The Corporation of Oswestry is of great antiquity. Its civic honours, primitively, flowed from its Barons or Lords, who, exercising themselves the power of petty sovereigns, appointed Bailiff’s and other officers to superintend the civic affairs of the borough. Its first assumption of civic dignities appears to have been in the reign of Henry II., when William, Earl of Arundel, granted to the town a short charter (called by the Welsh “Siarter Cwtta”), denominated also a Charter of Protection. A clause in this ancient document sets forth that “I (the Earl of Arundel) have received in Protection my Burgesses of Blanc-Minster” (Oswestry). Richard de Chambre was Constable at this period. Here was subsidiary power given to the inhabitants of Oswestry, for the government of the town; but in the reign of Richard II., August 14th, 1399, that monarch granted to Oswestry its first royal charter, incorporating the Burgesses by the name and title of “The Bailiffs and Burgesses of Oswestry, infra Palatinatum CestriÆ, in marchia inter Angliam et Walliam.” In 1407, as heretofore noticed, Thomas, Earl of Arundel, granted a comprehensive and valuable charter, showing that still the exercise of power, in his lordship or barony, for the good government of the burgesses, &c., was fully recognized by the crown.

The rights and privileges granted by Richard II. seem to have been strictly guarded and maintained by the inhabitants down to the reign of Elizabeth, when they were confirmed by that sovereign. It would appear, however, that subsequently “divers doubts and ambiguities” arose concerning the ancient liberties, franchises, &c., of the borough, and in the reign of James I., 1616, the king granted a charter to the town, extending its liberties and privileges, and confirming the Bailiffs, Burgesses, &c., as a body corporate, by the name of “The Bailiff and Burgesses of Oswestry, in the countie of Salop.” The charter of Charles II., granted January 13th, 1673, to “the ancient borough and corporation of Oswestry, alias Oswaldstrey, in the county of Salop,” enacted “That they be incorporated by the name of the Mayor, Aldermen, Common-Councilmen and Burgesses of Oswestry.” This charter, it will be seen, was the instrument which first called into existence the offices of Mayor, Aldermen, Common-Councilmen, and Recorder. That charter was immediately acted upon, and Mr. Richard Pope was elected the first Mayor of Oswestry. Sir John Trevor, Knight (afterwards speaker of the House of Commons, and Master of the Rolls), Morgan Wynne, Esq., Edward Owen, Richard Edwards, Richard Lloyd, the before-mentioned Richard Pope, gentleman; Gabriel Edwards, woollen-draper; Hugh Price, woollen-draper; John Jones, mercer; Richard Jones, John Blodwell, gentlemen; and John Lloyd, mercer, were chosen as the first Aldermen. Richard Price, brewer, Richard Jones, mercer, John Glover, tanner, Richard Jones, glover, Edward Evans, apothecary, John Jones, glover, John Muckleston, shoemaker, Thomas Edwards, gentleman, Thomas Edwards, baker, Nathaniel Jones, brewer, Hugh Edwards, shoemaker, Timothy George, mercer, Thomas Vaughan, chandler, William Price, butcher, and Thomas Felton, brazier, were the first Common-Councilmen. Morgan Wynne, Esq., was the first Recorder of the town, and John Worral, Esq., first Common Clerk of the Borough, and Clerk of the Court. It may be mentioned as a fact worth knowing, that Sir John Trevor was the second Mayor of Oswestry, under the charter of Charles II. Sir John was an eminent man, and his history, connected as he was with the borough of Oswestry, is worthy of brief record in these pages. He was the second son of John Trevor, Esq., of Brynkinalt, in the county of Denbigh, by an aunt of Sir George Jeffreys. He was born about the year 1637, and it is supposed never received educational advantages beyond those furnished by a village school. He was sent to London to his uncle, Arthur Trevor, a leading barrister, who employed him as his clerk in his chambers in the Inner Temple. The Rev. Robert Williams, in his careful and elaborate “Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Welshmen,” says of him, that—

“On his first arrival he displayed very lively parts, although his manners were rather uncouth, and he could not speak a sentence of correct English. His diligence, however, was so great, that being entered a student of the Inner Temple, he rendered himself well versed in all branches of his profession, and soon acquired extensive practice. Through the interest of his cousin, Sir George Jeffreys, he was made a king’s counsel, in 1678, and he obtained a seat in the House of Commons. Here he acquired considerable influence among the members, and such was his reputation as a high prerogative lawyer, that at the meeting of James II’s. parliament in May, 1685, he was elected Speaker. In October of the same year he was appointed Master of the Rolls, and in July, 1688, he was sworn a Privy Councillor. On the accession of William and Mary, Sir John Trevor was dismissed from the office of Master of the Rolls. In the Convention Parliament he sat for Beraldstone, and opposed by every means in his power the measures of the Government. In the next Parliament, called in 1690, he made his peace with the Court, and was unanimously elected Speaker. In May, 1691, he was made first Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal, which office he held until May 2nd, 1693, and in January, 1693 he was restored to his office of Master of the Rolls. Such was his talent for managing party, and of recommending himself to the Government by his bold and dexterous measures, that had it not been for his great indiscretion, he would probably have reached the great object of his ambition, which was to become Lord Chancellor, and to be created a peer. In 1695 a violent outcry was raised against bribery, and a committee was appointed by the House of Commons, to inquire into the charges, which were made against members, and it reported that Sir John Trevor had received a bribe of a thousand guineas for furthering a bill called the ‘Orphan’s Bill,’ promoted by the City of London. Accordingly, March 12th, 1695, he was subjected to the unparalleled humiliation of putting the resolution from the chair, and declaring himself guilty. He then resigned the chair, and was expelled from the House. Receiving money for voting in parliament was in those days so common, that his offence was not regarded in a very serious light, and he was permitted to retain his high judicial office of Master of the Rolls, for the long period of twenty-two years after his expulsion from the House of Commons. By the death of his elder brother he succeeded to the paternal estates of Brynkinalt, which, with large possessions of his own acquisition, have descended through his only daughter Anne to the present Viscount Dungannon. Sir John Trevor died May 20th, 1717, being nearly eighty years of age, at his house in Chancery Lane, and was buried in the Rolls Chapel.”

Yorke, in his “Royal Tribes of Wales,” relates a droll anecdote of Sir’ John, which is worthy of transplantation.

“Among his other virtues,” says Yorke, “Trevor was an economist. He had dined by himself one day at the Rolls, and was drinking his wine quietly, when his cousin Roderic Lloyd was unexpectedly introduced to him from a side door. ‘You rascal,’ said Trevor to his servant, ‘and you have brought my cousin Roderic Lloyd, Esquire, Prothonotary of North Wales, Marshal to Baron Price, and so forth, and so forth, up my back stairs. Take my cousin Roderic Lloyd, Esquire, Prothonotary of North Wales, Marshal to Baron Price, and so forth, and so forth; take him instantly back, down my back stairs, and bring him up my front stairs.’ Roderic in vain remonstrated, and whilst he was conveyed down one, and up the other stairs, his Honor removed the bottle and glasses.”

Trevor had an obliquity of vision, or, in plainer words, he squinted abominably! When he was expelled from the House of Commons for bribery, pasquinades were issued against him, in one of which it was wittily said, that “Justice was blind, but Bribery only squinted.”

The charter of the 25 Charles II. (which was the governing charter previous to the passing of the Municipal Reform Act,) granted to the Borough of Oswestry a general Court of Quarter Sessions, to be held before the Mayor, the Steward, and the Recorder, or any two of them, of whom the Mayor was to be one. On the passing of that Act the Government refused to renew the grant of a separate Quarter Sessions, although strong and unanimous petitions from the town were presented in favour of this privilege. In 1842, however, when the Ministry of Sir Robert Peel was in office, Sir James Graham being Secretary of State for the Home Department, the application was renewed, and was ultimately complied with. The grant is dated the 27th May, 1842, and under it John Robert Kenyon, Esq., was appointed Recorder. The first Quarter Sessions, under this grant, were held on July 8th in the same year. Mr. Kenyon has ably and impartially discharged the duties of Recorder since that period; and to his legal acumen and zealous interest for the borough the inhabitants are indebted for many advantages.

The Corporation are chosen from the respectable and enterprising classes of the borough, so that all men who by perseverance and success in trade or commerce, in the learned profession of the law, or medical science, or who move in the quieter and more elevated ranks of life, where the otium cum dignitate is to be seen in perfection,—if to be seen anywhere,—are in the legitimate path to Magisterial authority and Aldermanic greatness.

The Municipal Act came into operation in Oswestry in January, 1836. James Edwards, Esq., was elected Mayor of the borough in 1834, and held office, pursuant to the new Act, until January 1st, 1836, on which day John Croxon, Esq., was elected the first Mayor under the Municipal Reform Act, and continued in office till November 9th, 1836, when Francis Campbell, Esq., was elected as the second Mayor of the borough under the same Act.

The Hon. Thomas Kenyon (second son of the celebrated Lord Kenyon, and father of the present Recorder of Oswestry) was appointed High Steward of the Borough in the year 1823. Mr. Richard Jones Croxon (who had succeeded Mr. Lewis Jones to the Town-Clerkship in 1834) was appointed Town-Clerk under the Municipal Act, and has continued to perform the duties of that office to the present time, with great credit to himself and satisfaction to the town.

Under the New Corporation Act the borough was divided into two Wards, viz., the East Ward, comprising 148 burgesses, and the West Ward, numbering 166 burgesses.

The Corporation of Oswestry, for the year 1854–5, consists of the following gentlemen:—

G. H. WILLIAMS, Mayor.

Aldermen:

Councillors:

Town-Clerk:—R. J. Croxon.

Clerk of the Peace:—Robert Simon.

Coroner:—John Miles Hales.

Treasurer:—George Cooper,We subjoin a full List of the Mayors of Oswestry, from the earliest period, with the names also of the entire body of other Corporate Officers, Aldermen, and Common-Councilmen, elected under the Municipal Reform Act:—

ALDERMEN AND COMMON-COUNCILMEN.

[For the above List of Aldermen and Common-Councilmen, up to and including 1846, we are indebted to the Representative of a gentleman who filled the Civic Chair, and who for many years recorded the changes in the Municipal Body. The subsequent List is from the Corporation Poll Books.]