3-053-828 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Lord Mayor's Table, 1873. 'The Lord Mayor of York entertained the Lord Mayor of London and the Mayors of two hundred other corporate towns with a banquet in the Guildhall at York...the scene of stately and sumptuous festivity...The hall was decorated by Mr. Gibson Hartley...The wall spaces between the windows and the old oaken octagonal pillars that support the fine wood roof of the hall were decorated with groups of shields of the arms of the Corporations of England and Wales, and around the shields were draped flags, while the lower part of the walls, the pillars, and the gallery were covered with crimson cloth. What with the remarkably fine stained glass illuminated from the outside of the Guildhall, the floral and green decorations, shields and flags, the gas and candles, and epergnes laden with fruit or flowers, and the bright scarlet robes which a few of the Mayors continued to wear, the scene was animated and brilliant, if not beautiful...the speeches...were appropriate to the occasion and all in good taste. The toasts were expressive of loyalty and patriotism, and of particular zeal for the maintenance of all municipal franchises vested in the towns of England, or rather of the United Kingdom'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.