Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION FIVE.
THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION.

VI. THE REVOLUTION AND AFTER.

There is very little of local interest left on record
respecting the reign of William III. The King was a friend
and patron of Thomas Papillon, the senior Member for
Dover, and he appointed a very discreet Constable and
Warden in the person of the Earl Romney ; but it is doubtful
whether the King was ever any nearer Dover than when he
sailed through Dover Bay on his way to land in Dorsetshire.
He frequently crossed to the Low Countries, but he usually
embarked and landed at Margate.

Queen Anne, in the year 1702, granted Letters Patent,
usually described as a Charter, to the Corporation to appoint
a Water Bailiff. The original Bailiff appointed in the Norman
Period was an officer of great authority, who had two sub-
Bailiffs, one for the water and one for the land, but when
the Baihff ceased to be appointed at the close of the Tudor
period, their still appeared a necessity for a Water Bailiff,
and Queen Anne's Charter supplied it. The muniment,
which is framed and hangs in the Council Chamber, is as
follows : —

"Anne, etc., to all to whom these presents shall come, —
Greeting. Know ye that we, for divers good causes and considerations
us thereunto moving, of our special grace certain knowledge and
mere motion, have given and granted by these presents for us, our
heirs and successors, do give and grant to our trusty and well-beloved
the Mayor and Jurats and Commonalty of this Town and Port of
Dover, in the County of Kent, and their successors, the office and
offices of Water Bailiff and Keeper of the Prison of the aid Town
and Port of Dover and the Liberties thereof for ever, to-^ether with
all fees, profits, advantages, emoluments whatsoever, to the said
ofiBcc and offices in any wise appertaining; and our further will and
pleasure is and we do hereby empower the said Mayor, Jurats ind
Commonalty, their heirs and successors, under their Common .Seal
to make whom they please their deputy to exercise the office of
Water Bailiff and also in like manner to make whom tliey please
their Deputy or Keeper of the said Prison, and they when so made,
or either of them, as often as the said Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty
shall sec cause, to remove and displace a' their will an I pleasure
and to put others in their stead ; and we do hereby grant these
our Letters Patent, or the enrollment or c: emplification thereof, shall
be good, firm, valil nnd effectual in law, and shall be taken,
construed and adjudged as well in all (.ir Courts as elsewhere for



THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION 249

the best advantage of the Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty of the
Town and Port of Dover, in witness whereof we have caiised these
our letters to be made patent. Witness ourselves at "Westminster
the 37th March, in the first year of our reign. By writ of Privy Seal.
— Cocks."

A change, touching the election of the Mayor, was made
by an Act of Parliament in the year 171 1, which provided
that an outgoing Mayor could not be re-elected until he had
been out of office for a full year. This rule had the effect
of causing a greater number of burgesses to graduate as
Common Councilmen, Jurats, and Mayors; but the Muni-
cipal Corporations Act, of 1835, did not contain that
provision, and in the new Town Council the election of the
same member of the Council for several years in succession
to fill the office of Mayor has been of frequent occurrence.

Municipal Government at Dover was consideraljly
affected by the accession of George I. This first sovereign
of the House of Hanover, made it his chief aim to secure
the support of the Whig Party in England, because that
Party .seemed likely to be useful to him in defending his
claim to the crown against the Jacobites, who were then
inclined to bring about another Stuart Restoration, and his
preference was based on common sense. The action which
George I. took with regard to Dover Corporation, was to
assure himself that the Chief Magistrate was a supporter of
the House of Hanover, for which reason John Hollingbury
was removed from the Mayoralty in 1722. The thirty years
following the accession of George H. was a dull period in
Dover. The few changes introduced were so insignificant
that they made ver)' little difference between the aspect of
the Town and Port in 1727 and 1760. The Market-Place
had been enlarged a little, by the demolition of some houses
on the side next to St. Martin's Church Yard. The old
place looked much the same; but its peaceful sleepy aspect
was disturbed by the noise of martial drums, and the drilling
of companies, called the militia, while the Mayor and Jurats
sat permanently in the old Court Hall, as a committee of
defence owing to rumours of invasion. There was no
invasion, but war followed in which the men of Dover, who
had ceased to be called upon for Cinque Ports ship service,
fitted out Privateers and did valiently in maintaining British
supremacy in the English Channel. The House of Hanover
had done very little to en- murage the Mariners of Dover,



250 ATSTNALS OF DOVER

foreigners being preferred by George I. and George II.
before Dover men as captains of the Mail Packets on the
Dover Passage. In the form of Local Government there
was no change, and very little betterment in the buildings
of the streets, although, towards the end of that period,
improvements both for public convenience and on sanitary
grounds were badly needed.

The period now arrived at in the history of Dover is
the commencement of its transition from mediaeval simplicity
to the condition of a well ordered town. The transition
was slow, for the people clung to old ways and were
desperately in love with the lanes and nooks, the crooked
streets and maladorous slums of Old Dover. Even to this
day many of the natives of this old town, both at home
and abroad have a great affection for the old place as it was
in their childhood, and when some of those who left it
in early life make a pilgrimage hither from far off countries
they pay but little attention to our "improvements," but
wander through the old narrow Lanes and around the ruins
of ancient buildings hoping to light upon some of the old
nooks, which their fathers had told them of.

If we could get a true picture of Dover which the
Corporation ruled in the first sixteen years of the reign of
George III., we should see a community unmolested by
Sanitary reformers, houses built to suit the whims of the
owner; lanes as narrow, and streets as crooked as the most
romantic mind could imagine. Down to the year 1776

Dover had not been built to any regular design, town-
planning had not been thought of. Somebody of course
had planned the town walls with gates to keep intruders out,
and towers to keep prisoners in. but those things were for
the security of the state rather than the good of the people.
Within those walls and gates the little community was
huddled together, and there were only a few straggling
houses outside the mural boundary. The chief diversions
of the people were when some great Kings, Queens,
Warriors, or Military prisoners landed ; or when erring
townspeople were consigned to the stocks, the ducking stool,
the pillory, or the gallows, all of which were close at hand ;
whilst, once a year, at any rate, all the Freemen went to
Church to elect one of their townsmen for the office of
Mayor. That style of Old Dover may be said to have
existed unalloyed until 1778.



THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION 25 1