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SOME ACCOUNT OF THE APPOINTMENT OF A 



RECORDER IN THE BOROUGH OF PLYMOUTH, 



AND OF SEVERAL PERSONS WHO HAVE FILLED THAT OFFICE. 



25th July, 1440. 



BY a charter, from King Henry the sixth, the office 

 of Recorder is granted to the town, but no one is 

 named to fill that office, as is done in the case of the 

 Mayor : nor is it prescribed by whom this officer is to 

 be elected ; it is however to be inferred, that the 

 Mayor and Commonalty are to elect, for they are the 

 only body mentioned in the charter, and when a differ- 

 ent practise prevailed, by the Mayor, Aldermen, and 

 Common councilmen, still the act was registered as 

 that of the Mayor and Commonalty. 



No record remains of any one being elected to this 

 office during the reign of Henry VI., but no doubt 

 there must have been an election ; whether the election 

 was annual, or for life, we have no means at present 

 of ascertaining. Neither in the early part of the reign 

 of his successor, Edward IV., do we find any mention 

 of the persons elected to this office ; but in the 22nd 

 year we meet with the first person, named John Denys, 

 who this gentleman was is unknown, whether he was 

 a member of the ancient family of Denys, in this 

 county, cannot now probably be ascertained; but he 

 does not seem to have been a member of the corpora- 

 tion, as his name does not occur in the list of Mayors, 

 nor in that of the Representatives of the borough. 

 This was not the case with the next person, whom we 

 find mentioned as the Recorder, about sixteen years 

 afterwards, viz., 1498, when Thomas Tresawell is 

 named ; this gentleman had been three times Mayor 

 of the town, and was again elected the Mayor in 1507, 

 so that if he continued to be the Recorder, there could 

 have been, during his mayoralty, only one magistrate 

 in the borough. 



A long time now elapsed before we find any notice 

 of another Recorder ; not until the year 1539, an hun- 

 dred years after the first appointment of the office, and 



