pay the mayor the
compliment of electing Sir William Ashurst, his nominee, to be one of the
sheriffs, whilst choosing Richard Levett to be the other. There was
another candidate in the person of William Gore. A poll was demanded and
allowed, the result of which was declared on the 2nd July, when it
appeared that Ashurst had polled 3,631 votes, Levett 2,252 and Gore 1,774.
A keen contest again took place between Sir Peter Rich and Leonard
Robinson for the office of chamberlain, in which the latter came off
victorious.(1740)
(M878) (M879)
In the spring of the next year (5 April, 1692) the Court of Aldermen had
before them a Bill, the object of which was to settle the election and
confirmation of sheriffs for the future. After due deliberation amongst
themselves, and after consulting the attorney-general upon its provisions,
the Bill was recommended to the Common Council to be passed as an Act of
that court.(1741) Of the particulars of the Bill we are not informed. It
was laid for the first time before the Common Council on the 6th May, when
it was referred to a committee. On the 26th ult. it was read the first
time and on the 31st a second time, but upon the question being put
whether the Bill should be then read a third time it passed in the
negative,(1742) and nothing more is heard of it.
(M880)
A Bill for regulating the election of members of the Common Council itself
met with better success. Of late years divers inhabitants of the city who
were not freemen (and among them the doctors and other gentlemen of
Doctors' Commons) had been in the habit of exercising the franchise at
wardmotes, to the prejudice of freemen, to whom alone belonged the right
of voting. Many complaints having been made to the Common Council of the
rights of freemen having been thus infringed,(1743) an Act was at length
passed (26 Oct., 1692) declaring that the nomination of aldermen and the
election of common councilmen for the several wards of the city
appertained only to freemen, being householders in the city, and paying
scot and bearing lot, a list of whom was thenceforth to be prepared and
kept by the beadle of each ward, as well as a separate list of the other
householders. A copy of the Act was to be appended to all precepts for
wardmotes, and the provisions of the Act were to be publicly read to the
assembled electors.(1744) At the next election of a Common Council, which
took place in December, the Whigs, we are told, were, after
|