List of Lord Mayoralties and Lord Provostships in The United Kingdom - Use of Prefix "right Honourable"

Use of Prefix "right Honourable"

The most ancient lord mayors and lord provosts (London, York and Edinburgh) had established the right to the use of the honorific prefix "the right honourable" (The Rt. Hon) by the seventeenth century. When new lord mayoralties were created in the 1890s it was not clear if they also enjoyed this privilege. When the grant of a lord mayor was made to Liverpool and Manchester in 1893, Sir Albert William Woods, Garter Principal King of Arms, was of the opinion that

...the chief magistrates of those cities on which the dignity was conferred should be able to use the prefix of "right honourable" in the same way as London had done from time immemorial.

Ten years later his successor as Garter, Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty, decided that this was in error. However, the Lord Mayors of Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol continued to use the prefix. The matter came to a head in 1921, when King George V visited Liverpool, and the Home Office was forced to write to the council to inform that it could not be used without the express permission of the monarch. In the meantime, the prefix had been formally granted to the Lord Provost of Glasgow in 1912. In 1923 the Lord Mayor of Belfast was granted the honour in recognition of the city's new status as capital of Northern Ireland.

The controversy continued however. Professor John J Clarke of the University of Liverpool (author of Outlines of Local Government), the Corporation of Manchester and Herbert Woodcock, MP for Liverpool Everton all pressed for the dignity to be applied to all lord mayors. The official position was set out in a parliamentary statement by the Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks in July 1927, and repeated in a Home Office document issued in July 1932:

The only Lord Mayors and Provosts in the United Kingdom who are entitled to be styled "Right Honourable" are the Lord Mayors of London and York and the Lord Provost of Edinburgh who have had the privilege from time immemorial, and the Lord Provost of Glasgow and the Lord Mayor of Belfast on whom it has been conferred by grant in modern times. If it has been used in other cases, this has been done through a misunderstanding and without authority; and whenever the attention of myself or of my predecessors has been called to such unauthorised use, or inquiries on the subject have been made, it has always been pointed out that the style could not be used without His Majesty's permission.

The number of lord mayors or provosts in the United Kingdom entitled to the prefix now stands at six: in 1956 the dignity was allowed to the Lord Mayor of Cardiff, when the city was declared capital of Wales. The Lord Mayor of Bristol continues to use the prefix without official sanction.