Totnes, Devon, England received its first borough charter from King John and the recorded list of mayors dates from 1359. The town was incorporated in 1505 with a governing structure consisting of a mayor, recorder and a single council of burgesses. A further charter in 1596 concentrated power in the hands of the town’s leading merchants, redefining the corporation as a governing body of 14 ‘masters’, including the mayor, with an inferior council of 20 burgesses. The masters filled vacancies in their ranks by co-option and nominated the mayoral candidates.
The following have been mayors of Totnes:
1396–98: Walter Browning (MP for Totnes), 1388
1399–1400: Walter Browning
1401–03: Walter Browning
1535-37: Christopher Savery
1548-49: Christopher Savery
1556-57: Christopher Savery
1585-86: Nicholas Ball
1589-90: Nicholas Hayman
1593-94: Leonard Darr
1598-99: Philip Holditch (MP for Totnes, 1601)
1605–06: Christopher Wise
1612-13: Richard Rodd
1621–22: Christopher Wise
1623–24: Philip Holditch II (son of Philip Holditch above, MP for Totnes, 1626)
1638–39: Philip Holditch II
1718–19: Nicholas Trist (High Sheriff of Devon, 1708)
1737–38: Nicholas Trist (High Sheriff of Devon, 1708)
1754-55: Benjamin Babbage (grandfather of Charles Babbage)
1780–81: William Adams (MP for Plympton Erle 1796–1801 and Totnes 1801–11)
1788–89: William Adams
1797–98: William Adams
1882–84: Frederick Bowden
1950–51: Charles Stanley Jacka
1970–71: Jean M Gilbert
