10 should be annually 
 appropriated to the support of a school, and the land subse¬ 
 quently increases in value to £500, then the master and 
 wardens of the company claim the right of appropriating to 
 their own uses, the surplus of £490. In no equitable view 
 of the case can this be deemed to be private property; and 
 even if it were, it belongs properly, not to the master and 
 wardens, but to the livery and fieemen of the company at 
 targe. 
 
 5. The livery of the corporate companies should be de¬ 
 prived of their exclusive power of electuig the Lord Mayor, 
 sheriffs, chamberlain, bridge-master, auditors, &c. These 
 officers are all executive officers of the Corporation, and 
 should be elected by the municipality at Large. 
 
 In addition to these changes, which may be described as 
 organic changes, 
 
 6. Alt monopolies of trade and labour, maintained by the 
 Corporation, should be abolished. The necessity for all such 
 monopolies has now passed away, and they are mischievous, 
 instead of useful. It is not only absurd, but it is a heavy 
 grievance to many of the citizens affected by the custom, 
 that there should be preserved large bodies of fellowship- 
 porters, ticket-porters, and tackle-house porters, including 
 Mt-meters, com-metem, salt-meters, oyster-meters, com- 
 
REMEDIES FOR ABUSES. 
 
 85 
 
 porters, sliifters, porters of general mereliandlse, &c. No 
 man can hire himself to do any of the work for which these 
 are employed, without becoming a member of the 
 Company, and paying the fine and quarterages. No brewer 
 or other person may use his own servants to measure and 
 carry his own barley; no man may employ his own porters 
 to unload bis own waggon; no man may employ other than 
 a ticket-porter to carry a parcel from one part of the City to 
 another.* The legislature is abolishing great monopolies ; 
 why should not the Corporation of the City of London be 
 required to abolish these petty ones? But the worst of it, 
 perhaps, is, not that the monopolies are maintained, but that 
 they are monopolies, some of them, for the benefit of a very 
 few persons, to the detriment of a great many. Thus, the 
 four fruit and potato meters impose a tax of nearly £6,000 
 a year on the public, while the deputies, who do the work, 
 receive only about £1,500. The monopoly of the oyster 
 meters is a glaring abuse, the work being done by deputies’ 
 deputies, the public having to pay the two sets—those 
 who enjoy only the dignity, and those who do the work. 
 This costs £6,000, or £7,000 a year. 
 
 7. Connected with these exactions, are the rents, and tolls, 
 and tonnage dues, levied upon land and water. The coal 
 duties—which, by the way, appear in the City accounts, as 
 being but 4cf. a ton, and producing about £50,000, are really 
 Is. Iff. per ton, and produce above £160,000. Then there 
 are the rents and tolls upon stalls and standing-places in the 
 public markets, amounting to between £16,000 and £17,000 
 a year; between £6,000 and £7,000 a year for street tolls, 
 
 • “ The Corporation maintains amonopoiy of labour in the transhipment 
 and disehai'ge of ail measurable goods, and have instituted companies of 
 licensed laboui’men for the metage of such goods, which is part only of a 
 general monopolyof the porterage for hire of all articles throughout the city. 
 This monopoiy, which is confined'to the corporate limits, and is of import¬ 
 ance chiefly at the port and in the city markets, does not seem to us to 
 
 possess those advantagesfor which its advocates contend.It is plain 
 
 that the price of labour must be enhanced by it, since out of the profits of 
 that labour, which otherwise would go only to maintmn the labourers them¬ 
 selves, several officers are remunerated with considerable salaries, besides 
 the pensions and gratuities which are conferred on decayed members of the 
 
 fraternity.We see no peculiarity in the trade of a porter, which 
 
 should make it reasonable that a monopoly should be sustained in it for 
 such purposes.”—Municip. Corp Hep., p. 10. 
 
86 
 
 EECAPIiniATION, ANI 
 
 on carts and waggons; and about ^30,000 a year for river 
 tolls. Some of these tolls are, I know, mortgaged for years 
 to come, and therefore cannot be interfered with; but others 
 are not, and imperatively demand looking into and abolish¬ 
 ing. It is really too ba^ that while the Corporation permits 
 so many thousands a year to be lost by its management of 
 such spots of ground as that of the old Fleet Prison, the 
 Fatiingdon Market, and the new street in continuation of 
 Farringdon-street, they should keep up an expensive ma¬ 
 chinery to collect a number of petty tolls, wliich, while they 
 bring but a small sum into the Chamber, are found to be very 
 opressive upon those from whom they are exacted. 
 
 8. The Corporation property requires looking into. 
 Glance once more at its extent:— 
 
 We have seen how the Irish estates are managed, as far 
 as the cost of management is concerned. Just see what the 
 Corporation of Derry says about the management itself:— 
 
 Tnat the conduct of the Irish Society, in their capacity of 
 landlords, has impeded improvement, partly from the indi¬ 
 viduals composing the society being unacquainted with the 
 management of landed, property in Ireland, and also from the 
 circumstance of its members continuing for only a period of 
 two years in office. And your petitioners have no doubt, 
 that the marked difference between the rapid growth of 
 Belfest in manufactures and commerce, as compared with 
 the slow progress of Derry, is in a great measure owing to 
 the feet, that the inhabitants of the former town have been 
 able to obtain tenures of sufficient duration to encourage the 
 erection of valuable buildings, an advantage which has been 
 denied for many years past by the Irish Society to the inha¬ 
 bitants of Derry.” 
 
 There can he no reasonable doubt, that the Corporation 
 property has been most shamefully mismanaged, if not abso¬ 
 lutely jobbed, in past times; and if there is not room for so 
 much censure at the present time, which I readily admit, it 
 
REMEDIES EOR ABUSES. 
 
 87 
 
 cannot be disputed that there is still room for great amend¬ 
 ment, wliich Trill be brought about only by greater publicity 
 being given to the proceedings of the various committees, 
 and the exclusion from such committees as have the manage¬ 
 ment of property, of all lawyers, valuers, surveyors, and 
 others, whose private interests conflict with their public 
 duties. It is notorious, and a statement to that effect 
 stood upon the paper of business in the Common Council, 
 for some months, that members of these committees act 
 for the very parties who have an interest adverse to that of 
 the Corporation! Such men should not be eligible to serve 
 upon such committees, at all. 
 
 I do not pretend to have adverted to all the matters re¬ 
 quiring reform in the Corporation of London. The space I 
 was obliged to assign to myself has prevented that; I have, 
 however, enumerated some of the most prominent grievances 
 of which the inhabitants of the City have to complain, and 
 have made out, as I hope, a case sufficiently striking to 
 induce further inquiry, if not a strong desire for immediate 
 action in the direction of reform. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 l.-LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN 84 SHERIFFS 
 
 Their Wards, Companies, and Residences. 
 
 2)tlt iBanor. 
 
 Sib Geoege Cabeoel, Knt, Candlewick Ward, Spectacle- 
 makers’ Company, Mansion House. 
 
 atoEtimn. 
 
 Bridge Without Word.—Sir Claudins S. Hunter, Bart.,*’ 
 Merchant-Tailors’ Company, 23, Euston-sqnare. 
 
 Tower Wari—Matthias Prime Lucas, Bsq.,Vintaers’ Company, 
 21, Water-lane. 
 
 Cheap Fori—William Thompson, Esq., M.P., Ironmongers’ 
 Company, Upper Thames-streeL 
 
 Langhoum Ward.—Sir John Key, Bart., Stationers’ Company, 
 3, Abchnrch-lane. 
 
 AMersgate Ward.—Sir Peter Laurie, Knt., Saddlers’ Company, 
 7, Park-square, Regent’s Park. 
 
 Lime Street Ward.—Charles Earebrother, Esq., Vintners’ 
 Company, 6, Lancaster-place. 
 
 Bishopsgate Ward.—Wm. T. Copeland, Esq., M.P., Goldsmiths’ 
 Company, 37, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. 
 
 Farringdon-Within Ward. —Thomas Kelly, Esq., Plasterers’ 
 Company, 17, Patemoster-row. 
 
 Castk Baynard Ward.—Samuel Wdson, Esq., Weavers’ Com¬ 
 pany, 25, St. Paul’s Churchyard. 
 
 BridgeWithin Ward.—Sir Chapman Marshall, Knt., Innholders’ 
 Company, 43, Eussell-sqnare. 
 
 CornhUl Ward.-^ir John Pine, Bart, Plasterers’ Company, 
 71, Comhill. 
 
 Aldgate Ward. —John Hnmphery,Esq.,MP., Tallow Chandlers’ 
 Company, Hayes’ Wharf, Tooley-street. 
 
 VirJry Ward —Sir Wm. Magnay, !^t. Stationers’ Company, 
 CoUege-hiU. 
 
 * Sir C. S. Hunter, Bart., was chosen for the 'Ward of Bassishaw, in 1804, 
 
 bnt remoTcd to Bridge-TOthont in 183-5, upon the resignation of John 
 
Walbrook PTari—Michael Gibbs, Esq., Eisbrnongers’ Company, 
 33, Walbrook. 
 
 Dowgate Faj'J.—John Johnson, Esq., Spectacle-makers’ Com¬ 
 pany, Millbank. 
 
 Cordwainer Ward.—Thomas Wood, Esq., Eramework Knitters’ 
 Company, 4, Corbet-court, Gracecbuob-street. 
 
 Quemhithe Ward.—John K. Hooper, Esq., Vintners’ Company, 
 20, Queenhithe. 
 
 Farrkgdon Without Ward.—Sir James Duke, Knt., M.P., 
 Spectack-makers’ Company, Botolph-lane. 
 
 Bass^haw Ward.—Thomas Earneomb,-Esq., Tallow Chandlers’ 
 Company, Griffin’s Wharf, Tooley-street. 
 
 Broad Street Ward.—John Musgrove, Esq., Clothworkers’ Com¬ 
 pany, 18, Old Broad-street. 
 
 Coleman Street Ward.—William Hunter, Esq., Upholders’ Com¬ 
 pany, 10, Einsbury Circus. 
 
 Cripplegate Ward. —^Thomas Challis, Esq., Butchers’ Company, 
 32, Wilson-street, Einshmy. 
 
 Bread Street Ward.—William Hughes Hughes, Esq., Cord- 
 wainers’ Company, 17, Great Distaff-lane. 
 
 Billingsgate Ward .—Thomas Sidney, Esq., Girdlers’ Company, 
 Ludgate-hill. 
 
 Fortsoken Ward.—Erancis Graham Moon, Esq., Stationers’ 
 Company, 90, Threadneedle-street. 
 
 HccorDtr. 
 
 Honourable Charles Ewan Law, Q.C. and M.P., 72, Eaton-place. 
 
 SljU'iffs. 
 
 Thomas Challis, Esq., Aid., 32, Wilson-street, Einsbury. 
 Robert William Kennard, Esq., Upper Thames-street. 
 
 anB£f=SIjmffs. 
 
 Alexander John Ba 3 'lis, Esq., Basinghall-street. 
 
 Thomas Tilleard, Esq., 34, Old Jewry. 
 
 2.-THE COMMON COUNCIL, 
 
 With their Wards and Residences. 
 
 Acocks, Thomas, Queenhithe, 4, Great Trinity-lane 
 Adlard, Alfred, Castk-Baynard, 8, Wardrobe-place 
 Aitchison, George, Tower, 6, Muscovy-court, Trinity-square 
 Allan, David, Esq., Deputy, Ooleman-street, 46, Coleman-street 
 Anderton, James, ISsq,, Farringdon-without, 20, New Bridge-sf. 
 Archer, William, Vintry, 177, Upper Thames-street 
 Ashby, Richard, Bishopsgate, 24, Bishopsgate-street 
 Ashurst, William Henry, Farringdon-within, 137, Cheapsid 
 Bailey, James, Castle-baynard, 77, St. Paul’s Churchyard 
 Baker, Stephen, Broad-street, 24, Token-house-yard 
 
Barnard, James Michael, Tarringdon-wUhout, 24, Old Bailey 
 
 Barnes, Willia m George, Billingsgate, 46, Botolph-lane 
 
 Bedford, J. T., Esq. Dep., Farringdon-witliout, 35, Eaningdon-st 
 
 Bennet^ Solomon, Bishopsgate, 130, Bishopsgate-street 
 
 Bennoch, Brands, Cripplegate-withm, 78, Wood- street 
 
 Blades, Joseph, Candlewick, 11, Abehnrch-lane 
 
 Blate, Henry, Farringdon-within, 106, Hewgate-street 
 
 Bond, Charles, Candlewick, 62, Cannon-street 
 
 Bonser, Thomas, Farringdon-within, 8, Eose-st, Newgate-market 
 
 Bower, Benjamin, Billingsgale, 106, Lower Thames-street 
 
 Bracher, Gwrge, Coleman-street, 2, Copthall-bnildings 
 
 Brass, William, Cripplegate-within, Silver-street, Wood-street 
 
 Bridge, J. S. Esq. Dep., Bread-street, 21, Bread-street 
 
 Briggs, John, Tower, 57. Great Tower-street 
 
 Britten, John, Esq. Deputy, Bassishaw, 21, Basinghall-street 
 
 Brook, Bicha^ l&q. Deputy, Cheap, 1, Poultry 
 
 Brown, Benjamin Edward, Cripplegate-within, 31, Aldennanhury 
 
 Brown, John, Esq. Deputy, Dowgate, Cousin-lane 
 
 Bnckmaster, John, Farringdon-without, 53, Shoe-lane 
 
 Bum, 'SevTy,Farringdon-withovt, 2, Salisbury-court, Fleet-street 
 
 Capel, Henry, Tower, 17, Little Tower-street 
 
 Carr, James Rowland, Bishopsgate, 11, Lirerpool-street 
 
 Carter, John, Comhill, 61, Comhill 
 
 Cash, William, Cripplegate-within, 39, Wood-street 
 
 Gasterton, William, Hroad-sfree^ I, Angel-ct., Throgmorton-st. 
 
 Chadwick, William, Bridge, 5, Adelaide-place 
 
 Christie, William, Portsoken, 6, Somerset-street, Aldgate 
 
 Clifton, George William, Aldgate, 37, Jewry-street 
 
 Collingwood, William, CasSe-bagnard, 10, Newgate-market 
 
 Conder, Edward, Walbrook, 2, Salter’s Hall-court 
 
 Cope, Jacob George, Bridge, 133, Upper Thames-street 
 
 Cork, Daniel, Esq. Deputy, Lime-street, 18, LeadenhaU-market 
 
 Comey, Thos. Esq. Deputy, Broad-street, 65, Old Broad-street 
 
 Consens, Richard Thomas, Dowgate, Steel-yard 
 
 Croneher, William, Cordwainer, 23, Queen-street, Cheapside 
 
 Curling, William, Esq. Dep. Billingsgate, 13, Lower Thames-st. 
 
 Curtis, James, QueerJiithe, 11, Old Fish-street 
 
 Dakin, Thomas, Candlewici, 73, King William-street 
 
 Danford, John, Portsoken, 81, Aldgate High-street 
 
 Davies, Jam^ Coleman-street, 25, Coleman-street 
 
 Dawson, William, Walbrook, 74, Cannon-street 
 
 De Jersey, Henry, Aldersgate, 162, Aldersgate-street 
 
 Dever, Robert, Comhill, 60, Comhill 
 
 Dewar, David. Jun., Cripplegate-within, 7, King’s-Arms-buildgs. 
 
 Wood-street 
 
 Dignam, James, Bread-street, Distaff-lane 
 
 Dixon, John, Esq., langboum, 37, Broad-street-buildings 
 
 Dixon, Richard, Esq. Depu^, Cripplegate-without, Barbican 
 
 Duncan, James, Bread-street, 22, Bread-street 
 
 Bagleton, E. Esq. Dep., Farringdon-within, 83, Newgate-street 
 
 EdMns, Samuel Sabine, Farringdon-without, 16, Salisbury-square 
 
 Bldrid, Thomas, Cripplegate-without, 21, Fore-street 
 
91 
 
 Evans, Jer. Esq. Dep., Candkwkk, 33, King William-street 
 
 Farrar, Frederick, Castk-baynard, 12, Godliman-street 
 
 Fenning, Eugenius, Cheap, 5, Poultry 
 
 Finnis, T. Quested, Esq, Dep. Tower, 79, Great Tower-street 
 
 Fisher, Edward, Aldgate, 36, Leadenhall-street 
 
 Foster, Thos. Willoughby, Broad-street, 68, Old Broad-street 
 
 Freeman, Arthur, Aldgate, 5, Fenchuroh-buildings 
 
 Frodsham.Wm. Jas., F,R.S., Langbourn, i, Change-alley 
 
 Gadsden, Henry Francis, Broad-street, 18, Old Broad-street 
 
 Gibson, John Holmes, Langbourn, 79, Lombard-street 
 
 Gilbert, Sam. Massey, Cripplegate-viithout, 6, New Basinghall-st 
 
 Godson, Edward, Esq., Aldersgate, 72, Aldersgate-street 
 
 Goss, J. Wm. Esq. Dep., Queenhithe, Bull-whh Up. Thames-st, 
 
 Hale, Ford, Walbrooh, 7, Cannon-street 
 
 Hale, Warren Stormes, Coleman-street, 21, Gresham-street 
 
 Hall, Thomas, Bishopsgate, 103, Bishopsgate-street 
 
 Hall, Thomas Henry, Coleman-street, 48, Finsbury-square 
 
 Hardwick, Benjamin, Cheap, Weavers’ Hall, Basinghall-street 
 
 Harker, George, Dowgate, 103, Upper Thames-street 
 
 Harrison, Edward, Esq. Deputy, Cornhill, 82, Cornhill 
 
 Hartley, James, Faningdon-witUn, 27,-New Bridge-street 
 
 Hawtrey, William, Bread-street, 42, Bread-street 
 
 Hayward, J. P. Esq. Dep. Farrmgdon-within, 88, Newgate-st. 
 
 Hayward, Thomas. Carlyle, Portsoken, 93, Miuories 
 
 Hicks, Richard, Esq. Dep. Castk-baynard, 12, Newgate-market 
 
 Hickson, Edward, Cheap, King, street 
 
 Hill, John, Bridge, 22, Fish-street-hill 
 
 Hodgson, iildmund, Farringdon-without, 192, Fleet-street 
 
 Holt, T. Jefferson, Farringdon-within, 63, St. Paul’s Church-yd. 
 
 Hoole, James, Cripplegate-within, 36, Aldermanbury 
 
 Hoppe, James, Castle-baynard, 5, Bennett’s-hill 
 
 Howard, Ebenezer, Langbourn, Leadenhall-market 
 
 Humphreys, Wm. Come, Farringdon-within, 119, Newgate-street 
 
 Hunter, John, Cornhill, 43, Cornhill 
 
 Isherwood, Nicholas Thos. Farringdon-without, 35, Ludgate-hill 
 
 James, William Boyce, Bassishaw, 5, Basinghall-street 
 
 Jerram, John, Aldgate, 14, Fenchuroh-buildings 
 
 Johnson, John, Cripplegate-wilhout, 13, Whitecross-street 
 
 Johnson, Richard, Coleman-street, Mooregate 
 
 Johnson, William, Bishopsgate, 175, Bishopsgate-street 
 
 JoUiffe, Isaac, Cordwainer, 68, Queen-street 
 
 Jones, Rich. L. Esq. Cripplegate-without, 40,' Little Moorfields 
 
 Jones, William, Esq. Bishopsgate, 7, Crosby-square 
 
 Joyce, Thomas, Cordwainer, 70, Watling-street 
 
 .Jupp, Rich. Webb, Broad-street, Carpenters’ Hall, London-wall 
 
 Jutsum, Sam. Hawkins, Portsoken, 64, Aldgate High-street 
 
 Kebbel, Henry, Dowgate, AUhallows-lane 
 
 Kemp, Thomas Reginald, Candlewich, 3, Abchurch-lane 
 
 Killby, James, Portsoken, 6.3, Aldgate High-street 
 
 King, John, Esq. Deputy. Vintry, 17, College-hill 
 
 Knill, John, Billingsgate, Fresh-wharf, Lower Thames-street 
 
 Knott, William, Bridge, 60, Gracechurch-street 
 
Lake, James, Esq. Deputy, Aldgate, 33, Aldgate 
 Lart, Jolm, Oippkgate-wiihin, H6, Wood-street 
 Laurie, Datid, Bread-steet, 83, Watling-street . 
 
 Lattrence, William, Esq. Bread-street, 30, Bread-street 
 Lepaid, Samuel, Vinfry, 9, Cloak-lane 
 lii, Henry John, Farringdm-witlwut, 7, Salisbmy-conrt 
 Lister, Wilham, Bassishaw, 78, Baanghall-street 
 LorMn, John, Esq. Deputy, Aldersgate, 24, Aldersgate-street 
 Lott, Ihomas, F.S.A., Coritnamer, 43, Bow-lane 
 Low, James, Bridge, 30, Gracechnrch-street 
 Lynch, Jordan E. lir.D., Farringdwi-wiihmt, 24, Farringdon-st. 
 M'Lanchlan, David J. Farringdoa-within, Printing House-square 
 JIarriott, Henry, Broad-street, 89, Fleet-street 
 Marsden, Thomas, Vintrg, 36, Queen-street 
 Stissey, Benjamin, Aldgate, 116, Leadenhall-street 
 Hatthew, Henry, Bridge, 106, Upper Thames-street 
 Jlaughan, Hcholas, Bread-street, 5, Little Distaff-lane 
 Haw, Solomon, Aldersgate, 11, Aldersgate-street 
 Headway, George, Cripplegate-without, 117, Fore-street 
 Hiller, Henry, Langhovm, 140, Fenchurch-street 
 Morra, Joseph, Farringdon-within, 35, Ludgate-street 
 Huddeil,William,Esq. Deputy, Cordwainer, 6, Little St. Thomas 
 Apostle 
 
 Huggeridge, Henry, Castle-baynard, St. Andrew’s-hill 
 Horris, John Thomas, Aldersgate, 138, Aldersgate-street 
 Obbard, Bobert,Esq.,Dep.,farriBjdon-w!tAou/,2, Crescent, New 
 Bridge-street 
 
 Old, Tre^am, Jun. Billingsgate, 9, Billingsgate 
 Oliver, Gleoige, Cheap, 7, Lawrence-lane 
 Owdei^ Thomas Scambler, Sishopsgate, 62, Bishopsgate-street- 
 withont 
 
 Parker, John, Esq. Portsoken, 96, Hinories 
 Patten,’Henry, Bishopsgate, 13, Bishopsgate-street 
 Peacock, W. A., Esq. Dep. Bishopsgate, 161, Bishopsgate-street 
 Pead, Bobert George, Cheap, 4, Honey-lane-market 
 Perkins, Joseph, Colemn-street, 68, Coleman-street 
 Pewtress, Thos., Esq. Dep. Bridge, 30, Gracechnrch-street 
 Phillips, Benjamin Samuel, Farringdon-within, 40, Newgate-st. 
 P hilli ps, Henry, Cheap, 17, Ironmonger-lane 
 Phillips, James, Coleman-street, 9, Kmg-'s Arms-yard 
 Phillips, Bichard Marshall, Biffinysyute, 11. Bood-lane 
 Pileher, William Humphery, Bishopsgate, 18, New Broad-street 
 Prendergast, Miehael, Esq. Farringdon-withotd, 32, Castle-street, 
 Holbom 
 
 Prior, Jonathan Charles, Dowgate, Upper Thames-street 
 
 Bmdall, Eichard, Corrthill, 33, Comhill 
 
 Bathbone, TTOliam, Queenhithe, Trig-wharf, Upper Thames-st. 
 
 Bead, Septimus, Cripplegate-ioithout, 41, Jewin-streei 
 
 Bedhead, Lawrence, Esq. Tower, Mark-lane 
 
 Eidley, Samuel, Farringdon-within, 46, Newgate-street 
 
 Bobert^ James, Billingsgate, 10, Eastcheap 
 
 Eowley, Thomas, Walbrooh, lb, Canhoii-street 
 
93 
 
 Kownson, Joseph, Castle-baynard, 217, Upper Thames-street 
 Eutter, Valentme, Faningdon-willin, 27, Wewgate-market 
 Sadler, Prancis, Cripplegate-without, 1, Pore-street 
 Salter, Thomas Prederick, Aldgate, 24, Aldgate 
 Selson, George, Tower, 42, Great Tower-street 
 Sharland, John, Bishopsgate, 39, Bishopsgate-street 
 Sharwood, Samuel, Jun. AMersgate, 120, AMersgate-street 
 Shaw, Edmund, langhoum, 124, Penchurch-street 
 Simpson, Thos. Bridge, Esg. Lime-street, 156, Leadenhall-street 
 Smith, Henry, Esq. Deputy, Cnpplegafe-Mu'tA/a, 11, Pell-street, 
 Wood-street 
 
 SneU, James Pettit, Bread-street, 43, Priday-street 
 Snelling, Thomas, Zangbourn, 30, Penchurch-street 
 Sprague, Thomas, Vintrg, 4, College-hill 
 Stacy, George, Aldersgate, Aldersgate-street 
 Stevens, William, Esq. Dep. Bishopsgate, 78, Bishopsgate-street 
 Within 
 
 Sykes, Joseph, Queenhithe, 6, Bread-street-hill 
 Symonds, Thomas, Lime-street, Leadenhall-market 
 Tanner, William, Lime-street, Leadenhall-place 
 Taylor, Henry Lowman, Cordwainer, 10, Queen-street 
 Taylor, Eichard, P.S.A., Farrmgdon-without, Bed Lion-court, 
 Pieet-street 
 
 Thomas, Eichard, Bishopsgate, 102, Bishopsgate-street 
 
 Thomson, James Eichard, Portsokn, 9, George-street, Minories 
 
 Towse, John Becbvith, Candlewick, 24, Laurence Pountney-lane 
 
 Tozer, William, Bishopsgate, 13, Half Moon-street 
 
 TumbuB, Thomas, Tower, 14, Trinity-square 
 
 Turner, Thomas, Farringdon-without, West Smithfield 
 
 Tyler, William, Queetiliithe, 17, Queenhithe 
 
 Unwin, Samuel, Esq. Dep, Langboum, Lombard-street 
 
 Virtue, George, Farringdon-within, 26, Ivy-lane 
 
 Walter, George, Farringdon-without, Shoe-lane 
 
 Warton, Charles, Broad-street, 38, Threadneedle-street 
 
 Waterlow, James, Comhill, 24, Birchin-lane 
 
 Watkins, Thomas, Esq. Dep, Walbrooh, 1, Cannon-street 
 
 Watson, Edward, Cheap, 6 , King-street 
 
 Whetham, Charles, Bridge, 38, Graceohuroh-street 
 
 White, Thomas, Dowgate, Dowgate-wharf 
 
 White, Wm. Dunsford,F!«&'y, Kennett's-wharf, Up. Thames-st. 
 
 Whiteside, Eobert Butler, Aldgate, 32, Aldgate 
 
 Williams, Eichard, Farringdon-without, H, Ludgate-hill' 
 
 Williams, William Meade, Billingsgate, 6, Eood-lane 
 
 Wilson, John, Bassishaw, Mason’s-alley, Basinghall-street 
 
 Wire, David Williams, Esq. Walbrooh, 9,-St. Swithin’s-lane 
 
 Wood, John, Aldersgate, 8, Palcon-street 
 
 Wright, George, Esq. Dep. Portsoken, 2, Houndsditch 
 
 Young, Thomas, Tower, 29, Mark-lane 
 
94 
 
 3-COMMITTEES OF COMMON COUNCIL. 
 
 IRISH SOCIETr. 
 
 Directed by Charter to be elected annually at the Co 0 rt of 
 Co3X5ro\ CoDscn, nest following the 2nd Day of Fehrnary. 
 GorerTiori—John Humphrey. Esq., Alderman 
 Bepuiy-Governor.—2 William Knott, Esq. 
 Recorder.—Ron. Charles Ewan Law, Q.C. 
 
 ALDEBJIEK. 
 
 - William Thompson, Esq. 2 Sir Chapman Marshall, Knt. 
 
 1 Charles Earebrother, Esq. 1 Sir John Piiie, Bart. 
 
 2 Samnel Wilson, Esq. ' 
 
 1 Mr. Benjamin Hardwick 
 1 „ James Davis 
 1 „ Henry L. Taylor 
 1 „ John Carter 
 
 2 3&. Edward Eisher 
 2 „ William B. James 
 
 2 W. Cnrling, Esq., Deputy 
 2 Mr. Thomas Hall 
 2 „ James E. Carr 
 2 ,, Eicholas Maughan 1 „ Francis Sadler 
 
 2 „ James White 1 „ Thomas White 
 
 2 „ Charles Bond 1 „ IVilliam H. Ashnrst 
 
 1 ,, .Joseph Eownson 1 „ James Hartley 
 
 (Monthly Meetings, Fourth Tuesday in the Month). 
 
 Sccretoy—John Ebenezer Davies, Esq. 
 
 COMMITTEE FOE lETTIXG THE CITY’S LANDS. 
 
 ALDERJIES. 
 
 1 EightHon.Sir George Carroll, 4 John Johnson, Esq. 
 
 Knt, Lord Mayor 1 Thomas Famcomb, Esq. 
 
 1. William Thompson, Esq. 4 William Hunter, Esq. 
 
 2 Sir John Key, Bart. 4 William H. Hughes, Esq. 
 
 4 Thomas Kelly, Esq. 3 Francis G. Moon, Esq. 
 
 1 Sir .John Pirie, Bait 4 T. Challis, Esq. (Sheriff). 
 
 5 -John Humphrey, Esq. 
 
 Chairman—i Mr. Henry Bum. 
 
 2 Mr. Samnel Sharwood, jnn. 4 Mr. John Carter 
 
 2 „ JohnJerram. ’ 1 „ Benjamin E. Brown 
 
 2 „ John Wilson, for 3 years 4 EichardDixon, Esq., Deputy 
 
 2 „ John KniU 4 Mr. Eichard T. Cousens, Esq. 
 
 4 „ Henry Patton 2 „ Thomas J. Holt 
 
 2 „ E. Ashby, for 2 years 4 „ Samuel Eidley 
 
 2 ,, William Bbwtrey 3 Michael PrendergMt, Esq. 
 
 1 „ Henry Matthew 3 Mr, Thomas Snelling 
 
 1 T. Comer, Esq., Deputy I „ W. Tanner, for 3 years 
 
 1 Mr. Charles Bond 3 „ Samuel H. Jutsnm 
 
95 
 
 1 Mr. James Bailey 3 Mr. Thomas Acocks 
 
 1 „ Edward Watson 3 T. Q. Finds, Esq., Deputy 
 
 1 „ Kichard Johnson 3 Mr. Thomas Marsden 
 
 1 „ W. Croucher, for 1 year 3 David W. Wire, Esq. 
 Qwonim—Two Aldermen and Four Commoners, or any Seven. 
 {Monthly Meeting, Second Wednesday in the Month). 
 
 IN THE appointment OF THE COMMITTEE. 
 
 1814, Collector of Bents of Tenants at Wdl—Mi. John Eqad 
 1833, Keeper of the Monument—Mr. John Bleaden 
 . 1828, City Labourer—Mr. William Long. 
 
 COMMMITTEE FOR LETTING THE BRIDGE-HOUSE 
 
 aldebm'En. 
 
 4 Eight Hon. Sir G. Carrol, Knt., 2 John Johnson, Esq. 
 
 Lord Mayor 4 Thomas Wood, Esq. 
 
 4 Sir Claudius S. Hunter, Bart. 3 John K. Hooper, Esq. 
 
 3 Charles Farebrother, Esq. 3 Sir James Duke, Knt. 
 
 4 AVilliam T. Copeland, Esq. 1 John Musgrove, Esq. 
 
 4 Sir William Magnay, Bart. 1 Thomas Sidney, Esq. 
 
 I Michael Gibbs, Esq. 
 
 COMMONERS. 
 
 Deputy Chairman—‘ 
 
 1 Mr. Henry de Jersey 
 
 2 „ Eobert B. Whiteside 
 
 2 „ William Lister 
 
 2 ,, Treuham Old, jun. 
 
 2 „ William Johnson 
 
 2 „ James Duncan 
 
 1 „ James Low 
 
 1 „ Charles Warton 
 
 1 Jeremiah Evans, Esq, Dep. 
 
 1 Mr. Frederick Farrar 
 1 „ Edward Hickson 
 1 „ Thomas H. Hall 
 
 4 „ Isaac Jollitfe 
 
 3 „ E. Dever, for 3 years 
 1 „ James Hoole 
 
 : William Stevens, Esq. 
 
 4 Mr. George Meadway 
 2 „ H. Kebbel, for 2 years 
 
 2 „ Henry Blake 
 
 4 E. Eagleton, Esq., Deputy 
 
 3 Mi\ James M. Barnard 
 
 1 „ Henry J. Lias, for 1 year 
 
 1 „ W. J. Frodsham, F.E.S., 
 for 2 years 
 
 2 „ Thomas B. Simpson, Esq. 
 
 3 „ William Cristie 
 
 3 „ William Tyler 
 
 3 „ Thomas Turnbull 
 
 3 „ William D. White 
 2 T. Watkins, Esq., Deputy, for 
 3 years 
 
 Quoium—Tsro Aldermen and Four Commoners, or any Seven. 
 {Monthly Meeting, Second Friday in the Month). ^ 
 
 GEESHAM COMUHTTEE. 
 
 ALDERMEN. 
 
 1 Eight Hon. Sir George Carrol, Knt., Lord Mayor. 
 
 1 Sir Feter Laurie, Knt. ,1 J. Humphrey, Esq, fur 1 year. 
 
C0H3I0NEBS. 
 
 1 Mr. John T. Xorris 1 Vf. Stevans, Esq., Deputy, for 
 
 1 James Lake, Esq., Deputy 2 years 
 1 Mr. W. Lister, for 3 years 1 W. Lawrence, Esq., for 1 year 
 1 Mr. B. Bower, for 3 years 1 Mr. J. G. Cope, for 1 year 
 I W. Peacock, Dep. for 2 years 1 B. L. Jones, Esq., for 2 years 
 
 C0MMISSIO3SEES OP SEWEES, LAMPS. AM) 
 PAVEMENTS. 
 
 Bight Hon. Sir George Carroll, Knt., Lord Mayor. 
 
 All the Aldermen who are eligible, Eecorder, Common-Sergeant, 
 and the sereral Deputies who are eligible. 
 
 CSairaan—TValter Anderson Peacock, Esq., Deputy. 
 
 2 Edward Godson, Esq. 
 
 4 Mr. BobertB. HTiiteside 
 
 1 „ John Wilson 
 
 2 ,, James Boberts 
 4 „ William Tozer 
 
 3 ,, James B, Carr 
 
 3 William Lawrence, Esq. 
 
 1 Mr. William Chadwick 
 
 2 _ Stephen Baker 
 
 2 „ Thomas E. Kemp 
 
 1 ,, J. Hoppe, for 2 years 
 
 2 „ E. Watson, for 3 years 
 
 2 „ Joseph Perkins 
 
 3 ,, Henry L. Taylor 
 3 ,, John Carter 
 
 1 Mr. William Brass 
 4 Bichard L. Jones, Esq. 
 
 3 Mr. Jonathan C. Prior 
 
 4 „ Thomas Bonser 
 
 1 „ J. Morris, for 3 years 
 1 „ J. M. Barnard, for 3 years 
 1 „ George Waller 
 1 „ Henry Miller 
 1 „ W. Tanner, for 1 year 
 4 „ WDliam Christie 
 1 ,, William Eathbone 
 
 1 „ Thomas Young 
 
 2 „ William D. White 
 1 „ Edward Conder 
 
 Quorum—Any Seven.—(ilfeet every Tuesday). 
 
 LV THE APPOIKT3IBST OF THE COJUIISSIONEKS. 
 
 1837, Principal Clerk—Mr. Joseph Daw 
 1839, Assistant Clerk—Mi. William Tickner 
 1846, Surveyor—Ml. William Heywood 
 
 ISSPECTOBS OF PA-VEJIENTS.. 
 
 1829, A'ortk saddle District—Mr. George Mortimer 
 1846, South Middle District—Mr. Thomas Painter 
 1846, East District—Mr. William Santler, jnn. 
 1846, West District—Ml. William Temout 
 
 ISSPECTOE OF SEWEBS. 
 
 1829—Mr. William Santler 
 
97 
 
 THAMES HAYIGATION AHD PORT OP LOITOON 
 COMMTTEE. 
 
 ALDERMEN. 
 
 1 Eight Hon. Sir G. Carroll, 2 John Johnson, Esq. 
 
 Knt., Lord Mayor 2 William Hunter, Esq. 
 
 1 Sir Peter Laurie, Knt. 2 William H. Hughes, Esq. 
 
 1 Thomas Kelly, Esq. 2 Thomas Sidney, Esq. 
 
 3 Sir Chapman Marshall, Knt. 2 Francis G. Moon, Esq. 
 
 4 Sir William Magnay, Bart. 3 T. Challis, Esq. (Sheriff). 
 3 Michael Gibbs, Esq. 
 
 COMMONERS. 
 
 Chairman—i Mr. Edward Conder 
 
 4 Mr. Solomon Maw 
 2 „ George W. Clifton 
 
 2 John Britton, Esq., Deputy 
 
 3 Mr. B. Bower, for 3 years 
 
 4 „ Richard Thomas 
 
 2 W.A. Peacock, Esq., Dep. 
 for 2 years 
 
 2 J. S. Bridge, Esq., Hop. 
 for 3 years 
 
 2 Mr. Jacob G. Cope 
 
 4 „ Henry P. Gadsden 
 
 3 „ Joseph Blades 
 
 3 „ William Collingwood 
 1 „ E. G. Pead, for 3 years 
 1 „ James Davies 
 
 1 William Muddell, Esq.,Deputy 
 
 2 E. Harrison, Esq., Deputy 
 
 3 Mr. John Lart 
 
 4 ,, Francis Sadler 
 
 3 J.Brown, Esq., Deputy 
 
 1 Mr.W. H. Ashurst,for 1 year 
 
 2 „ George Virtue 
 
 2 „ Richard Williams 
 2 E. Ohhard, Esq., Deputy 
 
 1 Mr. Edmund Shaw 
 
 2 D. Cork, Esq., Deputy 
 
 3 John Parker, Esq. 
 
 3 Mr. James Curtis 
 
 1 Lawrence Redhead, Esq. 
 
 1 Mr. Thomas Sprague 
 
 Quorum—Two Aldermen and Pour Commoners, or any Seven. 
 (Monihhj meeting, First Thursday in the month). 
 
 IN THE APPOINTMENT OP THE COMMITTEE. 
 
 1843, Clerli of the Works and Collector of the Tolls —Mr. Leach. 
 1837, Barge-master and Assistant Co&ctor—Mr.Humphreys. 
 1813, Superintendent of Mooring-chains—Mx. M Marshall 
 1828, Surveyor of the Port of London—Fix. J. Elmes 
 
 intu Tlnrhovr 5Mf. VilliersSteward 
 
 18403 ^''''Slants totheHarbour-masters 
 
 1844, Clerk to the Arbour Service—Mr. W. Jaques 
 (Office, St. Katherine’s.) 
 
 COAL AHD CORN AND FINANCE COMMITTEE. 
 
 AIDER3IEN, 
 
 2 Sir Claudius S. Hunter, Bart. 4 John Musgrove, Esq. 
 
 1 Matthias P. Lucas, Esq. 3 William Hunter, Esq. 
 
 2 Sir John Pirie, Bart. 3 William H. Hughes, Esq. 
 
 1 John Humphery, Esq. 3 Thomas Sidne)', Esq. 
 
 1 Sir William Magnay, Bart. 2 Francis G. Moon, Esq. 
 
 2 John Johnson, Esq. 3 T. Challis, Esq. (Sheriff). 
 
 K 
 
98 
 
 cojnrosEBs. 
 
 Chairman—i David Allen, Esq., Deputy 
 2 3Ir. John Wood 3 Eichard L. Jones, Esq. 
 
 4 James lake, Esq. 2 Mr. Bichard Eandall 
 
 2 Mr John Wilson 1 „ Thomas White 
 
 •3 W. Carling', Esq., Deputy 1 „ Benjamin S. Phillips 
 
 2 Mr. John SharlanJ 4 „ David J. M'Lauchlan 
 
 I ,, T. S. 0>vden,for 2 years 1 „ Thomas Turner 
 
 1 „ .James Dignam 2 „ Samuel S. Edkins 
 
 3 T. Peivtress, Esq., Deputy 1 John Dixon, Esq. 
 
 2 Mr. Thomas W. Poster 1 Mr. T. Symonds, for 3 years 
 
 2 „ T. E. Kemp, for 2 years 3 „ James E. Thomson 
 
 1 „ Henry Maggeridge 1 „ William Eathbone 
 
 1 „ G. Oliver, for 2 years 1 „ George Selson 
 
 3 „ Thomas Lott. P.S'.A. 1 „ William Archer 
 
 1 H. Smith, Esq., Depnty 2 „ T. Kowley, for 3 years 
 Quorum —Two Aldermen and Pour Commoners, or any Seven. 
 (Monthly meeting, Third Tuesday in the month). 
 
 COMMITTEE POE GESEEAL PDEPOSES. 
 
 ALDERMES, 
 
 2 Sir Claudius S. Hunter, Bart 1 Michael Gibbs, Esq. 
 
 2 William Thompson, Esq. 4 William Hunter, Esq. 
 
 3 Sir John Key, Bart 3 William H. Hughes, Esq. 
 
 3 William T. Copeland, Esq. 3 Thomas Sidney, Esq. 
 
 1 Thomas Kelly, Esq. 3 Prancis G. Moon, Esq. 
 
 2 Sir William Magnay, Bart 3 T. Challis, Esq. (Sheriff). 
 
 COVDIO.VEBS. 
 
 Chairr/Utn—i Sir. Charles Whetham 
 
 1 Mr. John T. Korris 2 Mr. P. Bennoch, for 2 years 
 
 2 „ A. Preeman, for 2 yrs. 4 „ Thomas Eldrid 
 
 2 „ William Lister 1 ,, George Harker 
 
 1 ,, ^William G. Barnes 3 „ Thomas Bonser 
 
 3 „ William Tozer 2 „ Valentine Eutter • 
 
 2 William H. Pilcher 3 „ J.Buckmaster, forSyear.s 
 
 2 W.LaTrrence,Esq.,for3yr3, 2 „ Nicholas T. Ishenvood 
 
 1 Mr. S. Baker, for 2 years 4 ,, Ebenezer Howard 
 
 3 ,, Thoman Dakin 1 T.B. Simpson, Esq. for 3 years 
 
 2 „ A. Adlard, for 3 years 2 Mr. Thomas C. Hayward 
 
 1 „ Henry Phillips 3 „ Thomas Acocks 
 
 2 ,, Warren S. Hale 2 „ Henry Capel 
 
 1 „ Thomas Joyce 3 John Eng, Esq., Deputy 
 
 3 ,, James Waterlow 1 Mr. Pord Hale 
 
 Quorum —^Two Aldermen and Pour Commoners, or any Seven. 
 (MonOdy meeting. Third Wednesday in the month). 
 
99 
 
 IN THE APFOINTMENT OF THE COMMITTEE. 
 
 iSU, Sunmjor of Blaelifriars-hridge—iilT. James Montague 
 1817, Upholsterer —Mr. Eobert William Herring 
 1826, Paper Hanger—Ur. Alexander Saunders 
 1833, Glassman—llv. John Stanes 
 IS-tl, Brazier and Tinman—Mx. Kichard S. H. Hall 
 
 MAEKETS’ COMMITTEE. 
 
 4 Eight Hon. Sir George Carroll, Knt., Lord Slajmr 
 
 3 Sir Claudius S. Hunter, Bart, 4 Sir Chapman Marshall, Knt, 
 
 I Matthias P. Lucas, Esq. 1 Michael Gibbs, Esq. 
 
 4 Sir Peter Laurie, Knt. 4 Thomas Wood, Esq. 
 
 4 Cliarles Earebrother, Esq. 3 John K. Hooper, Esq. 
 
 4 William T. Copeland, Esq. 2 Sir James Duke, Knt. 
 
 4 Samuel Wilson, Esq. T. Challis, Esq. (^Sheriff). 
 
 Cliaiman—i Mr. George Aitohison 
 1 George Stacy, Esq. 1 Mr. D. Dewer, iun.,for 1 year 
 
 4 Mr. Thomas F. Salter 4 „ Samuel M. Gilbert 
 
 1 J. Britten, Esq., Deputy 4 J, Brown, Esq., Deputy 
 
 2 Mr. W. M. Williams, for 3 I Mr. W. C. Humphreys, for 
 
 years 1 year 
 
 4 William Jones, Esq. 4 E. Eagleton, Esq., Deputy 
 
 3 Mr. Solomon Bennett 2 J. T. Bedford, Esq., Deputy, 
 
 1 „ James P. Snell for 2 years 
 
 4 „ John Hill 4 Mr. Edmond, Hodgson 
 
 2 ' „ Charles Warton 4 „ Edmund Shaw 
 
 3 „ John B. Towso 4 D. Cork, Esq., Deputy 
 
 .3 „ J. Hoppe, for 3 years 4 Mr. James Kiilby 
 
 1 „ Eobert G. Pead 1 „ James Curtis 
 
 4 „ James Phillips I „ W. Archer, for 3 years 
 
 1 „ I. Jolliffe, for 1 year 4 „ Thomas Eowley 
 
 4 „ James Waterlow 
 
 And the Chairman of the Committee for letting the City’s Lands. 
 Quorum—Any Seven. 
 
 (Monthly meeting, Third Friday in the month), 
 
 1810, Farringdon Market — Collector, Mr. Eichard Freeman 
 1840, Ladenhall ditto—Assistant Collector, Mr. W. Davidson 
 1844 ditto ditto—Coiistable of MarhetyWillhraBMlen 
 1833 Newgate ditto ditto John B. Kentish 
 
100 
 
 LIBEAET COIDIITTEE. 
 
 3 Eioht Hon. Sir G. Carroll, 1 Thomas Wood, Esq. 
 
 Knt, Lord Jlayor 3 Thomas Eamcomb, Esq. 
 
 1 W. Thompson, Esq. 3 William H. Hughes, Esq. 
 
 3 Thomas Kelly, Esq. 3 Thomas Sidney, Esq. 
 
 2 Samuel Wilson, Esq. 3 Erancis G. Moon, Esq. 
 
 1 Sir C. Marshall, Knt 3 T. Challis, Esq. (Skriff’.) 
 
 1 Sir W. Magnay, Bart 
 
 COTDIONEBS. 
 
 Chairman—i John Dixon, Esq. 
 
 3 M. H De Jersey, for 3 yrs. 2 Mr. John Hunter 
 
 1 „ .Arthur Ereeman 2 „ James Hoole 
 
 2 J. Britten, Esq., Deputy 1 „ Septimus Eead 
 
 3 Mr. Benjamin Bower 4 ■„ Thomas White 
 
 1 William Jones, Esq. 1 „ Henry Blake 
 
 3 Mr. William H. Pilcher 2 „ Samuel Eidley 
 
 2 „ Darid Laurie 1 „ James M. Barnard 
 
 I ., John Hill 3 „ Edmund Hodgson 
 
 3 T. Comey, Esq., Deputy 3 Thomas B. Simpson, Esq. 
 
 1 Mr. Joseph Blades 3 3Ir. James E. Thomson 
 
 •i „ James Bailey 4 „ Joseph E. Sykes 
 
 2 „ George Oliver 3 „ Thomas Turnbull 
 
 2 ,, James Phillips 2 „ Samuel Lepard 
 
 1 „ Henry L. Taylor 4 David W. Wire, Esq. 
 Quorum —Two Aldermen and Eonr Commoners, or any Seven, 
 (Monthly meeting, First Monday in the month). 
 
 1845, Librarian—Mr. William Turner Alehin. 
 
 Library open from Ten till Eive daily. 
 
 POLICE COMJHTTEE. 
 
 EightHon. Sir Geoige Carroll, Knt, Lord Mayor. 
 
 All the Aldermen and Deputies who are eligible. 
 C/iafrman—Thomas Wood, Esq., Alderman. 
 
 I Edward Godson, Esq. 3 Mr. Benjamin E. Brown 
 
 1 Mr. Edward Eisher 1 „ John Johnson 
 
 2 ,, John Wilson 4 „ Jonathan C. Prior 
 
 2 „ E, M. Phillips, for 2 years 1 „ Thomas Bonser 
 
 1 „ Thomas Hall, for 1 year 1 „ Joseph Morris 
 
 1 ,, T. S. Owden, for 1 year 2 „ . Eiehard Taylor 
 
 2 „ Bichard Johnson 1 J. Anderton, Esq., for 3 yrs 
 
 3 „ William Croucher 3 Mr. James Duncan 
 
 1 „ Eiehard Eandall 4 „ Henry Matthew 
 
101 
 
 1 Mr. H. Marriott, for 1 year 4 John Parker, Esq. 
 
 4 „ Joseph Blades 2 Mr. William Tyler 
 
 1 „ James Hoppe 2 „ George Selson 
 
 3 „ Eobert George Pead 2 „ Thomas Marsden 
 
 3 Mr. John Holines Gibson 2 „ William Dawson 
 
 I „ Thomas Symonds Eichard L. Jones, Esq. 
 
 Qaorum—Any Seven. 
 
 {Monthly meeting, last Wednesday in the month). 
 
 SECONDAEIES AND CITY COURTS COMMITTEE. 
 Sir C. S. Hunter, Bart. Mr. Jonathan C. Prior 
 
 Matthias P. Lucas, Esq. „ James Davies 
 
 William Thompson, Esq. „ Thomas Lott, E.S.A. 
 
 Sir John Key, Bart. „ Richard Thomas 
 
 Sir Peter Laurie, Knt. „ Benjamin Hardwick 
 
 Charles Earehrother, Esq. „ John Wood 
 W. T. Copeland, Esq. „ Erederick Earrar 
 
 Thomas Kelly, Esq. James Anderton, Esq. 
 
 Michael Gibbs, Esq. E. Harrison, Esq., Deputy 
 
 Thomas Wood, Esq. Mr. Thomas Young 
 
 W. Hughes Hughes, Esq. E. Eagleton, Esq., Deputy 
 T. Sidney, Esq. Eichard L. Jones,Esq. 
 
 Mr. E. Taylor, E.S.A. Mi-. James Hoole 
 
 {Chairman) William Jones, Esq. 
 
 „ W. H. Asburst Mr. W. Humphery Pilcher 
 
 W. A. Peacock, Esq., Deputy „ James Michael Barnard 
 T. Peivtress, Esq., Deputy „ Benjamin Bower 
 R. Obbard, Esq., Deputy „ John Sharland 
 Mr. William Knott H.Marriott 
 
 „ Jacob George Cope „ R. B. Whiteside 
 
 D. Williams Wire, Esq. 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE. 
 
 AIDEMIEN. 
 
 4 Eight Hon. Sir Geo. Carroll, 4 John Kitmersley Hooper, Esq. 
 
 Knt., Lord Mayor 4 John Musgrove, Esq. 
 
 4 William T. Copeland, Esq. 4 William Hughes Hughes, Esq. 
 4 John Humpherj', Esq. 3 Thomas Sidnej-, Esq. 
 
 4 Michael Gibbs, Esq. 1 Erancis Graham Moon, Esq. 
 
 4 John Johnson, Esq. 4 Thos, Challis, Esq. {Sheriff) 
 
 4 Thomas Wood, Esq. 
 
 COMMONEHS. 
 
 Chairman—i Mr. James Waterlow. 
 
 2^ Mr. Samuel Sharwoo J, jun. 3 Mr. John Johnson 
 3 „ Arthur Ereeman l „ George Harker 
 1 „ W. B. James, for 1 year 1 J. P. Hayward, Esq. Deputy 
 
102 
 
 2 Mr. John EnDI 1 Mr. David Jas. JMauchlan 
 
 1 ,, Bichard Thomas 3 JEch'ael Prendergast, Esq. 
 
 3 W. A. Peacock, Esq. Dep. for 3 years 
 
 1 Mr. David Laurie, for 2 yrs, 3 Mr. Samuel Sabine Edkins 
 1 ,, James Low 3 „ John Holmes Gibson 
 
 3 „ Bichard Webb Jupp 1 „ Wm.Tanner, for2 years 
 
 1 „ John Beckwith Towse 3 „ Thos. Carlyle Hayward 
 
 1 „ James Bailey 3 „ Joseph Sykes 
 
 3 „ Eobert George Pead 3 „ Henry Capel 
 
 3 „ Joseph Perkins 2 ,, Samuel Lepard 
 
 3 „ Thomas Lott, F.S.A. 1 „ William Dawson 
 
 3 „ Benjamin Edw. Brown „ Henry Phillips 
 Together with the Chairmen of all the Committees, and of the 
 Commissioners of Sewers. 
 
 Quorum—Any Seven. 
 
 CITT OF LOBDON SCHOOL COMMITTEE. 
 
 ALDES5IES. 
 
 2 Matthias Prime Lucas, Esq. 4 Sir William Magnay, Bart. 
 
 4 Sir John Key, Bart. 2 Thomas Wood, Esq. 
 
 1 Sir Peter Laurie, Knt. 4 William Hughes Hughes, Esq. 
 
 3 Charles Farehrother, Esq. 3 Thomas Sidney, Esq. 
 
 1 Thomas Kelly, Esq. 3 Francis Graham Moon, Esq. 
 
 4 .John Humphery, Esq. 4 Thos. Challis, Esq. (Sheriff). 
 
 COJOtOSEBS. 
 
 Chairman—2 Mr. Warren Stormes Hale. 
 
 2 ilr. Henry De. Jersey 1 Mr. Wm. Cash, for 1 year 
 
 4 ,, Edward Fisher 4 „ Francis Sadler 
 
 1 „ Wm. Lister, for 3 years 3 „ Eichard Thos. Cousens 
 
 1 „ Jas. Eoberts, for 3 years 4 „ Thomas Jefferson Holt 
 
 2 Wm. Stevens, Esq. Deputy 3 „ James Hartley 
 
 2 Mr. Wm. Humphery Pilcher 2 ilichael Prendergast, Esq. 
 
 3 Jas. S. Bridge, Esq. Deputy 1 James Anderton, Esq. 
 
 I Mr. William Knott 3 Samuel Unwin, Esq. Deputy 
 
 1 ,, Charles Warton 2 Daniel Cork, Esq. Deputy 
 
 4 „ Thomas Daldn 1 Mr. John Danford 
 
 1 Eichard Hicks, Esq. Deputy 4 „ William Tyler 
 
 3 Mr. George Oliver 2 ,, Henry Capel 
 
 2 „ Thomas Lott, F.S.A. 2 „ Thomas Sprague 
 
 2 ,, John Hunter 2 „ Datid W. Wire, Esq. 
 
 Quorum —Any Seven. 
 
 1836, Secretary—ViT. Thomas Brewer. 
 
 , (MontlJy meeting, First Wednesday in the month.) 
 
 IS THE APPOISniEST OP THE COURT OF C03nlOS COUS'CII,. 
 
 1840, Head Master —Eev. G. F. W. Mortimer, D.D. 
 1836, Second J/asfer—Eobert Pitt Edkins, M.A. 
 
IN THE APPOINTMENT OP THE COMMITTEE. 
 
 1830, Third Jfasler—Eev. William Webster, M.A. 
 
 1837, Principal Master of Junior Class—Me, Thomas St. Clair 
 •MacDougal. 
 
 1841 rBev. Joseph Harris, M.A. 
 
 18461 Eey.-Ghaiies Braddy, M.A, 
 
 1837 [Assistant MasterslUT. Charles Nathaniel Woodroffe 
 1837 ( I Mr. Thomas Hall, B.A. 
 
 lS4oJ iMr. Thomas Sharpe. 
 
 1844-v f Mr. Thomas Blood Curds 
 
 1845 I Ditto of Junior Class J Mr. Lewis Maxey Stewart 
 
 1846 J ( Mr. Frederick Parker Baker 
 
 1837, Writing Master—Me. Henry Manly. 
 
 1841. Assistant Writing Master—Ih. Samuel Wiltshire Walker.. 
 1837, French Master— Mobs. Charles Jean Delille. 
 
 1839, Assistant French Master—Moas. Guillaume Chapman. 
 1840, German Master—Mr. Charles Augustus Ming. 
 
 1837, Drawing JIfasfer—Mr. Joseph William Allen. 
 
 OFFICERS’ AND CLERKS’ COMJnTTEE. 
 
 ALDERMEN. 
 
 4 Sir Peter Laurie, Knt. 2 John Musgrove, Esq. 
 
 4 John Humphery, Esq. 2 William Hunter, Esq. 
 
 4 Michael Gihhs, Esq. 1 William Hughes Hughes, Esq. 
 
 3 John Kinnei'sley Hooper, Esq. 1 Thomas Sidney, Esq. 
 
 3 Sir James Duke, Knt. 1 Francis Graham Moon, Esq. 
 
 3 Thomas Farncomb, Esq. 2 Thos. ChaUis, Esq. (.Sheriff). 
 
 COMMONERS. 
 
 Chairman—2 Mr. Henry Burn. 
 
 4 Mr. John Wood 2 Mr. John Carter 
 
 2 „ Benjamin Massey 2 „ James Hoole 
 
 4 „ William Lister 2 Richard Lambert Jones, Esq. 
 
 1 „ R. M. Phillips, for 2 yrs.l Mr. Henry Kebhel 
 
 William Jones, Esq. 
 
 Mr. James Rowland Carr 
 William Latvrence, Esq. 
 Mr. Jacob George Cope 
 „ William Casterton 
 „ Thomas Dakin 
 „ Eretoick Farrar 
 „ 6. (Jliver, for 3 years 
 „ George Bracher 
 „ Thomas Lott, F.S.A. 
 
 William Henry Ashurst 
 i’ James Hartley 
 „ Richard Taylor, F.S.A. 
 „ John Holmes Gibson 
 „ Thomas Symonds 
 „ James Killby 
 „ James Curtis 
 T. Q. Finnis, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. Wm. Dunsford White 
 „ Edward Conder 
 
 Quorum—Any Seven. 
 
104 
 
 EOYAl HOSPITALS COMMITTEE. 
 
 Eight Hon. Sir George Carroll, Ent, Lord Ma)’or. 
 
 All the Aldermen who are eligible, and such Commoners as are 
 appointed by the Court of Common Council to be Governors 
 of the Eoyal Hospitals; 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 Chairman—Ml. Thomas Lott, P.S.A. 
 
 George Stacey, Esq. Mr. Septimus Bead 
 
 Mr. George Viliam Clifton „ George Harker 
 „ John 'Wilson „ Thomas Jefferson Holt 
 
 „ William George Barnes „ James Hartley 
 „ 'William HnmpheryPilcher „ Eichard Taylor, P.S.A. 
 
 ,, Eichard Thomas Jordan Eoche Lynch, M.l>. 
 
 ,, 'William Hawtrey James Anderton, Esq. 
 
 Thomas Pewtress, Esq. Deputy Mr. William James Frodsham 
 Mr. Stephen Baker „ William Tanner 
 
 ,, John Beckwith Towse „ JohnDanford 
 ,, Joseph Eownson John Wm. Goss, Esq. Deputy 
 
 „ Benjamin Hardvrick Mr. Henry Capel 
 „ Eichard Johnson „ Thomas Sprague 
 
 „ Thomas Joyce „ Samuel Lepard 
 
 ,, Eobert Dever Thomas Watkins, Esq. Deputy 
 
 Quorum—Any Seven. 
 
 COMMITTEE ON LAW BILLS. 
 
 The Chairmen of the several Committees, and of the Com¬ 
 missioners of Sewers for the time being; 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 Chairman—Mv. Henry Burn. 
 
 Thomas Sidney, Esq. Alderman Mr. Frederick Farrar 
 Mr. William Henry Ashnrst „ James Hartley 
 'William .Jones, Esq. „ Henry De Jersey 
 
 Mr. Thomas Lott, F.S.A. Michael Prendergast, Esq. 
 
 „ John Wood Mr. James Eichard Thomson 
 
 ,, Benjamin Hardwick „ Samuel Lepard 
 
 ,, James Davies David Williams Wire, Esq. 
 
 „ Wm. Hnmphery Pilcher 
 
 Qiioram—Seven, of whom three must be of the Legal Profession. 
 (^Quarterly meetings, last Friday in February, April, July, and 
 October.) 
 
 FEEEDOM COMJHTTBE, 
 
 AIDERJIEN. 
 
 Sir Claudius S. Hunter, Bart. Sir 'William Magnay, Bart. 
 
 Sir Peter Laurie, Knt. John Johnson, Esq. 
 
105 
 
 Samuel Wilson, Esq. Sir James Duke, Knt. 
 
 John Humphery, Esq. John Musgrove, Esq, 
 
 Sir Chapman Marshall, Knt. William Hughes Hughes, Esq. 
 Sir John Pu’ie, Bart. Thomas Sidney, Esq. 
 
 COMMONEHS. 
 
 Chaiman—Mv. WiUiam Henry Ashurst. 
 
 Mr. John Thomas Norris Mr. William Cash 
 „ Eobert Butler Whiteside Bichard Lambert Jones, Esq. 
 .John Britten, Esq. Deputy Mr. Jonathan Charles Prior 
 Mr. Benjamin Bower „ Samuel Eidley 
 
 William Stevens, Esq. Deputy „ Eichard Taylor, E.S.A. 
 
 W. A. Peacock, Esq. Deputy ,, Henry Burn 
 William Lawrence, Esq. ' James Anderton, Esq. 
 
 Thomas Pewtress, Esq. Dep, John Dixon, Esq. 
 
 Thomas Corney, Esq. Dep. Daniel Cork, Esq. Deputy 
 Jeremiah Evans, Esq. Dep. Mr. William Christie 
 Jlr. William Collingwood „ James Curtis 
 „ Edward Hickson Tiros. Q. Einnis, Esq. Deputy 
 
 „ Joseph Perkins John King, Esq. Deputy 
 
 „ Thomas Lott, E.S.A. David Williams Wire, Esq. 
 Edward Harrison, Esq. Deputy 
 
 Quorum—Any Seven. 
 
 COMinTTEE ON THE EIGHT TO THE SOIL OE THE 
 EIVEE THAiOSS. 
 
 ALDERMEN. 
 
 Matthias Prime Lucas, Esq. John Johnson, Esq. 
 
 William Thompson, Esq. Sir James Duke, Knt. 
 
 Sir Peter Laurie, Knt. Thomas Earncomb, Esq. 
 
 William Taylor Copeland, Esq. John Musgrove, Esq. 
 
 John Humphory, Esq. Thomas Sidney, Esq. 
 
 Sir AYilliam Magnay, Bart. Thomas Challis, Esq. {Sheriff). 
 Michael Gibbs, Esq. 
 
 Chairman—Mx. Henry Burn. 
 
 Mr. John Thomas Norris Edward Harrison, Esq. Deputy 
 
 James Lake, Esq, Deputy Mr. Johntot 
 John Britten, Esq. Deputy Eichard Lambert Jones, Esq. 
 Mr. Benjamin Bower Mr, Thomas White 
 
 • „ Thomas Hall „ William Henry Ashurst 
 
 W. A. Peacock,-Esq. Deputy Edward Eagletou, Esq. Deputy 
 William Lawrence, Esq.' Mr. Eichard Taylor, E.S.A. 
 Mr. William Knott John Dixon, Esq. 
 
 Thomas Comey, Esq. Deputy Daniel Cork, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. Joseph Blades George Wright, Esq. Deputy 
 
106 
 
 Richard Hicks, Esq. Deputy 3Ir. James Curtis 
 Mr. Edward Hickson ,, George Selson 
 
 .. Thomas Henrv Hall John King, Esq. Deputy 
 „ Thomas Lott,'E.S.A. Jlr. Edward Conder 
 Quorum—Any Seven. 
 
 niPEOVElIENT COMMITTEE. 
 
 William Thompson, Esq. John Johnson, Esq. 
 
 William Taylor Copeland, Esq. John Kinnersley Hooper, Esci. 
 Sir Chapman Marshall, Knt. Sir James Duke, Knt. 
 
 John Humphery, Esq. Thomas Sidney, Esq. 
 
 Jlichael Gibbs, Esq. Thomas Challis, Esq. (6/iC)vj/ )■ 
 
 COJDIOSEKS. 
 
 Chairman —Richard Lambert Jones, Esq. 
 
 Edward Godson, Esq. Edward Harrison, Esq. Deputy 
 
 Mr. Benjamin Massey Mr. John Lart 
 
 John Britten, Esq. Deputy „ Jonathan Charles I nor 
 ilr, ISenjamin Bower -j WiHiara Henry As.iuut 
 
 William Stevens, Esq. Deputy „ James Hartley 
 W. A. Peacock, Esq. Deputy „ Richard Taylor, E.5.A. 
 William Lawreuce, Esq. „ Henry Burn 
 
 Mr. Jacob George Cope John Dixon, Esq. 
 
 Thomas Comey, Esq. Depuh- Thomas Bridge Simpson, 
 Jeremiah Evans, Esq. Deputy Mr. William Christie 
 llr. William Collingwood „ James Curtis 
 ., Edward Hickson „ George Aitcliison 
 
 „ Thomas Henn-Hall John King, Esq. Deputy 
 
 ., Thomas Lott,E.S.A. David Williams Wire, iti 
 {MontUy meeling. Third Monday in the month.) 
 
 COMMITTEE IN RELATION TO PRISONS. 
 
 ALDEB3IEX. 
 
 John Johnson, Esq. Thomas Sidney, Esq. 
 
 COMaOXERS. 
 
 Chairman—Ds-ni Williams Wire, Esq. 
 
 Mr. John Wood Mr. Erancis Bennoch 
 
 James Lake, Esq. Deputy Richard Lambert Jones, Esq, 
 Hr Benjamin Bower Mr. Jonathan Charles Pi lor 
 
 „ William Johnson „ William Henry Ashurst 
 
 William Stevens, Esq. Deputy „ Samuel Ridley 
 
107 
 
 William Lawrence, Esq. Mr. Eichard Taylor, E.S.A. 
 Mr. James Low James Atiderton, Esq. 
 
 Thomas Corney, Esq. Deputy John Dixon, Esq. 
 
 Jeremiah Evans, Esq. Deputy Daniel Corli, Esq. Deputy 
 Eichard Hicks, Esq. Deputy George Wright, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. Edward Hickson John Wm. Goss, Esq. Deputy 
 
 „ Thomas Henry Hall Mr. George Aitchison 
 
 „ Thomas Lott, E.S.A. „ Thomas Sprague 
 Edward Harrison, Esq. Deputy 
 
 Quorum—Anj Seven. 
 
 CONSOLIDATED COMMITTEE. 
 
 The Chairmen of the several Committees, and of the Com¬ 
 missioners of Sewers for the time being; 
 
 Together with 
 ALDEWIEN. 
 
 Matthias Prime Lucas, Esq. John Johnson, Esq. 
 
 William Thompson, Esq. Sir James Duke, Knt. 
 
 Sir Peter Laurie, Knt. Thomas Earncomb, Esq. 
 
 William Taylor Copeland, Esq. John Musgrove, Esq. 
 
 John Humphery, Esq. Thomas Sidney, Esq. 
 
 Sir William Magnay, Bart. Thomas Challis, Esq. {Sheriff). 
 Michael Gibbs, Esq. 
 
 COMMONERS. 
 
 C/rairman—Eobert Lambert Jones, Esq. 
 
 Mr. John Thomas Norris 
 „ John Wood 
 James Lake, Esq. Deputy 
 John Britten, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. Benjamin Bower 
 „ Thomas Hal! 
 
 W. A. Peacock, Esq. Deputy 
 William Lawrence, Esq. 
 
 Mr. William Knott 
 Thomas Corney, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. Joseph Blades 
 Eichard Hicks, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. Edward Hickson 
 „ Thomas Henry Hall 
 „ Thomas Lott, E.S A. 
 
 Quorum- 
 
 Edward Harrison, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. John Lart 
 „ Thomas White 
 „ William Henry Ashurst 
 Edward Eagleton, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. Eichard Taylor, E.S.A. 
 
 „ Henry Burn 
 John Dixon, Esq. 
 
 Daniel Cork, Esq. Deputy 
 George Wright, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. James Curtis 
 „ George Selson 
 John King, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. Edward Conder 
 
 GOVEENORS OF THE CORPORATION SCHOOL. 
 President—Eight Hon. Sir George Carroll, Knt., Lord Mayor. 
 All the Aldermen who are eligible. 
 
Edward Godson, Esq. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Erederick Salter 
 John Britten, Esq. Deputy 
 William Curling, Esq. Deputy 
 Jir. Thomas HSi 
 „ Solomon Bennett 
 •laines S Bridge, Esq. Deputy 
 3Ir. William Enott 
 ,, Thomas W. Foster 
 ,, Charles Bond 
 „ -Joseph Bownson 
 „ George Olirer 
 ,, Warren Stormes Hale 
 William Muddell, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. John Carter 
 Henry Smith, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. John Johnson 
 John Brown, Esq. Deputy 
 -T. P. Hayward, feq. Deputy 
 Edward Eagleton, Esq. Deputy 
 3Ir. John Buckmaster 
 .James Anderton, Esq. 
 
 John Dixon, Esq. 
 
 Daniel Cork, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. .James Eillby 
 ., James Curtis 
 Thomas Q. Einnis, Esq. Deputy 
 John Eing, Esq. Deputy 
 Mr. William Dawson 
 
 Mr. Samuel Sharwood, Jun. 
 
 „ John Jerram 
 „ William Boyce James 
 „ William M Williams 
 ,, John Sharland 
 ,, Thomas S. Owden 
 „ James Dignam 
 „ James Low 
 „ William Casterton 
 „ John Beckwith Towse 
 „ Erederick Earrar 
 ,, Benjamin Hardwick 
 „ Joseph Perkins 
 ,, William Croueher 
 „ Eobert Dever 
 ,, William Cash 
 „ George Headway 
 ,, Henry Eebbel 
 ,, Thomas Jefrerson Holt 
 „ Jam"s Hartley 
 ,, Pilchard Williams 
 ,. George Walter 
 ., Thomas Snelling 
 
 Thomas Bridge Simpson, Esq. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Carlyle Hayward 
 ,, William Tyler 
 ,, George Selson 
 
 ,, Thomas Sprague 
 David W. Wire, Esq. 
 Clerk—ib. James Edward Shearman. 
 
 Pice-President—Walter Anderson Peacock, Esq. Deputy. 
 
 GO'iTlRNORS OF THE ROYAL HOSPITALS. 
 
 Fenmded hy Charter, and endowed by the Corporation of London, 
 
 The Eight Honourable the Lord Mayor for the time being is 
 head of aR the Royal Hospitals by the Ordinance made “ by the 
 Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of London, Governors of 
 the Possessions, Revenues, and Goods of the said Hospitals, 
 1557.” 
 
 All the Aldermen, by virtae of their office, are Governors. 
 
 ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S HOSPITAL. 
 
 Founded by Henry VIII., 1539. 
 
 IS3I, President—Matthias Prime Lucas, Esq., Alderman. 
 
 1842, Treasurer—James Bentley, Esq. 
 
109 
 
 Governors appointed by the Court of Common Council, pursuant 
 to the Act of Parliament, 22 George HI., cap. 77. 
 
 Class. Class, 
 
 4 William Stevens, Esq. Dep. 2 Mr. William Croucher 
 
 3 Eichard Brook, Esq. Dep. 1 Eichard Hicks, Esq. Dep. 
 
 5 T. Q. Einnis, Esq. Deputy 1 Michael Prendergast, Esq. 
 
 3 J. P. Hayward, Esq. Dep. 2 Mr. Erancis Bennoch 
 
 3 B. Bagleton, Esq. Dep. 6 WilHam Lawrence, Esq. 
 
 4 Mr. Charles Warton 6 John King, Esq. Deputy 
 
 CM—William Wix, Esq. , 
 
 CHRIST’S HOSPITAL. 
 
 Founded hj Edward VI., 1553. 
 
 1829, President—Vf. Thompson, Esq. M.P., Alderman, 
 1834, Treasurer—R. H. Pigeon, Esq. 
 
 Governors appointed by the Court of Common Council, pursuant 
 to the Act of Parliament, 22 George HI., cap. 77. 
 
 Class. Class. 
 
 2 Rich. Lambert Jones, Esq. 1 Mr. William Lister 
 6 Mr. Jonathan Chas. Prior 2 „ George Braoher 
 
 3 „ Edward Wateon 5 Edward Godson, Esq. 
 
 1 J. T. Bedford, Esq. Dep. 5 Mr. Jas. Eich. Thomson 
 
 4 Mr. Henry Patten 3 „ John Carter 
 
 G „ John Jerram 4 „ William Eatbbone 
 
 ClciA—George Trollope, Esq. 
 
 BRIDEWELL AND BETHLEM. 
 
 Founded by Edward VL, 1553. 
 
 1833, President—Sir Peter Laurie, Knl., Alderman. 
 
 1835, Treasarer—Ralph Price, Esq. 
 
 Governors appointed by the Court of Common Council, pursuant 
 to the Act of Parliament, 22 George III., cap. 77. 
 
 Class. Class. 
 
 1 Robert Obbard, Esq, Dep. 4 Mr. Ebenezer Howard 
 
 3 Mr. Valentine Butter 1 Jeremiah Evans, Esq. Dep. 
 
 5 „ George'Selson 2 Mr. John Hill 
 
 4 ,, Henry E. Gadsden 6 „ Edward Conder 
 
 2 Richard Dixon, Esq. Dep. 6 James Lake, Esq. Deputy 
 
 5 John Parker, Esq. 2 Mr. Thomas Lott, E.S.A. 
 
 C/eri—Benjamin Welton, Esq. 
 
no 
 
 ST. TH05IAS’S HOSPITAL 
 Fomded by Edward VI., 1553. 
 
 1843, President—Sk J. Pine, Bart., Alderman. 
 
 1843, TVeoanrer—Thomas B. Burbidge, Esq. 
 Goremors appointed by the Court of Common Council, pursuant 
 to the Act of Parliament, 22 George HI, cap. 77. 
 
 Class. Class. 
 
 5 John LorHn, Esq. Deputy 2 Jlr. William Brass 
 4 Hr. Richard Webb Jnpp 2 „ James Phillips 
 
 4 „ Solomon Bennett 3 „ William Chadwick 
 
 5 ,, John Rnill 2 „ Henry Mnggeridge 
 
 1 „ Edmund Hodgson G John Brown, Esq. Deputy 
 
 5 „ John Briggs 6 Mr. Nicholas Maughan 
 
 CferS—Robert A. Wainewright, Esq. 
 
 4-ClTY OFFICERS. 
 
 Those marked (•) are of Her Majesty’s Commission of Lieutenancy 
 for the City of London. 
 
Ill 
 
 1842 'Town-Clert.IH. Alwoith Merewether, 
 
 I D.C.L. Serg.-at-Law 
 
 1833 ‘Common-Sergeant.John Slirehouse, Esq. 
 
 1842 JudgeoftheSheriff’s Court. . . Edward Bullock, Esq. 
 
 1830\ /Archer Eyland, Esq. 
 
 J^jacommon Pleaders.-(^PetoSif 
 
 1845] (John Locke, Esq, ^ 
 
 SI— .IK.'Sfe. 
 
 1841 Comptroller . . . ..‘Thomas Saunders Esq. 
 
 1832 Remembrancer.’Edward Tyrrell. Esq. 
 
 1839 SoUcitor.‘Chaides Pearson, Esq. 
 
 1829 Coroner for London and Southwark . William Payne, Esq. 
 
 1829 Clerk of the Peace.John Clark, Esq. 
 
 1842 High Bailiff of Southwark .... William Pritchard, Esq. 
 
 1839 Commissioner of the City Police . . D. Whittle Harvey. Esq. 
 1842 Clerk of the Chamber.Jolm Sewell, Esq. 
 
 1839 Clerk Comptrollerof the Bridge House Ferdinand Brand, Esq. 
 
 1815 Assistant Clerk at the Bridge House . blr. John Newman 
 
 1832 Sword Bearer. 
 
 1825 Common Crier and Sergeant-a1 
 
 1824 Water-Bailiff. 
 
 1841 Attorney of the Mayor’s Court 
 1843 Clerk of the City’s Works . 
 
 . Charles W. Hick, Esq. 
 s Samuel Eeddome, Esq, 
 
 . Nathaniel Saunders, Esq. 
 . Charles Pearson, Esq. 
 
 . J. B. Banning, Esq. 
 
 1843 Clerk to prepare Accounts for Auditors Mr. Benjamin Scott 
 
 1840 Head Master of City of London School Rev. G.F.W. Mortimer, D.D. 
 
 1836 Second Ditto Ditto R. Pitt Edkms, M.A. 
 
 1832 ) enro... (-'ll'' Jumes Hudson 
 
 1832 i .i JD. Richard Gude, Jun. 
 
 1825 Principal Clerk of Com't of Requests Richard Samuel Jupp, Esq. 
 
 1822 Assistant to ditto.Sir. James Adcock 
 
 1826 Broker to ditto.Mr. Robert Greaves Ibbett 
 
 1847 Keeper of Guildhall.Mr. 
 
 1826 I , (Mr. Josiah Temple 
 
 1825 ('» “to.j 
 
 1846 Clerk and Registrar of Coal Market . Jlr. Joseph Farmer. 
 
 1837 Clerk and Collector of the Coal Duties Mr. William Mozart Russell 
 1845 Upper Beadle of the Coal Market. . Mr. William Hobbs 
 
 1845 Under Beadle of ditto.Mr. Joseph Stacy 
 
 1822 Upper Marshal, Mr. Nevill Browne, Mansion House 
 
 1833 Under Marshal, Mr. Thomas Theobalds, 81, London Wall 
 
 1824 Marshals’ Man, Hem-y Foster, 15. North Buildings, Finsbury Circus 
 1828 Collector of Brokers’Rents .... Mr. Richard Cheesewright 
 
 1819 Ditto at Leadenhall Market . . . bir. Robert Cm-tis 
 
 1819 Ditto at Newgate Market .... Mr. William Fisher 
 
 1841 Ditto at Smithfleld Market. . . . Mr. William Shank 
 
 1827 Com Shifter below Bridge .... Mr. William Ruston 
 1830 Corn Shifter at Queenhithe .... Mr. John Eayi’es 
 
112