XI. SERGEANTS, PORTERS, CRYERS, & MESSENGERS.
The present day Town Sergeant is the representative of a very old official, who is mentioned in the Dover Customal of 1356, and at that time the office was an ancient one. The first Sergeant appointed was called the Mayor's Sergeant, and it was the custom for every Mayor, on taking office, to appoint a Sergeant, either choosing a new one or re-appointing an existing one. His duties were to attend the Mayor, serve warrants, and make arrests. In the course of time there came to be three Sergeants — the Mayor's Sergeant, having duties as above mentioned; the Bailiff's Sergeant, who was called the " Catchpole," because he had to serve processes and make the arrests ordered by the Dover Hundred Court ; and there was the Town Sergeant, who largely had to control tlic Market, and was the custodian of the ancient horn, which he had to sound in fourteen diverse places of the Town to call the Burgesses to Common Assemblies. Each of these three Sergeants, down to the Seventeenth Century, had a mace to carry, but in the latter part of the Stuart Period those three maces were sold, and in the year 1676 the present mace was purchased by the Chamberlains for the Mayor's Sergeant to carry before the Mayor. When the Bailiffs ceased to be appointed, his sergeant was dispensed with ; but the Mayor's Sergeant and the Town Sergeant continued to work side by side until 1847, when the Town Council decided to discontinue the appointment of a Mayor's Sergeant. The Town Sergeant then took charge of the mace, which the Mayor's Sergeant had previously shouldered, and the ancient horn was taken in hand by the Town Cryer. The latter was then an ancient c .Tirer, called the Bellman, because he rang a bell to attract attention to public notices, which he proclaimed. The Town Sergeant and the Town Cryer are still appointed annually.
The Town Porters are also very ancient officers. There were always four of them, their original duty ha\ang been to act as executive officers, to assist lawful passengers by the passage boats, to arrest undesirable aliens, and to prevent all landings and embarkations when the Dover Passage, which was the only route across the Straits, was closed by the Sovereign's mandate. There is a tradition that the four Town Porters were first appointed to bury the dead in the time of the Plague. They had to perform that unpleasant duty, but they existed long before history recorded any plague at Dover, in connection with the Dover town lands and tenements, they had to attend the Town Clerk and Sergeants to drive stakes in front of sequestered property, and to remove the stakes when the sequestration ended. When the Mayor died during his year of office he was carried to his grave by the four Porters, and when there were public executions in Dover the Porters carried the bodies to burial. In connection with the Passage, they, in later years, attended the landing and embarkation of carriages and horses, for which they had special fees, yielding good profits ; but the introduction of railways and steamboat companies has greatly changed the old order of things respecting the fellowship.
The Town Messenger is also an officer of long standing. In the present day his duties are mainly confined to the town, but in ancient times he had to make long journeys to the distant Liberties of Folkestone, Faversham, Ringwould, and Thanet. The ofiice appears to have been always more toil some than lucrative. The oldest Town Messenger that we can remember used to com.plain of the loads he had to carry, of the late hours that he had to deliver notices round the town, and the small pay that he received ; but a glance at the old records shows that his predecessors fared no better. In the time of Edward III. the following are some of the payments to the Dover Town Messenger: — " Carrying the common chest and blowing the horn in fourteen diverse places of the town at the Mayor's Election, 7d. For letters sent to Margate, Kingsdown and Folkestone, i2d. For letters sent to Faversham, i2d. For carrying letters to Folkestone, 46. Carrying letters to Romney, 4.6.. Going to Kingsdown to find Marmers, 2d. Bearing letters to Romney, 4d." Hundreds of pages of such entries show that, for Town Messengers, the former days were no better than these.
There are, of course, other Officers of the Corporation, but they are not mentioned because, although they are important, they are not vested with historical interest.