66 Facts relating to Wokingham. 



Faraelicus of Mr. Justice Whitlocke, temp. Jac. I. Camden Society 

 Pub. p. 46. Edited by Mr. John Bruce, V.P.S.A.] 



The Old Town Hall. 

 This must have been built after the year 1612, and before the 

 year 1625, as in the former year King James the First by his 

 charter gave authority to build it, and in the latter year the Cor- 

 poration by their bye-laws directed their meetings to be held in 

 it. The old Town Hall was taken down in the year 1858.^ 



' Note by J. E. Jackson. 



The New Town Hall of Wokingham was opened by Lord Braybrooke, the 

 Lord High Steward, 9th June, 1860, upon which occasion the following speech 

 (taken from the newspaper report of the proceedings of the day,) was made by 

 Mr. Carrington. "F. A. Carrington, Esq., said — My Lord, Mr. Alderman, 

 members of the Corporation, and ladies and gentlemen, it is with pleasure and 

 pride that I appear in this hall for the first time as Recorder, and also that I 

 should be the first Recorder who has entered it. My connection with this town 

 does not go back to the period of the old hall, although I was acquainted with 

 that building. Certainly it was a very useful building in its time to the Cor- 

 poration and the town for very many years, but like many other good things it 

 had worn out with age, as well as the steps which led to the Council Chamber, 

 for the first time I descended them I was nearly falling head foremost, but 

 luckily I was caught in time, and the accident did not fully happen. This toAvn. 

 of Woldngham has been inhabited for a great many centuries. The first men- 

 tion made of it is in the time of Offa the King of Mercia, in the year 726, 

 who granted to his prefect (whether that was an Alderman of Wokingham could 

 not now be ascertained, because it was derived from a Latin term, but probably 

 it meant an Alderman), some rights appertaining to the church, which was 

 situated in the territory of the ' Wocings '; this appears to be a district in- 

 habited by the Saxon tribe, which extended from Wokingham on the one side, 

 to Woking on the other. In the time of Elizabeth this town appears to have 

 been called Woking, and during her reign there was an Alderman with that 

 title. This Queen confirmed various privileges which had existed from time 

 immemorial, one of which was that her high Steward of the then manor of 

 Sonning, should administer the affairs of the town conjointly with your Alder- 

 man. So the town remained in this state till the time of James the First, when 

 it took a start very much in the right direction. Through the influence at the 

 court of King James, of the ancestor of your Lord High Steward, a charter 

 was obtained, and that certainly was a good and safe measure for the adminis- 

 tration of the affairs of the town. It was not easy to define in a charter what 

 the duties of the Lord High Steward were. He was the medium of communi- 

 cation between the court at Windsor Castle and the government of the town. 

 The duties, though not definitely set down, were well understood by all persons 

 who had to do with politics, either then or now. The next oflacer given by 

 King James the First, was a Recorder, who I hope has been of some use in the 



