The First Mayor's Court: Madras, 1687
Chapter Four
Syllabus topic 1.1.1, "Establishment of Mayor's Court (1726)". ⛔ This chapter is here because that label is incomplete.
Pages 16 to 19 of 491
In one line
The first Mayor's Court in India was set up at Madras in 1687, thirty-nine years before the charter most students are taught to date the Mayors' Courts from.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: by a Charter dated 30 December 1687, granted under the Company's own seal, a Municipal Corporation consisting of a Mayor, twelve Aldermen and sixty or more Burgesses was established at Madras, and the Mayor and Aldermen were constituted a Court of Record with jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters, the first Mayor's Court in India.
Why this chapter exists at all
MU's syllabus prints the label "Establishment of Mayor's Court (1726)". A student who reads only the label will write in the examination that the Mayor's Court was established in 1726, and will be wrong by thirty-nine years.
The point is not a date for its own sake. The 1687 court and the 1726 courts differ in the one respect that decides everything else about a court: who created it. That difference is the reason 1726 matters, and it cannot be explained to a student who does not know 1687 existed.
What the 1687 charter set up
The charter of 30 December 1687 (3 James II) created at Madras a Municipal Corporation, that is, a legal person for the government of a town, consisting of:
- a Mayor, the head of the corporation;
- twelve Aldermen, the senior members of it, who held office for life or until removed;
- sixty or more Burgesses, the ordinary freemen of the corporation.
The Mayor and the Aldermen were together constituted a Court of Record, meaning a court whose proceedings are permanently recorded and which has power to fine and imprison for contempt of itself. This was the Mayor's Court at Madras.
A Recorder was appointed to it. A Recorder, in English municipal practice, is a lawyer appointed to sit with the mayor and aldermen of a borough and supply the legal knowledge the merchants on the bench do not have. Sir John Biggs, who had been Recorder of Portsmouth and had come out as Judge Advocate under the Admiralty charter of 1686, was made Recorder of the new court, chosen because he understood "not only that constitution but the practical way of proceeding".
The charter was published at Madras with ceremony on 29 September 1688.
Notice who sat on it. The corporation was deliberately mixed. French, Portuguese and Hebrew merchants were appointed Aldermen, and in a general letter of 22 January 1692 the Court of Committees in London went further, complaining that too many Englishmen had been made Aldermen and recommending that in future they be of different communities: one Armenian, one or two Hebrews, one or two Portuguese, one or two Gentoos, and one Moor or Muslim. The recommendation could not be carried out, because the Armenians refused the office, the qualified Jews had left Madras, the Portuguese were unwilling for fear of their countrymen at St Thome, and the Company did not think it safe to trust the Moors.
The First Mayor's Court: Madras, 1687
The Company's seal, and why it decides everything
The most important fact about the 1687 charter is not in its terms. It is in how it was issued.
At a Cabinet Council held on Sunday 11 December 1687, the question was discussed whether this charter should proceed from the King under the Great Seal of England. The Governor of the Company was commanded to attend, and advised against it. His reason is worth having in mind for the rest of Module I: he said that no person in India should be employed by immediate commission from His Majesty, because "the wind of extraordinary honour in their heads" would probably make such men so haughty and overbearing that the Company would have to remove them, as had happened with Dr St John and Sir John Child.
The King agreed, on the footing that if the charter went under the Company's seal the corporation would always be in some measure subject to the control of the Company's President and Council. And so it was settled.
That single decision is the difference between 1687 and 1726, and the consequences run through the whole paper.
| Madras Mayor's Court, 1687 | The Mayors' Courts, 1726 | |
|---|---|---|
| Granted under | The Company's seal | The Great Seal, by George I |
| Whose court it was | A Company court | A Crown court |
| Who could alter it | The Company | Only the Crown |
| To whom did it answer | The President and Council | The Crown, and on appeal the King in Council |
| Where do appeals go | Within the Company's own hierarchy | To the Governor in Council, then to the King in Council in England |
A court set up by the body it is expected to judge is not independent of that body, and the Company said in terms that this was the object. A court set up by the Crown is a different thing, and the men who sit on it know it.
A worked example
Take two disputes, forty years apart, and follow each.
Madras, 1690. A Portuguese merchant sues an English factor for the price of goods. The suit is heard by the Mayor and Aldermen under the 1687 charter. If the merchant is dissatisfied, his complaint lies within a structure the Company controls, because the corporation itself exists at the Company's pleasure under the Company's seal. If the factor is a servant whom the President wishes to protect, the President is not without means.
The First Mayor's Court: Madras, 1687
Madras, 1730. The same dispute is heard by the Mayor's Court under the Charter of 1726. If the merchant is dissatisfied, he appeals to the Governor in Council; if the value exceeds one thousand pagodas, he may appeal from there to the King in Council in England. The Company's servants in Madras cannot stop that appeal, because neither the court nor the appeal is theirs to control. That is what a Crown court adds.
What beginners get wrong
"The Mayor's Court was established in 1726." The first one was established at Madras in 1687. The 1726 charter established three Mayors' Courts, at Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, on a uniform pattern, and, decisively, made them Crown courts. Say both, in that order, and the answer is complete.
"The 1687 court was a royal court because it was called a Mayor's Court." No. It was granted under the Company's seal, deliberately, so that the corporation would remain subject to the Company's President and Council.
"A Court of Record just means a court that keeps records." It means more: a court of record's proceedings are enrolled as a permanent memorial and it has an inherent power to punish contempt. Every Mayor's Court in this book, and every High Court in Module II, is a court of record, and article 129 of the Constitution says the same thing of the Supreme Court today.
Limits and criticism
The 1687 court had two defects and they are worth stating plainly because they are the defects the 1726 charter was meant to cure and did not.
The judges were merchants. A Mayor and twelve Aldermen drawn from the trading community of Madras, sitting with one professional Recorder, were not trained in law, and after Sir John Biggs died the Recordership lapsed and the court sat without any lawyer at all.
And its authority was doubtful outside the settlement. A charter under the Company's seal could confer no more than the Company itself possessed, and what the Company possessed came from the Charter of 1661: a power over persons living under it. Nothing in that reaches a Mughal subject at Madras who was not living under the Company, and the point was never squarely settled.
Quick revision
- Charter dated 30 December 1687 (3 James II), published at Madras 29 September 1688.
- Created a Municipal Corporation at Madras: a Mayor, twelve Aldermen, sixty or more Burgesses.
- The Mayor and Aldermen were a Court of Record: the first Mayor's Court in India.
- Sir John Biggs, formerly Recorder of Portsmouth, was its Recorder.
- Issued under the Company's seal, not the Great Seal, deliberately, after a Cabinet Council on 11 December 1687, so that the corporation would remain subject to the Company's President and Council.
- The Aldermen were deliberately mixed in community; London's 1692 attempt to widen them further failed for the reasons recorded above.
The First Mayor's Court: Madras, 1687
Test yourself
1. When and where was the first Mayor's Court in India established? At Madras, by a charter dated 30 December 1687, published there on 29 September 1688. It was thirty-nine years before the Charter of 1726, which a student who reads only MU's topic label will misdate.
2. Under what seal was the 1687 charter granted, and why does it matter? Under the Company's seal, not the Great Seal. It matters because a grant under the Company's seal made the corporation and its court subject in some measure to the Company's own President and Council, whereas a grant under the Great Seal creates a Crown court which the Company cannot control. The reason was given openly at a Cabinet Council on 11 December 1687.
3. What is a Recorder, and who was the first at Madras? A lawyer appointed to sit with a mayor and aldermen and supply the legal knowledge they lack. Sir John Biggs, formerly Recorder of Portsmouth and Judge Advocate at Madras under the Admiralty charter of 1686.
4. Give one reason the 1687 court could not be a satisfactory court of justice. Its judges were merchants of the settlement with no legal training, sitting in a court created by, and subject to, the body whose servants were frequently before them. The single professional member, the Recorder, was not replaced after the office lapsed.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.