Charters

Summary
"Free movement of goods and services" is a relatively modern idea. For much of its history Chester was, with exceptions on certain market days, a "closed shop" where, with some further exceptions only members of the various guilds could practice their trades. Movement of goods in or out of the city was the subject of tolls, usually payable at the city gates. In 1190 Henry II conferred the "Gilda Mecatoria" (the Guild Merchant) on the people of Chester - giving them the right to trade. The Guild Merchant also established an association of traders, and able to negotiate with their feudal lord to regulate the trade levy. The regulations agreed between the Guild Merchant and their feudal lord resulted in a Guild Merchant charter. The Guild Merchant charter allowed the merchants to pay an annual payment, or fixed sum, to the feudal lord who owned the land where the town was based. Many of the sculptures in the Town Hall are concerned with the various Charters granted to Chester over the years.

In 1193 grant was confirmed by the then Earl of Chester, Ranulf de Blondeville. Individual craft companies, or guilds, later developed to protect and maintain their monopolies, the quality of their goods and the interests and welfare of the merchants and craftsmen of Chester. Among the earliest Guilds to emerge were the Tanners, who are first mentioned in 1361, the Weavers in 1399 and the Ironmongers and Carpenters in 1422. Tradesmen who were not members of the guilds would have to pay a fine if they wished to trade without membership. In some cases the fine was low enough to be acceptable as a license, in others it was punitive.

Charters of privileges were granted to the city by the successive Norman earls, and these were confirmed and enlarged by Henry II and John, and Henry III in 1242 constituted the chief magistrate mayor: Henry VII, by charter, in 1506, made the city of Chester a county in itself, and granted to the mayor and corporation jurisdiction over the River Dee, from Heronbridge to Arnold's Eye, as well as many unique legal privileges and jurisdictions. The 1506 charter effectively placed much of the legal system in Chester in the hands of the "freemen", and hence in the hands of the Guilds.

Freemen
No craftsman or trader could work in Chester, and avoid a fine, unless he was a "freeman" and a member of the relevant Guild. The parents or guardians of a minor would agree with a Guild's Master craftsman the conditions for an apprenticeship which would bind the minor for 5–9 years (e.g. from age 14 to 21), and pay a premium to the craftsman and the contract would be recorded in an indenture. Apprentices served at least five years to learn their trade. They could then become freemen of the City and seek admission to the appropriate Craft Guild. To become a freeman, a man had to be the son of a freeman, to have served his apprenticeship to a freeman or be admitted by order of the City Assembly. The system is similar to the ranks in Freemasonry, and the Guilds exhibited similar behaviors to the freemasons in terms of charity amongst members.

The actual rights of a freeman are not entirely clear: "free" may simply mean that the man is no-longer an apprentice, or it could mean that he is free to leave and enter the city as he chooses, possibly with a reduction of or an escape from the tolls (as was the case in Chester). Women could not join Guilds, but could continue the business of their husband if he was a member of the Guild and they became widowed.

There were often disputes as each Guild fought to protect its own position and prosperity. To settle these disagreements and to enforce their privileges the Guilds turned to the Mayor or the Assembly. The Assembly was the ancestor of the modern day City Council. Its members were mostly also Guild members, so the Guilds had significant influence the political life of the City. Until the electoral reforms of 1835 only Freemen could vote in the city and parliamentary elections. It has been estimated that about one fifth of the population of Chester were Freemen, so the voting franchise was in the hand of a minority. During the Commonwealth the city was deprived of its privileges as a separate county, and the Corporation dissolved on 17 Sept. 1659. In 1664, Charles II confirmed the grant and charter of Henry VII.

Members of Parliament
Chester returned two members to Parliament from the 1st year of Queen Mary (1553) the elective franchise being vested in the freemen and householders (ratepayers), but under the Redistribution of Seats Act (1885) the representation was reduced to one member the franchise having been previously extended in accordance with the Representation of the People Act (1867). For a long period (1715 to 1874) the Whig Grosvenors of nearby Eaton Hall, who derived enormous wealth from landed property in Cheshire, returned at least one of the two Members of Parliament, and frequently both. They controlled the tenancies of numerous Chester properties and exerted great influence over the 24 incorporated trades (Guilds) and the self-electing corporation or assembly of 24 aldermen and 40 common councilmen.

The Corporation continued to be elected under the 1506 charter of Henry VII until the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act (1835), by which the city was divided into five wards, each returning 6 councilors. This led to a Corporation consisting of a mayor, sheriff, eleven aldermen and thirty-three councilors. The Local Government Act 1888, copied "Chester Model" with the established a "new" sort of borough – the county borough. These were designed to be 'counties-to-themselves': i.e. administrative divisions to sit alongside the new administrative counties. They allowed urban areas to be administered separately from the more rural areas, as had long been the case in Chester. Under the Representation of the People Act (1918), the borough, with that portion of the county forming the Chester Rural District was merged in the City of Chester Parliamentary division, which returned one member. By the County of Chester Review Order, 1936, the city was increased by the addition of parts of the parishes of Blacon, Claverton, Newton, Great Broughton, Little Saughall and Marleston-cum-Lache. In 1954, Hoole was added to the county borough.

Current local government is under the mantle of "Cheshire West and Chester" a unitary authority area with borough status, in the ceremonial county of Cheshire. It was established in April 2009 as part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England, by virtue of an order under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. It replaced the boroughs of Ellesmere Port and Neston, Vale Royal and Chester District and its council took over the function of the former Cheshire County Council within its area. The rest of ceremonial Cheshire is composed of Cheshire East, Warrington and Halton.

Pre-Conquest


In about the seventh century, groups of ten families of freeholders or frank-pledges formed units called tens or tithings. The frank-pledges were persons that had to pledge surety to the sovereign against any infractions of good behavior for the benefit of the collective good of the group. Groups of tithings became an administrative unit known as a "hundred". The name "hundred" may be derived from the number one hundred; it may once have referred to an area liable to provide for a hundred men under arms, or containing roughly a hundred homesteads (as the land covered by one hundred "hides"). It was a traditional Germanic system described as early as AD 98 by Tacitus (the centeni). In early Anglo-Saxon England the "hide" was the amount of land sufficient to support a household. Later on it was used to assess how many men a landowner would have to provide for public obligation to the crown. It was also used as the basis for a land-tax known as "geld" to pay off raiding Vikings. Once the Viking threat was over, the tax was maintained, and the hide was used as the basis for assessing the amount of food rent (known as feorm - or "farm") due from an area.

Each hundred was responsible for the defaults of the individual freeholders or frank-pledges. The collective liability of the group made for a corporate form of government. Collectively, the hundreds formed into geographically based divisions known by the Anglo-Saxon word "scir", which means, "a piece shorn off". The word scir later became shire.

The Saxons extended and strengthened the walls of Chester to protect the city against the Danes, who occupied it for a short time (in 894) until Alfred seized all the cattle and laid waste the surrounding land to drive them out. Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, that built the new Saxon "burh", from which comes the word "borough". The inhabitants of a "burh" were "burghers". For fortified locations, such as a borough, a "wic-reeve" would be in charge of the fortified area. This was a gentry member and a landowner in his own right.

The House of Leofric


During the 10th century Chester became well established as a major Mercian port and appears to have been the only sizable port in the region. From the 990s the family of Leofwine of Mercia settled in Chester and helped to ensure the city's survival as a major provincial centre. Leofwine was an "Ealdorman". An "ealdorman" (from Old English ealdorman, lit. "elder man"; plural: "ealdormen") was one term used for a high-ranking royal official and prior magistrate of an Anglo-Saxon shire or group of shires from about the ninth century to the time of King Cnut. The term ealdorman was rendered in Latin as "dux" (duke) in early West Saxon charters, and as præfectus (which is also the equivalent of gerefa, (modern reeve), from which sheriff or shire reeve is derived). In the Life of King Alfred by the Welsh bishop Asser, the Latin equivalent is "comes" (count). Towards the end of the tenth century, the term ealdorman gradually disappeared as it gave way to eorl, probably under the influence of the Danish term "jarl", which evolved into modern English "earl".

The beginning of any settled form of local government may go back to the middle of the eleventh century at least. Charters of rights were granted by Edward the Confessor to various cities, possibly including Chester. Bodies Corporate were created with a common seal, one or more head officers, and a certain number of members, empowered by common consent to grant or receive in law, and to deal with any matter within the compass of their charter. After Eglaf's death in 1023 Leofwine's descendants succeeded to the whole Mercian earldom. Western Mercia retained an especial importance: Leofwine's son, Earl Leofric (d. 1057), enriched several important churches and cult centres in the area, including the two minsters in Chester, St. Werburgh's and St. John's.

Chester in 1066
Leofrics Mercian House was the only real rival to Wessex. Leofric's outlawed son, Ælfgar (who had a bit of a "history" with Harold), raided Mercia with help from the Welsh and particularly Gruffyd. In retaliation Harold and his - soon to be treacherous - brother Tostig subjugated Wales in 1063. After the death of Gruffyd, (at the hands of his own men) his half-brothers Bleddyn ap Cynfyn and Rhiwallon came to an agreement with Harold regarding the rulership of Wales and were given the rule of Gwynedd and Powys (they were later (in 1069-70) to rebel, with Eadric the Wild and the men of Chester, against the Normans). When Harold married Ealdgyth he not only married the widow of his enemy Gruffyd, but also the daughter of his enemy Ælfgar (who had died in 1o62). Ælfgar sons were Edwin, Earl of Mercia, and Morcar, Earl of Northumbria. One indication of the impact of such developments upon Chester itself was the fact that in Harold II's reign (January-October 1066) its mint was one of the few supplied with locally produced dies, and the continuing close association of the city with the comital house was demonstrated when Harold's widow Ealdgyth was sent there by her brother Earl Edwin after the battle of Hastings.



By 1066 Chester was a prosperous town with a population of perhaps 2,500-3,000. Rendering a farm of £45 and three timber of marten pelts (i.e. 120 skins), together with an additional payment from the moneyers, it was assessed as a half hundred including the adjacent townships of Handbridge, Newton by Chester, 'Lee' (Overleigh and Netherleigh), and 'Redcliff', expressly said to be 'outside the city' but taxed with it. The city had its own laws and customs, administered by its hundredal court, over which presided 12 judges or doomsmen (iudices civitatis) drawn from the men of king, earl, and bishop, and liable to fines payable to the king and earl for failure to attend. The judges have been regarded as evidence of Scandinavian influence on the city's institutions and equated with the 'lawmen' (lagemen or iudices) of certain boroughs in the Danelaw. The laws of Chester, which were recorded in Domesday Book in exceptional detail, suggest that, as in other western towns dominated by a great local magnate, the status of its citizens was comparatively low. They were obliged to pay 10s. on becoming burghers - taking up land in the city, and were also liable to heavy fines for failure to pay gavel or rent and for other misdemeanours. As elsewhere, burgage holdings were heritable and obliged to pay gavel (gablum) to the 'chief lords': before 1066 the king, the earl of Mercia, and the bishop of Lichfield; afterwards the Norman earls and bishops of Chester.

Post-Conquest
After the Norman conquest:
 * the title of "Maire" was conferred by the people upon the man chosen as the head of the municipality.
 * the Saxon "Wic-reeves" became "Bailiffs", and
 * the "burghers" were called "citizens."

The early Norman kings imposed an annual rent or fee-farm upon cities, which bargain, although accepted with a bad grace, was insisted upon for centuries. If concessions were granted, it was only for reasons which would have made the refusal of them arbitrary and oppressive. The hide, now used for tax-assessment, was given a set acreage, in the Domesday book the most common size in use was 120 acres (48.56 ha; 0.19 sq mi).

Norman Earls
The Anglo-Norman Earls of Chester were provided with their title by Chester, but from the beginning two-thirds of the income of the Earls came from outside of Cheshire. Their possessions were scattered through twenty counties, such that the value of simply a comparatively poor (but strategically vital) border holding was enhanced, but by lands which were scattered throughout the kingdom and therefore not easy to defend should the earl choose to rebel. The focus of the Earls activities would shift over the years and this had an impact on the development of local government in Chester. Hugh of Avranches largely focused his activities in conquest of North Wales, and so based himself in the City for much of the time. Ranulf de Meschines was much more concerned with his territories in Lincolnshire, and those of Ranulph De Gernon also concerned with the midlands. The northwestern bias seems to have returned under Hugh de Kevelioc, and continued through the earldom of Ranulf de Blondeville.

The Norman earls dominated the government of the city still more than had their English predecessors. By 1071 the royal officials had been excluded. The earl's reeve, however, remained. As late as c. 1210 Ranulf de Blondeville could refer to one of his grantees, William of Barrow, as 'my reeve of Chester', an indication that the city was still in effect a seigneurial borough. The duties of the earl's reeve are obscure. In particular, it is uncertain how they related to those of another representative of the earl, mentioned much more often: the sheriff of the city. The earliest reference to the sheriff of Chester (Winebald), the first for any English borough, was in the 1120s in Ranulf de Meschines's charter granting jurisdiction over the summer fair to St. Werburgh's abbey, in which provision was made for the amount received in fines by the monks to be deducted from the farm which the city sheriff rendered to the earl's chamberlains. The sheriff evidently accounted for the city's revenues, an arrangement whose origins perhaps date from before the 1070s, when the farm of the city was already distinguished from that of the earl's pleas in the shire and hundred courts, though both were held by the same person, the earl's man Mundræd. From an early period the sheriff's duties included policing.

In the time of Ranulph De Gernon, for example, he and the abbot's officials were charged with the arrest and detention of merchants who offended against the regulations governing trading at St. Werburgh's fair. The sheriff probably also, as later, presided over the portmote court, in existence by 1200, when Peter the clerk was exempted from attending it. Almost certainly the portmote represented a continuation of the hundred court of Chester, mentioned in 1086.

Henry II


In 1160 a charter was granted by Henry II to the burghers of Chester to buy and sell at Durham "as they were wont to do". About the year 1171 Henry II. granted permission to the Burgesses (citizens) of Chester to buy and sell at Dublin,


 * "having and observing the same customs which they observed in the time of King Henry my grandfather."

This not only suggests an earlier charter, but shows that there existed a considerable trade, even at this early period, between the two ports.

Gradually the emphasis in the citizens' relations with their lord changed from duties to privileges, and by the late 12th century the occasional personal services for which they had been liable had largely disappeared. About 1178, for example, Earl Hugh de Kevelioc granted the sherrif of Chester a certain Payn, nephew of Iseult, land in the city as a free customary tenant, with quittance from toll, taking and guarding prisoners, taking distresses, carrying writs, doing night watch, and all other similar "customs and vexations".

In 1190 Henry II conferred the "Gilda Mecatoria" (the Guild Merchant) on the people of Chester - giving them the right to trade. The Guild Merchant also established an association of traders, and able to negotiate with their feudal lord to regulate the trade levy. The earliest charters did not materially alter the forms of local government; as a rule, they merely recognised and confirmed existing privileges. The immunities of the Guilds were respected, and in any proposed change exceptions were always made in their favour. The citizens jealously watched over their rights, which, as the name of "Guild" implies, had been handed down to them from Saxon times. The Sheriff at this time was one William Gamberell.

Ranulf de Blondeville


The office of mayor of Chester probably originated with Ranulf de Blondeville's confirmation of grant of a Guild Merchant to the city in the 1190s. Although he was the head of the guild, the mayor ranked below the sheriffs. The terms of the grant did not indicate whether the guild was created then or existed already, nor did they explain the nature of the organization involved. Even so it undoubtedly prepared the way for the emergence in the 1230s of a mayor and sheriffs responsible to the citizens rather than to the earl.

The next chatters, in order of date, are three granted at the beginning of the thirteenth century by Ranulf. That many of the privileges were not new is indicated by Ranulf de Blondeville's charter confirming the liberties and free customs which the citizens enjoyed under his predecessors. By then they included freedom from inquest (recognitio) and assize (proportamentum), to which Ranulf added the right to make valid wills whether death occurred within the city or elsewhere, and a restriction on the liability of citizens who purchased stolen goods. The confirmation of the privileges were linked with the beginnings of corporate action by the burgesses, first evidenced by their responsibility for paying at least part of the city farm during Ranulph III's minority (1181 to around 1188).

By his first charter he granted:


 * "to the men of Chester of my domain, and their heirs, that no one may buy or sell any kind of merchandise, which shall come to the city of Chester by sea or by land, but them or their heirs, or by their favour, save at the fairs appointed."

These fairs were appointed to be held at the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, June 24th, and the Feast of St. Michael, September 29th. The same Earl granted by charter:


 * "to all my citizens of Chester their Gild Merchant with all the liberties and free customs which they have ever had, better and more freely and more quietly in the times of my ancestors, in the aforesaid Gild."

His third charter, while confirming previous grants, conferred certain legal privileges.


 * "If any citizen of my aforesaid city die, his will, reasonably made, may be made good in law, and from wheresoever made."

The next provision is curious, and probably relates to stolen goods :-


 * "If any citizen shall make any purchase in open day, and before witnesses, and a suit shall afterwards arise from a Frenchman or Englishman, who can reasonably dispute the purchase, he shall restore what he has purchased, but be liable to nothing further".

But, the charter proceeds,


 * "if suit shall arise from a Welshman who can reasonably dispute the purchase, he shall give back to the citizen the price of the article bought, which the same citizen can reasonably show that he gave for the thing bought."

This discrimination against the Welsh reflects the inferior status of the Welsh and can be also seen in the writings of Lucian the Monk:


 * "The native [Cestrian] knows how savagely our neighbour often approaches, and stimulated by hunger and cold haunts the place, and then cannot help but compare the difference in supplies. Yet he returns, but with hostile glance and evil thoughts envies the citizen within the walls."

King John


The next surviving charter, is one by John, Earl of Moreton, and Lord of Ireland, (afterwards King), confirming the charter of Henry II. enabling the citizens to trade in Ireland. Whether some resistance had been made to this charter does not appear, but later John enjoined all his Bailiffs in Ireland:


 * "to guard and protect the citizens of Chester, and all their goods and possessions, and not do, or allow to be done,to them any injury or annoyance . - - so that I hear no complaints thereof."

And after he succeeded to the throne John intimated to all his Justicianes, Constables, and Bailiffs in Ireland, that he had granted another charter to the citizens of Chester, confirming "all the free customs which they have been wont to have in our land of Ireland," and proceeds, evidently not without reason, "we strictly forbid you to harass them herein in any respect or to do or allow to be done to them therein any wrong or annoyance."

The shrievalty appears first to have been divided in the 1220s or 1230s, during the tenure of Stephen Fresnell, and there were certainly two sheriffs by 1244.

John Canmore


John Canmore, the last of the Norman Earls of Chester, by a charter granted between 1234-37 confirmed:


 * "to my citizens of Chester, that no merchant shall buy or sell any kind of merchandise, which shall have come to the city of Chester, by sea or land, except the citizens themselves, or their heirs, or by their favour, except on the appointed market-days, that is to say, at the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, or at the Feast of St. Michael."

John Canmore also confirmed the charter as to purchase in market overt of goods which later turned out to be stolen (but still with the invidious exception in the case of Welsh plaintiffs!). The Guild Merchant, also, was confirmed, and a curious custom known as "caption" was defined ."Caption" was the seizing or taking of a certain proportion of the merchandise offered for sale. Then the charter goes on,


 * "that no caption be made in the city of Chester except for the use of the Lord Earl and his Justiciary whilst they are here, and that this should be thirteen pennyworths for twelve, except only ale, and caption of that was to be taken only to the extent of four pints of one brewing, and the price of each pint ought to be four-pence."

And no one was to have the caption of ale except the Lord Earl and his Jnsticiary.

Henry III


On the eighth of December, 1237, Henry III. confirmed the charter of Randal Blnndeville, this charter being under the hand of "the Venerable Father, R. Bishop of Chichester, Our Chancellor at Westminster." On the same day another charter was signed by the same high official confirming the charter of Randal granting Guild Merchant. In the following year the King himself confirmed the charter granting the exclusive right of trading in Chester to the citizens. On the sixteenth of July, 1270, Prince Edward, son of Henry III., by his letters patent to his Justiciary at Chester,


 * "desiring to show, as we are bound, to our citizens of Chester, a special favour, and that may be more closely defended and maintained in their rights,"

firmly enjoined him to take nothing from them


 * "save the due prises which are ours, the price of which take care to pay within forty days."

One indication that the office of Sheriff had been vested in the citizens, and had perhaps become elective, is the greater frequency with which it changed hands from the mid 13th century; the fact that at least 11 different combinations of holders served during the mayoralty of Richard the clerk. (c. 1251-68), for example, strongly suggests that by then appointments were for one year only.

Unlike the sheriffs and serjeants, the mayors originated as representatives of the citizens themselves. As elsewhere the mayoralty was never the subject of a formal grant. The earliest known holder of the office, William the clerk, was first named as mayor c. 1240, though he had been a senior civic figure, attesting documents, since the 1220s. The sudden occurrence of a clutch of royal letters and orders addressed to the mayor between 1244 and 1251 suggests that his office was a recent creation. The business with which he was required to deal, occasionally alone but more often in conjunction with the sheriffs and other prominent citizens, included a request for a loan, an adjudication on the closure of a lane near the Franciscan friary, overseeing paving and royal works within the city, and disposing of the remains of the king's wine after a royal visit.

The rise of the mayor to prominence in civic administration coincided with the growth of royal interest in the city, stimulated by Henry III's expeditions into Wales. Thereafter, in charters of the 1250s, the mayor was accorded a primacy of honour in the attestation of grants recorded at the portmote, yielding precedence only to the justice of Chester. Gradually, too, he seems to have taken on the role of chief representative and negotiator on behalf of the citizens in a variety of matters relating to the city's rights and privileges. In the 1260s he was associated with the sheriffs in defending Chester's legal privileges in the county court, and by the 1290s he was expected to adjudicate on civic custom and to prosecute the city's claims to immunity at the King's Bench.

A further responsibility came with the grant of the right to hold the seal of Statute Merchant. The larger portion of the seal was kept by the mayor, the smaller by a new associate, the clerk for the recognizance of debt. Early holders of the latter post, first recorded in 1291, included the son of a former mayor and a royal clerk. The grant of the seal made Chester a regional centre for the registration of debt and conditional bonds, some of which involved very large notional sums; by the 1340s proceedings were held before the mayor and clerk and enrolled among the records of the portmote.

Despite such wide responsibilities, the mayor did not apparently act as a judge within the city or preside over the city's courts before 1300; his involvement in judicial processes was apparently limited to punishing those convicted in the king's court of minor marketing offences. Occasionally, indeed, the sheriffs were expected to act against mayors who exceeded their role. In 1293, for example, the king's court empowered the sheriffs to attach the mayor, Robert the mercer, on a charge of inflicting the punishment of being drawn on hurdles.

Such evidence suggests that the mayoralty originated informally as the headship of some association of the civic élite, probably the Guild Merchant. It is also uncertain how the early mayors were chosen. If it was by election, then no term seems to have been put upon the successful candidate's tenure: mayors such as William the clerk, Walter de Livet, Richard the clerk, and John Arneway apparently held the office for uninterrupted periods of 10 years or more. From 1278, however, the mayors changed more frequently, although the same men often reappeared. That may well suggest a more open method of selection, perhaps accompanying the extension of the mayor's role in the late 13th century.

Edward I


Edward by charter dated the twelfth of June, 1300, confirmed the previous charters, but stipulated fee-farm of £100 per annum (only half of what had been demanded in the 1230s), one-half to be paid at Easter, and the other moiety at Michaelmas. This charter was the product of royal interest in the city which culminated during the Welsh wars. Edward's charter of 1300 confirmed the mayor's precedence over the sheriffs. The increasingly abundant records after that date show clearly that the sheriffs were chosen annually, though occasionally in the early 14th century the same pair held office for two consecutive years. The mayoralty, however, continued to be held for several years at a time until the earlier 15th century or later. By the 1340s, and probably as early as 1320, the mayoral and shrieval years ceased to run from Michaelmas to Michaelmas. Instead the new officials began their term of office on the Friday after the feast of St. Denis (9 October).

Permission was given to the citizens to choose Coroners. The Mayor and Bailiffs were invested with the power to hold a Court for Crown Pleas, and citizens were permitted to hold certain Courts and to impose fines in certain minor cases. The grant of the Crown pleas to the citizens, at the time a unique privilege, replaced the king's court in the city with a new court presided over by the mayor and 'bailiffs' (that is, the city sheriffs). The association of the latter with the mayor in a new judicial role affected the standing of both offices.

The citizers were to receive toll or customs of imports; their goods were not to be seized for debt; they were not to be liable for the misdeeds of their servants; heirs, executors, and friends, of any citizen dying, should he be entitled to the estate; the City Bailiff only was to discharge the duties of Bailiff in the city: no person arrested within the city was to be taken to any prison other than that at the Northgate, where he was to be kept until he could be dealt with according to the law and custom of the city; and citizens were to be allowed to build upon vacant pieces of ground (in December, 1328, Edward III inspected and confirmed this charter).

By 1305 the mayor had taken over the presidency of the portmote for civil as well as criminal cases. By then, too, the portmote roll was dated by reference to both mayor and sheriffs, instead of the sheriffs alone, as had been customary earlier. The growth of mayoral power in the portmote also affected the sole remaining shrieval court, the Pentice. For a brief period, c. 1320-40, it was presided over by the mayor together with the sheriffs. When once again it became exclusively shrieval, much of its business had been eroded. Fair-time pleas and market offences were dealt with by the mayor in the portmote, and as a result proceedings in the Pentice became more and more routine.

The Black Prince


In 1352 Edward the Black Prince, Earl of Chester, gave notice to the Mayor and citizens that he had granted the fee-farm of £100 payable by the city yearly to Richard, Earl of Arundel, for his life, commanding them at the same time:


 * "to be attentive and obedient to the said Earl and his attornies in the payment of the said Farm."

Three years later, the ninth of March, 1355, the Black Prince confirmed the previous charters and granted other privileges. The chattels of felons and fugitives, to the amount of £30 were to belong to the city, above that amount to the King. The Mayor, by virtue of his office, was to be escheater to the King. From the 12th century onward, the Crown appointed escheators to manage escheats and report to the Exchequer, with one escheator per county established by the middle of the 14th century. Upon the death of a tenant-in-chief, the escheator would be instructed by a writ of "diem clausit extremum" ("he has closed his last day", i.e. he is dead) issued by the king's chancery, to empanel a jury to hold an "inquisition post mortem" to ascertain who the legal heir was, if any, and what was the extent of the land held.

The boundaries of the city were described, and appear to have coincided with those of to-day, and the citizens were invested with Admiralty powers enabling them to arrest for tolls, dues, customs, and offences committed on the Dee between Chester and Arnold's Eye (Hilbre Island). This charter was signed by the Prince himself at Chester.

By the mid 14th century the roles of the main civic officers had been largely defined. The dominance of the mayor, already well established, was enhanced by the grant of the escheatorship in 1354, and by his increasing control over market offences, presented at inquests held in the courts over which he presided. The activities of the sheriffs, by then elected annually, were gradually restricted to the collection of local dues, policing, and the administration of summary justice for minor offences. The principal institutions remained those of a century before, the portmote and the unitary guild merchant. However the arrival of the Black Death in 1349 brought about some change. One third of the population of Chester is believed to have died.

Richard II


Richard II., by a charter dated tenth December, 1379, at Westminster, under his own hand, confirmed that of Edward the Black Prince. He had already ordered that "all the profits of the passage of the said water (the Dee) at Chester, and the Murage which used to be granted there for the Walls," were to be used for the repair of the bridge. In 1395 he, by his letters patent, wanted Murages for four years for the repair of the Walls and pavements. Near the end of his reign (the nineteenth of July, 1398 ) "the last of the Plantagenets," having erected the Palatinate of Chester into a Principality, inspected and confirmed the previous city charters at Chester, and sealed them "with the seal of our Principality." This was confirmed by Henry, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, on the twenty-third of February, 1401

The gradual dissolution of the earlier medieval framework of government was accompanied by the emergence of new civic structures, a process which seems to have crystallized in the 1390s, when the city was the object of Richard II's especial favour. Of the new institutions, the most significant was the "aldermanate" or Twenty-Four, in place by the early 1390s. Its early members, who despite their precise collective designation varied in number from 26 to over 30, were mostly former mayors and sheriffs and were associated with the current office-holders in making ordinances for the city; they met with the mayor to deliberate on the common good, and accompanied him on civic business, duties enforceable by fines exacted by the sheriffs if the aldermen did not comply.

Earl Henry (later Henry V)


In November, 1403 the Earl of Chester prevailed upon the King of his special grace to grant a pardon to the citizens for


 * "their treasons, insurrections, rebellions, and felonies by them done or perpetrated before this against us, and their allegiance with Henry Percy the younger, now dead, and other our rebels with the assent of the same Henry Percy."

For this act of Royal leniency the Mayor and citizens had undertaken to pay a fine of 300 marks (£200) and find shipping for an expedition then on its way to the relief of the Castle of Beanmaris.

Another grant "Given at Chester the 5th day qf March, 1407," by Henry, Earl of Chester, confirmed previous charters and wants, giving to the "Mayor and Commonalty of our city of Chester" the profits and emoluments of prisa et captione of Murage for five years, which "before these times was wont to be taken and received," but one-half was to be faithfully expended upon the repair of the city walls, and the other in finishing the tower on the Dee bridge which had been commenced in the time of "Richard, late King of England." (quite some time before see: Old Dee Bridge).

Two years later the same Earl extended the licence to take Murage from five years "so long as it shall please us."

Henry VI
Charters or letters-patent now became less frequent, and it was not until the fourth of August, 1445, that another was granted. Henry VI. had been petitioned by his "beloved lieges, the Mayor and Citizens of our City of Chester," on the grounds that trade had suffered from the silting of the port and that 'restrictions and charges' had been imposed by the Welsh rebellion. Cestrians claim that the "greater part of the city lay in ruins" and that


 * "for forty years now the great flow of warer at the said port ... is taken away from the said harbour by the wreck of the sea sand so that the said harbour is wholly destroyed  ... no merchant ship can approach within twelve miles of the said city"

Their prayer was granted, and £50 of the annual fee-farm of £100 was released for fifty years. But from letters patent dated the twentieth of November, 1456, we gather that in 1450 (twenty-five years only after it had been remitted), "by virtue of a certain Act of Resumption put forth in our Parliament," twenty-five marks (£16-13-4) annually were resumed. The King in consideration of the premises and of "the great burdens which the aforesaid Mayor and Citizens already have hardly in different manners borne," pardoned,remitted, and released the Sheriffs who were charged with the collection of it.

Richard III (20 June 1483–22 Aug 1485)


The new King, Richard III., was hardly crowned and seated upon the throne before the Mayor and citizens of Chester approached him with another long list of their grievances. Their petition set out:


 * that for sixty years past (that is from 1423) the river had been silted up, and no merchant ship could come within twelve miles of the city;
 * that the Toll demanded at the City Gates had driven away the trade of the March of Wales;
 * that in consequence " many citizens and other inhabitants of our said city withdraw themselves from out of the said city and are dwelling in other parts of our realm;
 * that in consequence of the great and insupportable burden of their fee-farm, the greater part of the city is wasted, in a desolate and ruinous condition, and very scantily inhabited.

This moving appeal had the desired effect. The King exonerated and acquitted the citizens from the payment of "custom-rent, long-gable rent, chamberlain rent," and all other payments, except £30 a year. These Letters were witnessed by the King himself at Chester on the tenth of April, 1484.

Henry VII (August 22, 1485 - April 21, 1509)


Two years later Henry VII., supposedly for similar reasons, made further concessions. Although it is worth remembering that a major land-holding family associated Chester (see: Stanley Palace) has changed sides at the battle of Bosworth Field, effectively (and literally) crowing Henry Tudor as Henry VII, and leading poor old Richard III to die shouting "Treason! Treason! Treason!....".


 * "The humble supplication and lamentable information of the Mayor, Sheriffs, Citizens, and Commonalty.. [pleaded that Chester had been] ..one of the ancient cities of the kingdom of England, and built for the holding and safeguard of the Marches and the parts adjacent, and the Port of the same City with so crowded a concourse of foreign traders landing there at a gate called the Watergate of the same City, and others bringing their merchandise,"

..had formerly been very prosperous. But now the river was choked with sand. The markets were void. Entire desolation was imminent. Upon this the King remitted the whole of their burdens, except the payment of £20 annually. This document too was witnessed by the King (Henry VII.) himself, at Chester, on the twenty-first day of March, 1485.

The GREAT CHARTER of Henry VII (1506) proceeds:




 * "know Ye that we, for the great affection which we have and bear to our City of Chester, the Citizens and Commonalty of the same City, and in consideration of the good behaviour and great expenses of the inhabitants of the same City, as also of the voluntary service many ways rendered by them against our adversaries and rebels, willing the better estate of the same City, and especially to provide for the convenience and quiet of the said Citizens, their heirs and successors, of our especial grace and certain knowledge, and mere motion, have given and granted, and do give and grant, and by these presents have confirmed for us and our heirs to the aforesaid Citizens and commonalty, their heirs and successors for ever, that the said City, and all the ground within the said City, with the suburbs and hamlets within the precinct and compass of the same, and all the ground within the precinct and compass of the said City of Chester and the aforesaid suburbs and hamlets, (wholly excepting our castle within the walls of the said City), be exempted and separated, as well by land as by water, from our shire of Chester; and that the said City, and the suburbs and hamlets of the same, and all the ground within the precinct and compass of them, (except as before excepted), be henceforth a County by and in itself distinct and separate from our County of Chester, and that from henceforth it shall be called and named the 'County of the City of Chester.'"

The charter next provided for the election of a Mayor, two Sheriffs, twenty-four Aldermen, and forty Common-Councilmen, and one Alderman was to be appointed Recorder of the City. The Charter laid out the process for electing the Mayor. Every year the freemen were to vote for aldermen and councilmen, who made up the Assembly, the ancestor of the present day City Council. The aldermen then voted for the Mayor. In practice the Assembly itself elected men to fill any vacancies.

The Mayor and Sheriffs were invested with authority to hold a Court in the Common Hall of the City for the trial of offences and claims of all kinds arising within the City, its suburbs, and hamlets, "our Castle and our liberty within the boundary commonly called 'Gloverstone' only excepted." The Northgate Tower was to be continued as a gaol, and Port-mote and Crown-mote courts were to be held before the Mayor. The forfeited goods of felons were to be the property of the citizens, who were also freed from the payment of all customs except those on wine and iron. The management and regulation of the Dee fisheries was vested in the Mayor and Sheriffs, as well as the control of the city markets. The twenty-four Aldermen were automatically justices of the peace by virtue of their office, and special powers were conferred upon any four of them, the Mayor and Recorder being two of the four, to inquire from time to time, and as often and whenever they should think good:


 * "concerning all felonies, trespasses, forestallings (that is, purchasing goods elsewhere than in fair or market), and regratings (buying up goods or victuals for re-sale), from time to time there done and committed."

That the dignity of the Chief Magistrate/Mayor might be apparent, the charter runs :-


 * " Moreover, we have granted . . . that the Mayor of the said City of Chester, and his successors for the time being, have their sword, which we gave them, or any other as may please them, (in the absence of us or our heirs), carried before them with the point upright, as well in the presence of other the nobles and lords of our realm of England, who are related to us and any others, as in any other way."

Power was likewise given to choose two Coroners every year, and two Murengers or overseers of the City Walls were to be appointed to collect the accustomed murage and keep the Walls in repair. The officers of the King's household were forbidden to meddle with the affairs of the City, and the Council were empowered to make bye-laws for its better government.

The fee-farm of the City was fixed at twenty pounds, and permission was given to the Mayor and Citizens to build up all void places, and the citizens were also exempted from certain customary dues.

Henry VIII (April 22, 1509–January 28, 1547)


In the reign of Henry VIII. (the fourth of May, 1528) Letters Patent were signed by direction of the Lord High Admiral of England, confirming to the Mayor and citizens of Chester certain rights in connection with the Dee. Commissary - General Woodhall had examined their ancient privileges,


 * "in virtue of which the lands, possessions, and all and singular harbours within the dominions of the aforesaid liberty, as well by land as by water and sea, viz :- From Arnold's Eye to Eaton Weir; also the tenants, farmers, and all other men, all and singular within the same liberty have been and are fully exempt from all manner of jurisdiction and power of the Admiral of England and his officials whatsoever, so far that all punishments, corrections, Deodands, Waveson, Flottesam, Jetteson, and wrecks, and all other casualties, contingencies whatsoever, whensoever, howsoever, by land, water, and sea, with all and singular their appurtenances within the aforesaid liberties are found to belong to foresaid Mayor and citizens of the fore mentioned city of Chester; used moreover according to custom prescribed from time and for time immemorial."

Henry Gee, also known as “The Reforming Mayor of Chester” served two terms: 1534-1534 and 1539-1540. In his first term, Henry Gee was determined to change how the government operated. Henry Gee was puritan in outlook. Both as Sheriff and Mayor, Henry Gee


 * “acted against unlawful gaming, drink, and excessive celebrations on Christmas Day. He introduced regulations concerning women’s proper dress and parties accompanying childbirth and churching. He proposed to list legitimate beggars by ward, and required the able-bodied to present themselves for work each day and all [boys] aged six to attend school. He even forbade women aged between 14 and 40 to serve ale, invoking the need to preserve the city’s good reputation in order to attract visitors”.

The first Assembly minute book was begun on the initiative of Henry Gee during his second mayoralty, 1539-40. It seems to have been intended as a reference book, for the first folios contain copies of earlier records, for example a list of mayors and sheriffs from 1326; a description of the city boundaries and streets; a list of officers’ fees; and a list of Corporation property. Assembly orders dating from c.1453 are also copied in and it is not until c.1570 that decisions taken at Assembly meetings begin to be recorded on a systematic basis. Henry Gee was concerned about the quality of government. One of the changes he tried to make was to prevent mayoral nomination of aldermen. Gee also reformed the way the elections were carried out, so that the elections had to be carried out at the assembly meetings.

By the mid 16th century people were showing a reluctance to hold office, owing to the expense and other problems. A ruling in 1550 forced any who refused office to be fined £100 and those who tried to avoid office, £10.

Records from this period in the national archive include William Alderley's "History of the Mayors of Chester".

A further useful economic record of the time is the City of Chester Town Clerk records compiled by the Clerk of the Pentice, which mainly consists of copies of bills of exchange protested before him as notary public, with notes of the protests and the reasons for non-payment. The record also contains copies of instruments of protest made before him, by which masters of ships or merchants protested against all concerned all damage and losses due to storms at sea or to failure to observe the terms of charter-parties or trade agreements. The book also contains copies of a number of certificates from the Mayor, attested by the Clerk of the Pentice, that specified cargoes have been laded in the port of Chester, that the goods are English and belong to merchants of Chester, who are named, and that Chester is free from pestilence.

Elizabeth
Elizabeth, by her Letters Patent, confirmed the Great Charter of her predecessor, and added a provision for "the safety, defence, and government of orphans."

James I
James I. attempted to over-ride the liberties of the city, by requiring the citizens to elect Hugh Mainwaring to be their Recorder, which they declined to do.

The Commonwealth and After
During the Civil War government in Chester was thrown into turmoil. The siege of Chester by the Parliamentary forces in the Civil War forced the Mayor to be subject to a Royalist Military Governor. This office was held in 1643-44 by Sir Nicholas Byron and later by his nephew, Lord John Byron. Following the city’s surrender in February 1646, a Parliamentary Governor, Colonel Jones was appointed. The Mayor of Chester, Charles Walley, refused to sign the articles of surrender. He was fined and stripped of his authority.

During the Commonwealth the city was deprived of its privileges as a separate county, and the Corporation dissolved on 17 Sept. 1659. The City had remained loyal to the Royalist cause and in this way drew upon it the displeasure of Cromwell. The decision of Parliament was however inoperative, as before it could be acted upon Charles II had been called to the throne.

Charles II
The MPs returned in 1661, Sir Thomas Smith, Bt., and the recorder, John Ratcliffe, upheld the city's interests in parliament but were not especially active. The contested byelection on Ratcliffe's death in 1673, between Colonel Robert Werden, a courtier with local connections, and the recorder, William Williams, involved serious disorder and accidental loss of life during the poll. Werden had a majority of 50 in a total of 1,152 votes, but his election was confirmed only in 1675, after the Commons had considered complaints about the mayor's admission of new freemen during the contest to secure votes for a preferred candidate.

Charles II, by an order in Council removed nearly all the members of the Corporation, and the same year (1688), by Letters Patent, formed a new one, with Sir Thomas Stanley as Mayor. But in the following October he issued a proclamation restoring to Corporations-Chester among the number-their "ancient charters, liberties, rights, and franchises" (including the Great Charter of Henry VII). William Streete was restored to the Mayoralty, Sir William Williams, Baronet, to the office of Recorder, and the other expelled members to their several positions.

Towards the close of his reign an information was filed in the nature of a quo warranto, aiming at the dissolution of the Corporation. The citizens had resisted the attempt by the King to exclude certain civic officers opposed to the introduction of Catholics, and for the exclusion of the Duke of York from the succession.

Creating Votes
In the 1690s the city's political alignment was in the balance. Chester needed influential connections to obtain a scheme for the River Dee navigation, relief from heavy taxation, and a relaxation of the regulations hindering the import of cattle and hides. Economic and political issues were therefore linked as Whig and Tory groups, led respectively by Roger Whitley and Thomas Grosvenor, vied for control of parliamentary representation. There were also differences about the rights of dissenters and the method of choosing officers and members of the Assembly, though the parliamentary franchise undisputedly rested with the freemen. In 1690 Grosvenor and Levinge were returned, and Whitley and Mainwaring complained that the mayor had wrongly created 125 new freemen during the election.

As evidence of the way in which the Assemby was organised: the Assembly Book of 1689 records:


 * "Thomas Crichley, draper, stated in his petition that last Midsummer Randle Minshall, Macebearer, "being very aged and infirme and almost blind" by consent of the Mayor and Justices, employed him as his servant to attend the Mayor, carry the mace and officiate in his stead. The Mayor and Justices ordered that Minshall should pay him £20 a year as reward, but he had not done so. He asked that the house should make an order for his relief. It was ordered that Critchley should be deputy Macebearer for Randle Minshall, who should pay him £4 quarterly to begin at the previous Christmas. Thereupon Critchley took a solemn oath to conceal the secrets of the Assemblies so often as he should be admitted to them."

The Grosvenor Monopoly
The Whig Grosvenors of nearby Eaton Hall, who derived enormous wealth from landed property in Cheshire, Dorset (from 1822), North Wales and by developing the London residential suburbs of Belgravia, Mayfair and Pimlico on their Middlesex estate, returned at least one of the two Members of Parliament continuously from 1715 to 1874, and frequently both. They controlled the tenancies of numerous Chester properties and exerted great influence over the 24 incorporated trades (Guilds) and the self-electing corporation or assembly of 24 aldermen and 40 common councilmen, whose control of municipal affairs and offices was resented and had spawned an independence party. In 1784 when Richard, 1st Baron Grosvenor, was made an earl, the independents unsuccessfully put up John Crewe of Bolsworth against the sitting Members, Thomas Grosvenor, the earl’s brother, and Richard Wilbraham Bootle, a Lancashire landowner, both of them former participants in the abortive St. Albans Tavern venture who were now supporting William Pitt the Younger. For the next six years the independents, led by Ralph Eddowes, a merchant, fought a legal battle to try to establish their right under the city’s original charter, to participate in the election of members of the corporation. Although they obtained a favourable decision in the Lords early in 1790 (Journal of the HOL, 31 Geo III), they were financially exhausted and in too much disarray to enforce the ruling, which the corporation simply ignored. Eddowes, on whom most of the cost had fallen, gave up the struggle in disgust and later went to live in America.

Improvement Act (1761) and Municipal Corporations Act (1835)
By the year 1714 the revenues of the Earldom (excluding Flintshire) are recorded as follows:
 * Fee-Farm of city of Chester - £22 2 4 1/2,
 * Escheated lands of said city - £0 7 0,
 * Rents of the Manor of Dracklow and Rudeheath - £26 2 6,
 * Farm of Medywick - £21 6 0,
 * Profits of Mara and Modren - £34 0 9,
 * Profits of Shotwick Manor and Park - £23 19 0,
 * Mills upon River Dee - £11 0 0,,
 * Annual profits of Fordham Manor - £48 0 0,
 * Profits of Macklefield Hundred - £6 1 8,
 * Farm of Macklefield Borough - £16 1 3,
 * Profits of the forest of Macklefield £85 12 11 3/4,
 * Profits of escheater of Chester - £24 19 0,
 * Profits of the sheriff of said county - £43 12 3,
 * Profits of the Chamberlain of county - £55 14 0.

From 1689 until 1761 the civil government of the City was carried on under the provisions of the Great Charter of Chester, but at that date an Act of Parliament was obtained "for the better regulating of the poor, maintaining a nightly watch, lighting, paving, and cleansing the streets, rows, and passages, and providing fire engines and firemen, and regulating the hackney-coachmen, chairmen, carters, and porters, within the City of Chester." Forty years later (43 Geo. III.) this Act was amended, and a further Act (The Chester Improvement Act) was passed in 1845. In 1884 another Act was passed giving further powers.

The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 superseded most of the ancient methods of local government, and Chester fell into line with the younger communities. The Act established a uniform system of municipal boroughs, to be governed by town councils elected by ratepayers (rather than simply freemen). The reformed boroughs were obliged to publish their financial accounts and were liable to audit. Each borough was to appoint a salaried town clerk and treasurer who were not to be members of the council. The first election of Town Councillors under the Municipal Reform Act took place on Saturday, the twenty-sixth of December, 1835, and the results were made known on the Monday following. One of the first acts of the new administration was that the tolls at the city gates were abolished, allowing goods to enter without payment. From 1836 the mayor and a single sheriff were elected each year by the council as a whole.

After the establishment of the Reformed Corporation very few years elapsed before a school of election managers sprang up. This organization was not large in numbers, but by the skilful manipulation of the electorate, to which perhaps the indisposition of many to take part in these annual contests contributed, they wielded great power. Almost every ward had its price. These men could name a sum which would secure the return of a candidate quite irrespective of his fitness, and in this way men were introduced into the council, and ultimately to the highest offices. The principal weapon used in this peculiar warfare was beer, but, no doubt, the "Bashi-Bazouks", as these men were locally known, had their price in money. In twenty years the system had become a grave scandal, and each recurring election day was a "demoralising orgie". The same men were also very prominent workers in Parliamentary contests, but were on such occasions less potent for mischief, because a much greater proportion of the people took an interest in the election of members of Parliament.

The extension of the franchise in 1867 (under the Representation of the People Act (1867)) rang the death-knell of this rotten system. In Chester the number of voters was more than doubled, and thus became more unwieldy for such purposes, and another factor in bringing about the change cannot be overlooked :- From 1832 to 1868 no Conservative had ever represented the city in the House of Commons. In the latter year (with the election of Henry Cecil Raikes) the record was broken, and from that period municipal elections have been contested mainly on political lines, and by the use of political party organizations, but it was not until the first of November, 1895, that the Conservatives had a majority in the city council. Under the Local Government act 1888, Chester is declared a " county borough " for certain purposes of that Act.

Modern Times
Under the Representation of the People Act, 1948, the term of office of mayor was changed to run from May to May, and the terms of the mayor and sheriff elected in 1947 were extended to May 1949.

A major reorganisation of local government took place in 1974. In that year a Petition by Chester Council led to the Queen granting the City a new charter. Chester became a District Council, but the Queen, by Letters Patent, gave Chester the status of a City.

On St Valentine’s Day 1992, it was announced that the Queen would grant Lord Mayoralty status to Chester. She presented the Letters Patent confirming this honour to Chester’s first Lord Mayor, Councillor Susan Proctor on 16 April 1992. Councillor Proctor was only the ninth woman to hold office. The first woman Mayor of Chester was Phyllis Brown in 1938/39. The Lord Mayoralty was given to Chester in recognition of its historical and economic importance. The full title of the Mayor is now ‘The Right Worshipful, the Lord Mayor of the City of Chester’. Chester shares this honour with only 24 other cities, which are: City of London, Westminster, Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Canterbury, Cardiff, Coventry, Kingston-upon-Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea and York.

Current local government is under the mantle of "Cheshire West and Chester" a unitary authority area with borough status, in the ceremonial county of Cheshire. It was established in April 2009 as part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England, by virtue of an order under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. It replaced the boroughs of Ellesmere Port and Neston, Vale Royal and Chester District and its council took over the function of the former Cheshire County Council within its area. The rest of ceremonial Cheshire is composed of Cheshire East, Warrington and Halton. The decision to create the Cheshire West and Chester unitary authority was announced on 25 July 2007 following a consultation period, in which a proposal to create a single Cheshire unitary authority was rejected. Chester City Council had proposed the new authority be called "The City of Chester and West Cheshire" but this was also rejected.