Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION SIX.
THE MAYORS AND THEIR TIMES.
X. FROM THE NEW TOWN COUNCIL. 1836 TO 1850.

The changes introduced by the Municipal Corporations
Act of^ 1835, and which began to operate in Dover at the
beginning of 1836, are fully set out in the " History of the
Corporation," contained in the previous Section. The
changes specially affecting Mayors were that they were
chosen on the 9th November instead of the 8th September,
that they were elected by the members of the Town Council
instead of by the Freemen at large, and that the statutory
regulations made in Queen Anne's reign that the Mayor
should not be re-elected until he had been one year out of
the office was no longer in force. It was also permitted
by the new Act that a Mayor who had been an Alderman,
but whose term expired when he was elected Mayor, might
continue to hold the office of Mayor notwithstanding that
he was not otherwise a member of the Council. Many of
the Mayor's duties and privileges under the customal and
usage of the old Corporations passed away under the new
Act, the most important uf which were his presiding at the
Borough Quarter Sessiuiis and acting as Coroner.

1836 (January) E. P. Thompson (241)

(241) Edward Pett Thompson, who was Mayor in 1836, was
elected as the first Mayor of the new Corporaticn on the ist of
January in that year, anc! filled the oiSce again in 1838. He had
been a Jurat and a Deputj' Mayor in the old Corporation, in which
two of his ancestors had been Mayor. He was a learned man, devoted
particularly to literature end natural history. He had travelled in
Northern Europe, and had written interesting books on natural
history and travel. He had a large collection of natural history
specimens, which he presented to the Corporation when, under his
auspices, the Dover Museum was established in Febiniary, 1836.

1836 (November) W. Cocke 1837 Michael Elwin (242)

(242) Michael Elwiz:, who was Mayor in 1837, had been a Jurat
in the old Corporation, and was 73 years of age when he was elected
Mayor in the new Town Council. He was by profession a solicitor,
and held an official position in the Dover Navy VictuoUing Departs
ment. He was the First Lieutenant in the Dover Volunteers in 1799,
and was Mayor at the Coronation of Queen Victoria.



322 ANNALS OF DOVER

1838 E. P. Thompson 1839 William Cocke

1840 Edward Poole (243)

(243) Edward Poole, Mayor in 1S40 and 1841, was an kon-
founder, the successor to Jonathan Osborn, a former Mayor, at the
Foundry near the bottom of Snargate Street. Mr. Poole was the
founder of the Dover Benevolent Society, established to siipply the
poor townspeople with coals and bread in the winter.

1841 Edward Poole 1842 William Clarke (244)

(244) William Clarke, elected Mayor in 1842, held the office
for four successive years. He was a native of Londonderry, and
having retired from the post of surgeon in the Navy, he took up his
residence in Dover, and built for himself the first house in EfiBngham
Crescent. He was called "The Railway Mayor," because he exerted
himself to organise the festivities when the South-Eastem Railway
was opened to Dover in 1844. When he retired from the Town
Council, in 1849, lie returned to Ireland, where he died in 1863, but
his remains were brought to Dover a:id interred in Cowgate Cemetery,
where there is a monument to his memory.

1843 William Clarke 1844 William Clarke

1845 William Clarke 1846 William Cocke

1847 William Cocke 1848 A. F. Payne (245)

(245) Anthony Freeman Payn, son of Mr. Anthony Payn, who
founded the " York " Hotel at Dover in the Eighteenth Century, was
the first Liberal Mayor elected in the new Town Council. The Con-
servatives had held the majority in the Council from 1836 to 1847,
and when the Liberals found themselves masters of the situation in
1848, Mr. Payn was the first of their series of Mayors, extending
from 1848 to 1857.

1849 Steriker Finnis (246) 1850 Steriker Finnis

(246) Steriker Finnis was elected Mayor two years in succession,
so that he occupied the chair from November, 1849, until November,
1851. His father, John Finnis, and his grandfather, Robert Finnis,
were Mayors, the latter carrying us back to 1796, and Mr. Steriker
Finnis's career in the Town Council continued until 1883. Mr.
Finnis, after his two years in the Mayoralty, was many times invited
to again accept the ofi&ce, Imt he declined because he held that the
office of Mayor should not be reserved for a favoured few, but taken
?ji turn, as far as possible, by every member of the Council. Some
things that make history happened in Mr. Steriker Finnis's two
Mayoralties. The main thing that wms actually connected with his
oflBce of Mayor was the arloption of the Public Health Act and its
being put into operation in Dover. That Act conferred on the Cor-
poration the power to effectively carry out the town drainage and
to establish waterworks. That iniitortant work was immediately
undertaken, and the danger to the lives of the people arising from
the want of drainage and a pure water supply was removed by the
mach.inery then set in motion. Of course, these works left a large
burden on the ratepayers ; but another movement in the same
Mayoralty— the establishment of Dover Hospital, in High Street— was



THE MAYORS AND THEIR TIMES 323

purely benevolent and a lastixig blessing to the town. One other
undertaking accomplished during the Mayoralty, but one in which
*he Mayor only figured as a spectator, was also historic, that was
when the Mayor, in his official capacity, attended at the shore end
of the first submarine telegraph cable at Dover, on the 14th August,
1850, when the following message was sent from Dover to Calais: —
" The Ancient Ports of Dover and Calais must be the great highway
of communication with the whole Continent; in fact, the whole
world." The sentence does not appear to be particularly well worded,
as is often the case when a person is suddenly called upon to write
something in an album, but it served. The great fact was that Dover
and Calais were first united by electricity in the Mayoralty of Mr.
Steriker Finnis.



324 ANNALS OF DOVER