The plaque, next to the entrance door of the
court house, reads:
"This tablet records the amalgamation of the
Mayor's Court on the First of January A.D> 1921 pursuant to the Mayor's and City
of London Court Act A.D. 1920 which enacted that the newly constituted Mayor's
and City of London Court should have and exercise all the powers and
jurisdiction of both the said Courts."
The City of London website (visit
link) tells us:
"The Court is the oldest local civil court
in England having sat for over 700 years, virtually without a break, within the
precincts of the Guildhall. Today, the Court sits daily in its present building
which was erected in 1888. In 1971 it became part of the general County Court
system of England and Wales.
In May 2006 a Mediation Service - partly administered by the City Disputes Panel
- was introduced as part of the Court's case management regime. It has an 88%
success rate which is the highest in the country."
The building is Grade II listed and its entry,
at the English Heritage website (visit
link), reads:
"1893, by Andrew Murray. Perpendicular
Gothic, rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings, string courses etc. 2 storey
front with 3-storey return on Basinghall Street. Principal elements of main
facade are 2 3-bay ranges, with mullioned and transomed windows, those to the
1st storey cusped, between buttresses, flanking a lower 3-bay main entrance,
slightly recessed with arched central door with carved spandrels, surmounted by
4 centre-arched traceried window to 1st storey, and crowning crocketted gable.
The principal elements have blind traceried parapets, with carved gargoyles at
the corners of the flanking ranges. Slated roofs with gable-ends. Stone turret
with lead spirelet over east range, octagonal lantern with ogee lead cupola over
west range."
The City of London website (visit
link) tells us of justice in the City:
"In Medieval times London, like other towns,
sought to develop its own regulations independent of national life and to
exclude both the body of law of the realm and the officers of royal justice. The
Mayor and Aldermen were exercising functions as Justices and Keepers of the
Peace long before any charter confirmed their jurisdiction. The position was
regularised by a charter of King Henry VI of 1444 which recognised the Mayor,
Recorder and those Aldermen who had served as Mayor as Justices of the Peace and
Oyer and Terminer (hearing indictments on serious criminal charges), and this
was the first of a series of charters that gradually extended recognition to all
Aldermen. Until 1921 the full title of the Mayor's Court was 'The Court of our
Lord the King holden before the Mayor and Aldermen', though in practice the
Recorder officiated until the office devolved on the Judge of the Mayor's and
City of London Court.
Lord Mayor's Justice Room in session The first Mayor's Court rolls survive from
1298, and show that the court, which consisted of the Mayor and a Jury, was busy
punishing tavern-brawlers, bullies, night-walkers, gamblers and other disorderly
persons, as well as pursuing fraudulent tradesmen. The medieval chronicler
Robert Fabyan related that Mayor Sir John Shaa in 1501 brought up a new business
and held court every afternoon, sitting alone to arbitrate on disputes, 'but not
to all mennys pleasures ... this court became known as the court of Requests,
much of the poor people drew unto it, whom he favoured sometime more than
justice and good law required'. Nor did the lawyers of the day care for this
system as it deprived them of the fees they would have earned had such cases
gone to the King's law courts.
Lord Mayor's Justice Room This court, which was to develop into the Lord Mayor's
Justice Room, has left no other surviving records prior to 1624. From this date
we have the Waiting Books - the proceedings recorded by the Attorneys of the
Mayor's Court and known as the Attorneys in Waiting; these men were effectively
the first Clerks to the Justices. The introduction to The City Law, a handbook
of 1658, states that 'the Mayor and Aldermen have always used to cause to come
before them the malefactors which have been taken and arrested within the said
city, for carrying of tales and spreading abroad of news imagined in disturbance
of the peace, makers and counterfeiters of false seals, false charters and for
other notorious defects, and those which they have found culpable of such
misdeeds by confession of the parties or by enquest thereof made, shall be
punished by setting in the pillory, or further chastised by imprisonment,
according to their merit and according to the reasonable discretion of the said
Mayor and Aldermen'."
The cornerstone, that is in Basinghall Street,
reads:
"This stone was laid
by
Japheth Tickle Esqre
Chairman of the
Law and City Courts Committee
July 17th 1893
Andrew Murray A.R.I.B.A. Architect
E. Lawrence & Son Builders"