VI. THE REVOLUTION AND AFTER.
There is very little of local interest left on record respecting the reign of William III. The King was a friend and patron of Thomas Papillon, the senior Member for Dover, and he appointed a very discreet Constable and Warden in the person of the Earl Romney ; but it is doubtful whether the King was ever any nearer Dover than when he sailed through Dover Bay on his way to land in Dorsetshire. He frequently crossed to the Low Countries, but he usually embarked and landed at Margate.
Queen Anne, in the year 1702, granted Letters Patent, usually described as a Charter, to the Corporation to appoint a Water Bailiff. The original Bailiff appointed in the Norman Period was an officer of great authority, who had two sub Bailiffs, one for the water and one for the land, but when the Baihff ceased to be appointed at the close of the Tudor period, their still appeared a necessity for a Water Bailiff, and Queen Anne's Charter supplied it. The muniment, which is framed and hangs in the Council Chamber, is as follows : —
"Anne, etc., to all to whom these presents shall come, — Greeting. Know ye that we, for divers good causes and considerations us thereunto moving, of our special grace certain knowledge and mere motion, have given and granted by these presents for us, our heirs and successors, do give and grant to our trusty and well-beloved the Mayor and Jurats and Commonalty of this Town and Port of Dover, in the County of Kent, and their successors, the office and offices of Water Bailiff and Keeper of the Prison of the aid Town and Port of Dover and the Liberties thereof for ever, to-^ether with all fees, profits, advantages, emoluments whatsoever, to the said ofiBcc and offices in any wise appertaining; and our further will and pleasure is and we do hereby empower the said Mayor, Jurats ind Commonalty, their heirs and successors, under their Common .Seal to make whom they please their deputy to exercise the office of Water Bailiff and also in like manner to make whom tliey please their Deputy or Keeper of the said Prison, and they when so made, or either of them, as often as the said Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty shall sec cause, to remove and displace a' their will an I pleasure and to put others in their stead ; and we do hereby grant these our Letters Patent, or the enrollment or c: emplification thereof, shall be good, firm, valil nnd effectual in law, and shall be taken, construed and adjudged as well in all (.ir Courts as elsewhere for the best advantage of the Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty of the Town and Port of Dover, in witness whereof we have caiised these our letters to be made patent. Witness ourselves at "Westminster the 37th March, in the first year of our reign. By writ of Privy Seal. — Cocks."
A change, touching the election of the Mayor, was made by an Act of Parliament in the year 171 1, which provided that an outgoing Mayor could not be re-elected until he had been out of office for a full year. This rule had the effect of causing a greater number of burgesses to graduate as Common Councilmen, Jurats, and Mayors; but the Muni cipal Corporations Act, of 1835, did not contain that provision, and in the new Town Council the election of the same member of the Council for several years in succession to fill the office of Mayor has been of frequent occurrence.
Municipal Government at Dover was consideraljly affected by the accession of George I. This first sovereign of the House of Hanover, made it his chief aim to secure the support of the Whig Party in England, because that Party .seemed likely to be useful to him in defending his claim to the crown against the Jacobites, who were then inclined to bring about another Stuart Restoration, and his preference was based on common sense. The action which George I. took with regard to Dover Corporation, was to assure himself that the Chief Magistrate was a supporter of the House of Hanover, for which reason John Hollingbury was removed from the Mayoralty in 1722. The thirty years following the accession of George H. was a dull period in Dover. The few changes introduced were so insignificant that they made ver)' little difference between the aspect of the Town and Port in 1727 and 1760. The Market-Place had been enlarged a little, by the demolition of some houses on the side next to St. Martin's Church Yard. The old place looked much the same; but its peaceful sleepy aspect was disturbed by the noise of martial drums, and the drilling of companies, called the militia, while the Mayor and Jurats sat permanently in the old Court Hall, as a committee of defence owing to rumours of invasion. There was no invasion, but war followed in which the men of Dover, who had ceased to be called upon for Cinque Ports ship service, fitted out Privateers and did valiently in maintaining British supremacy in the English Channel. The House of Hanover had done very little to en- murage the Mariners of Dover, foreigners being preferred by George I. and George II. before Dover men as captains of the Mail Packets on the Dover Passage. In the form of Local Government there was no change, and very little betterment in the buildings of the streets, although, towards the end of that period, improvements both for public convenience and on sanitary grounds were badly needed.
The period now arrived at in the history of Dover is the commencement of its transition from mediaeval simplicity to the condition of a well ordered town. The transition was slow, for the people clung to old ways and were desperately in love with the lanes and nooks, the crooked streets and maladorous slums of Old Dover. Even to this day many of the natives of this old town, both at home and abroad have a great affection for the old place as it was in their childhood, and when some of those who left it in early life make a pilgrimage hither from far off countries they pay but little attention to our "improvements," but wander through the old narrow Lanes and around the ruins of ancient buildings hoping to light upon some of the old nooks, which their fathers had told them of.
If we could get a true picture of Dover which the Corporation ruled in the first sixteen years of the reign of George III., we should see a community unmolested by Sanitary reformers, houses built to suit the whims of the owner; lanes as narrow, and streets as crooked as the most romantic mind could imagine. Down to the year 1776 Dover had not been built to any regular design, town planning had not been thought of. Somebody of course had planned the town walls with gates to keep intruders out, and towers to keep prisoners in. but those things were for the security of the state rather than the good of the people. Within those walls and gates the little community was huddled together, and there were only a few straggling houses outside the mural boundary. The chief diversions of the people were when some great Kings, Queens, Warriors, or Military prisoners landed ; or when erring townspeople were consigned to the stocks, the ducking stool, the pillory, or the gallows, all of which were close at hand ; whilst, once a year, at any rate, all the Freemen went to Church to elect one of their townsmen for the office of Mayor. That style of Old Dover may be said to have existed unalloyed until 1778.