The Mayor's Pew, St Peter's Church, Barnstaple. On the chair back are shown the arms of Barnstaple: Gules a castle of three towers conjoined argent the centre tower larger than the others,[1] between two scrolls inscribed in Latin: Domini Nomen and Firmum Castellum ("The Name of God (is) a Strong Castle")
The Mayor of Barnstaple together with the Corporation long governed the historic Borough of Barnstaple, in North Devon, England. The seat of government was the Barnstaple Guildhall.[2] The mayor served a term of one year and was elected annually on the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (15 August) by a jury of twelve.[3] However Barnstaple was a mesne borough[4] and was held by the Mayor and Corporation in chief not from the king but from the feudal baron of Barnstaple, later known as the lord of the "Castle Manor" or "Castle Court". The Corporation tried on several occasions to claim the status of a "free borough" which answered directly to the monarch and to divest itself of this overlordship, but without success. The mayor was not recognised as such by the monarch, but merely as the bailiff of the feudal baron.[4] The powers of the borough were highly restricted, as was determined by an inquisition ad quod damnum during the reign of King Edward III (1327–1377), which from an inspection of evidence found that members of the corporation elected their mayor only by permission of the lord, legal pleas were held in a court at which the lord's steward, not the mayor, presided, that the borough was taxed by the county assessors, and that the lord held the various assizes which the burgesses claimed.[4] Indeed, the purported ancient royal charter supposedly granted by the Anglo-Saxon King Æthelstan (d.939) (King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to 939) and held by the corporation, from which it claimed its borough status, was suspected to be a forgery.[4]
Since 1974 Barnstaple has been a civil parish governed by a town council.[5]
An incomplete list of the mayors of Barnstaple between 1303 and 1793, was compiled by Benjamin Incledon (1730–1796) of Pilton House, Pilton, near Barnstaple in North Devon, an antiquarian and genealogist, and was published in 1830 within Joseph Besly Gribble's work "Memorials of Barnstaple".[6] A list of mayors from 1301 to 2002 was more recently published in Lois Lamplugh's 2002 work Barnstaple: Town on the Taw, which is based on the complete list which hangs in the Mayor's Parlour of Barnstaple's Guildhall.[7]
In 1332, a writ was issued by Edward III to inquire into an alleged indictment for burglary at the Priory in which the Mayor and twenty six burgesses were involved.[8]
1333
1334
John Pollard
1334
1335
Galfridus de Fremington
1335
1336
Thomas de la Barre
1336
1339
Ralph Smallcombe
1339
1347
Roger Molland M.P.
Molland holds the record for longest consecutive terms served as Barnstaple's Mayor (8 years). Thomas Holman (Mayor for various terms between 1400 and 1415) also served 8 years in total. Only one Mayor has served for longer (Charles F. Dart, 1932-1935, then 1938-1945).[7]
At the end of Holman's last term, he had served eight years (not consecutively) as Mayor of Barnstaple, which makes him joint second for longest time in office.[7]
^ abcGribble, Joseph Besly, Memorials of Barnstaple: Being an Attempt to Supply the Want of A History of that Ancient Borough, Barnstaple, 1830, pp. 197–205, 219–25 [3] (Gribble established the “Barnstaple Iron Foundry” in 1822 (p.546))
^ abcdefghijklmnoLamplugh, Lois, Barnstaple: Town on the Taw, South Molton, 2002, p.153-160, List of Mayors
