THE WARD COUNCIL FOR PORTSOKEN

ALDERMAN

Prem Goyal J.P.

DEPUTY ALDERMAN

Henry Jones

WARD COUNCILMEN

John Fletcher Common Councilman

Munsur Ali Common Councilman

Jason Pritchard Common Councilman

WARD CLERK

John Barradell

WARD BEADLE

Stan Brown

HISTORICAL SUMMARY

The Soke of the Knighten Gild appears to have been created by King Edgar; it first appears in verified Royal Charter in the Charter of King William Rufus, confirmed by Henry I. The Soke was given to Holy Trinity, Minories by further Royal Charter, and finally, to the City of London.

In the ancient Saxon constitution of England, the residents formed themselves into units of ten families, called a Tything Court, derived from the old number Tynth. This is our Court of Precinct Mote. Ten Tything Courts constituted a Hundred Court. This is the Court of Wardmote. The Wardmotes taken together constituted a County – and this is the City of London, with its Court of Common Council and Court of Aldermen.

Our Covent Garden Precinct Meeting is a lonely remnant of this ancient democratic institution of local government. The Precinct Meeting is under the jurisdiction of the Court of Aldermen.

The salient points are:

• The Ward of Portsoken has its origins in a grant by the King to the Cnightengild by Royal Charter. Thus the ward and its precincts and officers are in origin of Royal creation, unlike all the other wards in the City.

1. Alderman Baddeley, Lord Mayor7, writing in 1921, stated that the Precinct Motes were never abolished.

The City of London Police Act did not abolish the Precincts or the Precinct Motes, on the contrary, it explicitly legislates for their continuance in paragraph 94.

2. The Precinct Motes were discussed extensively at Court of Common Council, March 4th 1908, where a report by the Special Committee upon the City of London (Union of Parishes) Act was discussed.

3. Precinct Motes are documented as being held in neighbouring Bishopsgate Ward as recently as 1920.

4. In 1911 a Special Committee of Common Council was discharged to deal with the request of the Ward of Farringdon Without for disbursement of an annual sum to pay for Precinct Mote expenses. The Court of Common Council stated it had no objection to the Ward holding the Precinct Meetings, but would not give an additional disbursement of funds over and above that allotted for Wardmote expenses for the ward in general.

5. The precept of an alderman or common councilman or City official or any City authority is not required to summon a Precinct Meeting.

6. The Precinct Mote is, however, as part of the City's common law constitution, (although not part of its current definition when referred to in Statue when acting in its capacity as a Local Authority) and is clearly under the jurisdiction of the Court of Aldermen, as the Court of Aldermen has in the past made rulings governing Precinct Motes.

7. There are apparently no Acts of Common Council directly regulating the conduct of Precinct Meetings, only regulations that refer to anciwent customs and usages, and some ancient legislation and charters; they are customary, and of common law origin, governed by legal precedent; there are, however, rulings of the Court of Aldermen regulating aspects (such as the right to fine people), and there are several Acts of Common Council that refer to them, and there is at least one case law reference (Chitty, Criminal Law, Vol3)

8. As a type of court leet (but sui generis) , a precinct has a common law power to appoint its own officers. The Precinct Meeting is the tything court of the hundred (Wardmote), and its Chairman is the Borsholder (or headborough or tythingman).

Post of Headborough:

Headboroughs were elected by some City precincts, e.g. .Dukes Place Precinct, Holy Trinity Minories Precinct (Part of Tower Hill Precinct of Portsoken Ward)

They were explicitly not abolished in the City of London by 5 and 6 Victoria c 109

A headborough takes office on election, and does not need to be sworn, see King v Corfe Mullen 1 Barn. & Adol. 211, where it was held that a man gained a settlement as a tithing-man (i.e. headborough, borsholder, etc), although he was not sworn in. Our current headborough swore his declaration of office before the Court of Precinct Mote, which is a court leet.