Anne celebrates Chichester mayors
Books Three-times former Mayor of Chichester Anne Scicluna has once again explored the history of the high office she has held.
Six years ago, Anne brought out the volume A Chain Of Mayors: The Mayors of Chichester 1239-2013, one of the University of Chichester’s now defunct Otter Memorial Papers. Edited by the late
Paul Foster, it ran to 128 pages with portraits and brief biographies based on Anne’s extensive research.
Anne, one of the founders of the Festival of Chichester, has now brought it up to date to include the current mayor Martyn Bell. Once again it has been a labour of love.
“When you sit in the council chamber, one sees the boards up with the names of the mayors of Chichester and in odd moments, you think that these are real people and you wonder what they were like. I started collecting pictures of former mayors as far as I could and I started finding out little bits about them and their lives, and then I put it together as a book. It first came out in
2013. It was not a big print run, but it sold out just like that. Ever since, I have been trying to get the book together again. Paul was the editor of the Otter Memorial Papers and they don’t exist since he died. The problem was he had the updates on his laptop, and after he died nobody could get into it.”
But Anne has continued to piece together information – and has now added in the subsequent mayors for her second volume. Of course, it’s unwise to generalise, but the 18th and 19th century mayors tended to be tradesmen. 20th century mayors have included a grocer, a baker, a doctor, a furniture shop owner, a silversmith and a jeweller.
Some years ago, when the Boys High School went comprehensive, Anne acquired half a dozen black and white photographs of former mayors, pictures otherwise destined for the bin. For Anne, they were names with a Chichester resonance, among them Allen (who used to run the jeweller’s shop in South Street), Leggatt, Apps and Lewis. The photos were an important starting point for her researches.
Many past mayors stand out, for instance: William Smith, mayor six times and the son of a mayor. Also worthy of note, and indeed commemorated with a plaque in the Cathedral, is William Broadbridge. The plaque depicts him and his wife; behind William are their six sons; behind his wife are their eight daughters. At least three members of the Duke of Richmond’s family were Mayors of Chichester during the eighteenth century.
“There are some mayors where I look at the picture and think ‘Well, you look a nice, kind person’. But I certainly feel the heritage.
You feel the weight of the years and you feel that you are following a wonderful tradition, and you think each of the mayors brought their own personality to the job.”
Anne was Mayor of Chichester in 1983, 1993 and 2012, following – though she admits she never expected to – in the footsteps of her own father, John Gilbert, Mayor of Chichester in 1971-2: “He was very conscious of the status of the city as an important place. Chichester was at that time the only city in the whole of Sussex and one of the oldest mayoralties in the country.”
And of course, Anne is perfectly placed to supply the little details which bring the man’s memory alive: “Father worked in Barclays Bank and made clocks. He was a frustrated small engineer.
But I never thought I could be mayor. The mayor was just short of god in those days!”
Book available from the Novium, the City Council and Kim’s Bookshop.