The body corporate consists of a mayor,
recorder, seven aldermen, and seventeen capital burgesses, who,
together, form the common council of the borough. The mayor, two
town-bailiffs, and two sergeants are elected annually, upon the Friday
preceding the festival of St. Wilfrid, who was formerly lord of this
town; and they are invested, on the 12th of October following, by a
jury of twenty-four guild burgesses. The members of the council, with
the exception of the mayor, retain their seats for life, or during the
pleasure of a majority, and vacancies are supplied by the remaining
members. The town sends two representatives to parliament, and affords
the nearest practical example of universal suffrage in the
kingdom--every male inhabitant, whether housekeeper or lodger, who has
resided six months in the town, and who has not, during the last
twelve months, been chargeable to any township as a pauper, having a
right to vote for two candidates at elections. This principle was
established by a decision of the House of Commons, on an appeal, in
the year 1766, and has ever since been acted upon. The burgesses are
entitled, by the charter of Henry II., to have a GUILD MERCHANT, with
the usual franchises annexed, of safe transit through the kingdom,
exemption from toll, pontage, and stallage; liberty to buy and sell
peaceably; and power to hold a guild for the renewal of freedom to the
burgesses, the confirming of by-laws, and other purposes.
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