Lord Mayoralty of London

London's civic government under the Lady Mayor, reaching streets, wards, markets, lamps, pumps, watch, bridge and ferry burdens, fire readiness and the city's public face through ward councils, committees and improvement bodies.

London's civic headship, governing a population, tax base, market system, watch structure, relief apparatus and daily volume of movement no other civic office approaches. It is not a Crown ministry and cannot command the realm. The civic government of London, headed by the Lady Mayor, powerful within the city under the Crown and above the wards and councils.

Named with it

• Lady Mayor Eleanor Marsh · holder of the Lord Mayoralty
• Councillor Agnes Bell
• Sheriff Elias Marden
• Recorder Judith Fenwick
• Alderman Percival Grayshott
• Alderman Rosamund Marwood
• the Lady Mayor · head

Ties

• beneath the Crown
• works through ward councils and quasi-councils
• commands the City militia
• under the Crown
• above the ward councils

At the table

Marsh can make a national policy fail by demonstrating what it costs at ward level; Westminster alternately courts and resents her, and a London stoppage puts her into Westminster's day. Broad but not sovereign: it cannot erase the Crown above, the Church beside, the Houses around or the syndicates below, and it governs largely through inconvenience, notices and shared embarrassment. The Crown and City intervene decisively when gang fighting touches a palace route, major bridge, hospital or water supply.