Mayor, Mr

   In Britain and America a mayor is the nominal head of a city or borough. When the official is a man the normal polite form of address is ‘Mr Mayor’. A British example of this usage occurs in Bless me, Father, by Neil Boyd. In Garson Kanin’s Moviola the vocative is spelled out as ‘Mister Mayor’. A female mayor would correctly be addressed as ‘Madam Mayor’. In certain British cities, such as London, the chief official has the title of ‘Lord Mayor’, and would be addressed in that way. A woman holding the position would be ‘Lady Mayoress’ in formal address. This term is also used to address the wife of a Lord Mayor. Husbands of women who are lady mayoresses or mayors in their own right have no particular title.

   Historically, ‘mayor’ is a variant of ‘major’, but the two titles have been distinct since at least the sixteenth century. Like ‘major’, ‘mayor’ is sometimes used on its own, especially in infor mal circumstances. In The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones, by Jesse Hill Ford, a townsman outside a courtroom says: ‘I heard it was a nigger done it. Ain’t that right, Mayor?’