1. A title formerly limited to the mayors (see MAYOR) of London, York, and Dublin, but recently extended to the mayors of some other large towns, e.g., Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, etc.
Lord Mayor’s coal (see quot. 1842). Lord Mayor’s Day, Nov. 9, the day on which the Lord Mayor goes in procession with the Aldermen and other city dignitaries to and from Westminster, where he receives from the Lord Chancellor the assent of the Crown to his election. Lord Mayor’s man: see Quota-man, QUOTA 1 b. Lord Mayor’s Show, the procession on Lord Mayor’s Day.
c. 1554. Bale, Decl. Bonner’s Articles, i. 7 b. Here is as wise an order towardes, as maister Harry my Lord Mayres foole had bene of counsell therein.
1589. J. Rider, Bibl. Scholast., 885. The Lorde maior, or chiefe iustice, præfectus prætorio.
1605. Marston, Dutch Courtezan, III. i. D 4 b. All will scarce make me so high as one of the Gyants stilts that stalkes before my Lord Maiors pageant.
1638. R. Baker, trans. Balzac’s Lett. (vol. II.), 38. Had it not been to see my Lord Mayors shew, I had not been seene in the citie.
1678. Will of R. Saunders (Somerset Ho.). A Lord Mayor’s spoon.
1717. Prior, Alma, I. 377. If you dine with my lord mayor, Roast-beef and venison is your fare.
1761. Ann. Reg., 235. A proverb, that the lord mayor’s day is generally a bad one.
1807. Sir R. Wilson, Jrnl., 7 June, in Life (1862), II. viii. 253. I … would not have exchanged meals with the Lord Mayor of London.
1842. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Aunt Fanny. Had the coal been a ‘Lord Mayor’s coal,’—viz. a slate.
1859. H. Kingsley, G. Hamlyn, xxxii. (1860), 286. Burnside was in the habit of saying that he was like the Lord Mayor’s fool—fond of everything that was good.
a. 1865. Greville, Mem., II. (1885), II. 51. The Queen must have known it was Lord Mayor’s Day.
2. slang. ‘A large crowbar’ (Farmer).
1889. D. C. Murray, Dangerous Catspaw, 24. There’s … the crowbar, from a Lord Mayor down to a pocket jemmy.
Hence Lord-Mayoralty, the position of Lord Mayor.
1882. Society, 4 Nov., 16/1. Lord mayoralties and high shrievalties follow almost as a matter of course.
