ELECTION OF SHERIFFS. (Hansard, 23 July 1849)

LORD BROUGHAM

presented a petition 818 from John Remington Mills, of Engle-field Green, in the country of Surrey, praying that measures may be adopted for remedying certain abuses in the election of Sheriff for the city of London. Mr. Mills was a gentleman of the highest respectability, residing at a distance of twenty miles from London. He had no vote for the choice of the representatives of the city of London in Parliament; he had no vote in the choice of its principal representatives and officers; he interfered not in the management of civic affairs; but, nevertheless, the citizens had singled him out as a fit man to serve the office of sheriff of London and Middlesex, and he had been obliged to pay a fine of 600l. to avoid filling that office. In the election of sheriffs for other counties, whenever a gentleman resided out of the county, and pleaded his non-residence as a reason for his not serving as sheriff, Her Majesty's Judges always considered that as a sufficient reason for not forcing the appointment upon him. The petitioner prayed their Lordships to pass an Act exempting parties who were not resident in the city of London from serving as sheriffs for it. There were always parties enough willing to undertake the office, and he had even known parties who had gone to the expense of keeping the poll open for some days in order to secure it. Great abuses had arisen from this mode of electing parties to serve as sheriff's who it was known would not serve. In the year 1806, twenty-three persons who would not serve the office were elected sheriffs, and 15,800l. had thus been brought into the city coffers. In the last twenty-seven years, 64,000l. had thus been levied upon parties whom the corporation knew to be reluctant to serve this office. He did not mean to deny that this practice was sanctioned by long and immemorial usage, neither did he mean to complain of this abstract right of the corporation; but he should make a proposition upon this subject when the first Corporation Bill came under the consideration of their Lordships.