The Bailiffs, Provosts and Sheriffs of the City of Dublin Eoin C. Bairéad
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The Bailiffs, Provosts and Sheriffs of the City of Dublin Eoin C. Bairéad Bealtaine 2013 Lists of Provosts, Bailiffs and Sheriffs of the City of Dublin This work is an attempt to produce a full list of Provosts and Bailiffs of Dublin City from the creation of the office, using such primary sources as survive, albeit in transcription, as well as lists both from older sources and from more modern authorities. For over 600 years the civic administration of Dublin was in the hands of 27 men. The mayor (later the Lord Mayor), two senior officials and 24 aldermen. The aldermen, nominally representatives of the guilds, were a self-perpetuating group - when an alderman died, resigned (the office was for life) was elected to a higher office or (as happened a few times in those days) was impeached, the remaining aldermen elected a replacement. The two senior officials were called Provosts or Bailiffs until April 21st 1548, when, at Westminster. Edward VI, “with consent of the Protector, Edward, Duke of Somerset, and Council issued letters patent constituting the existing Bailiffs of the city of Dublin [as] Sheriffs, and incorporating the city under the style of one Mayor, two Sheriffs and the commonalty and citizens of Dublin. The city is to be distinct from the county of Dublin, and City of shall be styled the county of the city of Dublin.” Henceforth the two officials were Sheriffs. In a treaty of 1200 King John reiterated the treaties of his father, Henry II, and furthermore stated that “if any man within the King’s realm take toll of the citizens, the provost [note singular] of the city shall take distress for it”1. In a Pipe Roll of 12 years later, it is stated that “Warin of London and Adam the Soap Maker2 render account for them [the citizens] of £133. 6s. 8d. for the annual farm of the city.” These two were clearly the bailiffs (or provosts) for the king in the city at that time. In July 1215 John, short of money, sold the fee-farm to the citizens and the city could elect its own provost.3 In June 1229 Henry III granted the City the right to elect a Mayor4. According to James Ware, the 17th century historian, a provost from the previous year, Richard Mutton, was elected the first Mayor. Two Bailiffs were appointed at the same time.5 Each year, in June, the aldermen submitted nominations to the King’s representative in Ireland for the posts of Mayor and Bailiffs/Provosts/Sheriffs. If those proposed were acceptable, they were appointed formally to the posts each year at the Michaelmas assembly on the “third Friday after 29 September”. The aldermen continued to govern the city until 1841. 1 CD1171 p23 2 Davies, Oliver and Quinn, David B. ‘The Irish Pipe Roll of 14 John, 1211-1212’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Third Series, Vol. 4, Supplement, p12 3 CARD 1 6 4 CARD 1 8 5 Ware, Robert, ‘The History and Antiquities of Dublin’, f53 1 This work is both a presentation of early or little-known sources for the names of these officers and an attempt to provide an accurate list, based on such sources as survive. There are 4 main older sources for the Bailiffs and Sheriffs of Dublin. Sir James Ware, a Dublin-born politician, businessman and historian assembled a large collection of Irish manuscripts, and also copied from works held by others. In the late 1650s Robert Ware, son of James, compiled a manuscript history (as yet unpublished) of Dublin – ‘The History and Antiquities of Dublin’ in which he continued a list of mayors and bailiffs initially made by his father. The manuscript is now held in Armagh Public Library, a microfilm is the library of Trinity College Dublin and two transcriptions made for John T. Gilbert, one partial, are in the Dublin City Archives. The manuscript came into the possession of Walter Harris, husband of Robert’s granddaughter Mary, and he, in turn, continued the list. However, throughout the manuscript, the comments, emendations and annotations of Walter Harris are to be seen, in the margins (on all 4 sides), between lines where Ware left some little space and even over and masking the original entry. The most considerable set of such editing in the entire manuscript is of this list of Mayors and Provosts. The handwriting changes in this list after the year 1677. I have, therefore, put all entries from 1678 onwards with Harris’s. Thirdly, an English translation of Ware’s De Hibernia et Antiquitatibus eius Disquisitones was published in Dublin in 1705 as The Antiquities and History of Ireland. Unlike the Latin original, this volume, translated chiefly by Sir William Domvile and Robert Ware, contains a “Full and Perfect Catalogue of the names of all such Persons as have been Mayors, Bailiffs, Sheriffs and Lord Mayors of the City of Dublin since the First Year of the Reign of King Edward the Second” – a list running, from 1308 (again) until 1704. Since this is after the death of both Domvile and Robert Ware, it seems clear that Harris, again, was involved. Finally in Harris’ own History and Antiquities of the City of Dublin, published posthumously in 1766, he gives “A Catalogue of the Names of the Chief Magistrates of the City of Dublin, under their different appellations of Provosts, Bailiffs, Mayors, Lord Mayors and Sheriffs from the second Year of King Edward II to this time. Taken from the Table in the Great Room of the Tholsel”. The list goes up to 1765, although Harris died in 1761. Differences are found between all three of the lists either compiled or edited by Harris. In their History of Dublin, published in 1818, Warburton, Whitelaw & Walsh print Harris’s 1766 list, and extend it to 1817. There are a number of more modern and perhaps more reliable lists. All Thom’s Dublin Directories between 1869 (page 1374) and 1960 (page xvii) gave a list of Lord Mayors and Sheriffs over the previous 200 years. The start and end volumes of that selection, therefore, cover the years from 1668 to 1959. In Vol. 28 (1910) of the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Henry F. Berry gave a ‘Catalogue of the Mayors, Provosts, and Bailiffs of Dublin City, A.D. 1229 to 1447’. Berry, using an impressive collection of charters, rolls, deeds, registers and other sources, compiled a most scholarly list. He is rather dismissive of Harris, saying that his catalogue, “at least down to the period included in the present list, has been found unreliable as to sequence of mayors, &c, erroneous in dates, and many of the names of officials enumerated are wrong or 2 corrupt.” In its 1913 Proceedings Berry also edited for the RIA, the Minute Book of the Corporation of Dublin, Known as the "Friday Book," 1567-1611, and this too contains details of officials. Throughout the 1930s Dublin Corporation produced an internal diary, and each year a list of Lord Mayors of the city was printed in it. However the diary described in Irish as Dialann i gcóir na Bliadhna 1931-32, and in English as Diary for the Year Ending 30th June 1932 contains a full list Mayors & Lord Mayors, Bailiffs & Sheriffs of Dublin from 1229 to 1931. Although no author’s name is given, the list was compiled by Patrick Meehan, who was the City Marshal under the pre-1921 Dublin Corporation and was afterwards in charge of the Muniment Room in City Hall, where historic deeds were stored. Finally, Philomena Connolly, in appendix I to her Dublin Guild Merchant Roll gives a short list of early provosts where her sources contradicted or clarified Berry. In checking these lists, the principal sources were Gilbert’s Calendar of Ancient Records of the City of Dublin referred to here (and generally) as CARD, the Christ Church Deeds, edited by M.J. McEnery & Raymond Refaussé, appendix II of Philomena Connolly’s Dublin Guild Merchant Roll, Robinson & Armstrong’s Ancient Deeds of the Parish of St. John published by the RIA and the 5 volumes of Sweetman & Handcock’s Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland. Richard Butler’s Registry of the Priory of All Saints was also useful, as was Charles McNeills edition of the Calendar of Archbishop Alen’s Register. The CARD gives dates and names for the selection and the election of most of the important officers of the city, and the Christ Church deeds are an excellent source, for, over a period of nearly 400 years from the early 1200s to the beginning of the 17th century, many of those deeds were witnessed by the Mayor and Provosts, and dates, exact or approximate, are frequently given. Finally, in a piece by Alan Fletcher on the Dublin Chronicle, published in Dublin and the Medieval World – Studies in honour of Howard B. Clarke, a list of mayors and bailiffs between 1504 and 1534 is given. It should be pointed out that the terminology used for the offices is both confusing and inconsistent. Harris has a list of “Provosts and Bailiffs” until 1409 when the Provost finally becomes a Mayor. Ware, Berry & Meehan refer to Mayors and Provosts. The Roll of Free Citizens, as edited by Connolly in her Guild Merchant Roll, has the initial admissions per visum ballivorum – ‘under the supervision of the Bailiffs’. However those admitted in 1221 and subsequently are done “in the time of N and N, Provosts”. In the Christ Church Deeds the references are almost always to Provosts, although one ‘Nicholas the Clerk’ is referred to in both styles.