Talk:List of Lord Mayors of London

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history relating to william pryke lord mayor in 1925

Contents 1 Richard Whittington 2 Lord Mayors vs Lords Mayor 2.1 List of Lord Mayors of London or List of Lords Mayor of London? 3 Alex Rodrigeuz

[edit] Richard Whittington

I would say Whittington was Lord Mayor four times. From Museum of London: "In 1397 the Mayor, Adam Bamme, died in office and the King chose Whittington to become the new mayor. He was re-elected the following year, and again for 1406-7 and 1419-20. This made him Mayor of London four times." --Henrygb 16:58, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lord Mayors vs Lords Mayor

A user blanked this page and pasted the content to List of Lords Mayor of London. I have reverted the change pending the outcome of discussion here.

If it is decided to move the page, it will now require an administrator to delete the other page first. Please do not attempt to move this page by copy and pasting. JRawle (Talk) 14:48, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of Lord Mayors of London or List of Lords Mayor of London?

Please vote here for Lords Mayor or Lord Mayors and sign by entering ~~~~

• Lord Mayors: this is the form used on the City of London site. [1] They are not Lords, so I don't see why it should have that plural form. Also, "Lord Mayors" has the greater number of hits on Google. JRawle (Talk) 14:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
• Lord Mayors. "Lord" is an adjective indicating how important these particular Mayors are. (It's far more clear-cut than most questions like this, because there are ordinary Mayors who can ask to have "Lord" put in front of their titles.) Proteus (Talk) 15:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

• Lords Mayor. The traditional plural form in British usage is 'Lords Mayor'; the Liverpool city government page uses 'Lords Mayor', as does that of Birmingham, and the Council of Westminster (and see also similar comment here). You wouldn't say 'attorney-generals' or 'court-martials', would you? Spider Jerusalem 16:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
  • They're entirely different constructions: an Attorney-General is an attorney, and a Court Martial is a court, "general" and "martial" being mere adjectives describing what type of attorney and what type of court they are. A Lord Mayor is quite clearly a mayor. Proteus (Talk) 17:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I could only find references to Lord Mayors: Birmingham City Council [2] ; Liverpool City Council [3] ; City of Westminster [4] ; And, regarding that previous comment, Dublin City Council [5] JRawle (Talk) 17:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
• Lords Mayor It has been standard for hundreds of years to say Lords Mayor. It makes no sense grammatically, but English is like that. Similarly one writes Lords Lieutenant, Attorneys-General, Governors-General. English, as they say, is a language with as many exceptions as rules. I do wish people would stop using web sites. I did a survey some years ago for a newspaper article on accuracy in websites. One one elementary question, what is the British Queen's title is in law a whopping 81% of websites (including one of another head of state describing a state visit to the UK), had it wrong. Buckingham Palace's website is notorious for its errors among historians, while 10 Downing Street left out a prime minister from a list once. The Irish prime minister's website got the name of the first Irish head of state wrong (a fact that it was ridiculed over in the media), while google searches prove details about Éamon de Valera, the Prince of Wales, Bill Clinton and a host of others that are 100% wrong. The White House website once got the name of members of the cabinet wrong, while the French government website once got said that the Second World War ended in 1947. Every newspaper and practically every website proves that Diana, Princess of Wales possessed a title that never existed, as the lady herself repeatedly pointed out to everyone who cared to listen. Another prominent website had the second President of Ireland inaugurated four years after the ceremony took place! In other words, websites are notorious for the bullshit they contain. Most official websites are written by junior civil servants who write what they think is right, or they think sounds right, without checking. Wikipedia's biggest weakness is its preoccupation with the internet as evidence. That produces all sorts of crap in articles. So please, less of the internet-itis. It proves nothing. If Buckingham Palace can't get something as basic as year the UK got its current name right, do you really expect others to be much better. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 20:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Whatever you think about using the internet as a source, User:Spider Jerusalem said the websites of those councils use "Lords Mayor" and they don't at all. While I have to confess I previously thought "Lords Lieutenant" was correct, Lords Mayor just sounds silly. JRawle (Talk) 21:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I quote: 'The Lord Mayor has no executive role in determining policy, or in the management of the Council, and Lords Mayor are generally expected to avoid direct involvement in constituency matters during their year in office.' (found here, on a page of the site for the City of Westminster). Spider Jerusalem 11:16, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Just goes to show, none of these sites can be trusted. That has both "Lord Mayors" and "Lords Mayor" on the same page! JRawle (Talk) 12:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Whether it sounds silly or not is irrelevant. It just is the way the term has been pluralised and has been since I think it was the 14th or 15th century. Some modern usage uses Lord Mayors but as neither is universal at this stage, and both are used, and one's usage is primarily on dubious websites and in newspapers, while the other features in thousands of historic documents for hundreds of years, and continues to be said widely, then Lords Mayor has the weight of evidence behind it. If in 20 or 30 years time Lord Mayors came to dominated and the older version disappear (just as cows replaced kyne in modern English) then one could justify Lord Mayors. But not now. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 21:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

As a late entrant to this race, I strongly agree with FearÉIREANN. See my discussion with JRawle over on Talk:List of Lord Chancellors and Lord Keepers (which should, I maintain – with support from Hansard and official House of Lords publications – be "Lords Chancellor" etc.). Websites must always be treated with caution, but you can download official government publications in pdf format. These should be more reliable. SiGarb | Talk 20:11, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

• Lords Mayor as the historically used form. Also Lords Chancellor, Lords Lieutenant, etc. I think the ancient usage is that these people are all lords (albeit in an almost pre-peerage sense), with the term Mayor, Chancellor, etc., as an adjective, describing what type of lords they are. We use those adjectival terms as nouns today, but the old usage is clear. Laura1822 16:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

But, in ancient usage, they all started off without it: there was the Chancellor, the Treasurer, the Marshal, the Constable, etc., and over time they added meaningless honorifics to the front of their titles. Indeed in some usages it's still left off (e.g. "To Our Right Trusty and Well-beloved Counsellor James Peter Hymers, Baron Mackay of Clashfern, Our Chancellor of Great Britain"). Proteus (Talk) 22:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alex Rodrigeuz

This entry for the mayor of 1300-1301 is erroneous, as are a lot of other people listed as being Lord Mayor. I have checked the official material given at the bottom from the City Of London Corporation itself and Alex Rodriguez was NOT the mayor at the time, nor have a number of people listed as being Lord Mayors ever held the office. Anyone researching the Lord Mayor and its history should be aware of this. It appears that whoever wrote the article, or someone who came along later, has filled in certain parts as the .pdf states, but then at what they must have deemed "less important and obscure" times and years gone and picked names at random. I think a warning at the head of the page should be made in order to warn people of these "errors" so that unwitting people aren't caught out.