Offices and Officers

I. OFFICES AND OFFICERS. 

The Offices and Officers of the Corporation came into being at various times. Amongst the most ancient were the Mayor's Sergeant and the Common Clerk. Next^ probably, came the Bailiff and the BaiUff's Sergeant. In the Fourteenth Century the Chamberlains and ''he Town Porters came on the scene. The Recorder, as a separate officer, distinct from the Town Clerk, dates from the beginning of the Stuart Period ; and the Coroner, apart from the Mayor, who anciently held the inquests, did not appear until the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835. The Clerk to the Magistrates is the lineal successor of the Clerk to the Mayor and Jurats who existed from the Reign of Queen Mary. The Clerk of the Peace, as a separate official, did not come into existence until 1835, but his duties had previously been discharged by the Clerk to the Mayor and Jurats, and, earlier still, by the Bailiff. The Police Force and its Chief, date from 1836, but there had been bodies of Ward Constables who had guarded the Town nightly, time out of mind. Rates, called "cesses," had been collected for various purposes, such as paying Members of Parliament, building the Town wall and scavenging the streets, from a very early period, but the first regular Rate Collector was appointed in 1778, when a rate of sixpence in the pound was levied on houses to meet the expenses of the Dover Paving Commissioners. Town Surveyors were first appointed by the same body. A Nuisance Inspector was called into existence by the Dover Local Board when the Public Health Act was adopted in Dover in 1850. At the same time it was suggested that a Medical Officer of Health should be appointed, but that was delayed until after the small-pox epidemic of 1872, when Dr. M. K. Robinson was appointed. The Officer called the Borough Treasurer was first chosen in 1836, but his duties were similar to those that had been previously discharged by the Dover Chamberlains. We shall now give a more detailed account of the various Officers of the Cor poration, and in some cases mention names and particulars of the principal office bearers.