See how this guy is wearing a … well, I don’t know what, exactly. It’s sort of like a necklace but way bigger. English mayors of cities large and small are depicted wearing them while they are doing their duties.
What is it called? Does every mayor of every town have one, or do smaller towns get by with their mayor skipping the adornment? I assume that’s gold plating and not real gold, else it would have to be kept under lock & key at all times. Does the new mayor inherit his from the previous one? Or does he get a new one? Does a local metallurgist get drafted to make one?
England and Wales have, nowadays, two kinds of mayor. The more recent kind is hte directly elected mayor, who correspond to e.g. the Mayor of New York in America i.e. they have real executive power and run major cities or regions. They don’t wear chains of office, they have a real job.
The other kind of mayor is ceremonial. It’s a dignity conferred on a local worthy - someone who’s been on the town council for years, or has some locally noteworthy achievement to their name. Their job is to represent the town at various civic occasions - Remembrance Day, opening of e.g. a new school or library, speech making etc. Hence the chain, so everyone knows that the person making the speech or laying the wreath is an official of note. I don’t believe that any mayor, be it of a town ever so small, has foregone the big chain because what would be the point?
Chains of office date from medieval times, when they were worn by people with real authority and power, as a symbol of that authority and power. They were also known as livery collars, because they would bear a badge with some heraldic device. Nowadays we have other means of signalling status and so don’t need quite so much bling.
Yep, Chain of Office as Stanislaus said. re plating: My local mayor’s chain is 18 Carat Gold (about 42 oz) - so he/she has to hand it over when leaving office. The chain is only worn at ceremonial occasions, presumable kept in a secure place when not worn
just looked up the price of 18 carat gold. melted down, the chain would be the thick end of $130K
I opened the thread under the impression that the thread title was “Do all English MAJORS wear this golden necklace-looking thing”.
Looked at photo. Scowled in perplexity. I remember from graduation and other formal events that the professors have rather formal robes but I sure didn’t recall any metallic adornments, and the students? Definitely not…
Then I read the first reply, said “huh?”, re-examined thread title…
One thing to point out is that big cities have both e.g. London has both a real Mayor and the Lady (or Lord) Mayor of the City of London who gets to wear the Collar of Esses and the ermine robes.
Notes: This is not limited to Britain. Mayors of the larger German cities wear chains of office at ceremonial occasions. Rectors of German universities often also have a chain of office. In both cases this is only a recent tradition though, arising in the 18th century.
The Corporation Of The City of London is separate from Greater London (and jealously guards its independence) and mostly aligns with the medieval city boundaries. The Lord Mayor of the City once had real power, but is mostly (but not altogether) ceremonial these days.
And 32 boroughs, each with their own ceremonial mayor (or Chair of Council if there’s also an executive mayor, as where I live). And they’ll have a chain and robe each, too.
I now live in Prague and can confirm that the Mayor wears a chain of office to ceremonial events.
They wear them in Canada, too. Here’s an image of the late Mel Lastman, who first was Mayor of North York where I grew up (then a federated city of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto), then from 1998 the first mayor of an amalgamated Toronto. That image shows him with the North York chain of office (and how he looked before he got a hair transplant, with either a hairpiece or a combover). This much more recent image shows him (as far as I can tell from the low resolution) with the Toronto chain of office.
I’ve never seen a real American mayor (as opposed to a movie mayor) wear a “MAYOR” sash. Maybe they did 100 years ago; maybe they only did it in old movies. ETA: OK, they used to in political cartoons, just for identification purposes.
