Stokes

Alfred Stokes JP, FRGS, Mayor of the County Borough of East Ham, 1921-22.


He was supported in his mayoralty by his wife as Mayoress and by the Mayor's Chaplain, Rev. Canon R.W. Porter, Vicar of East Ham.


Alfred had been educated at East Ham School in High Street South under the renowned John Skipsey and was the second former pupil of the school to become elected as Mayor for the Borough.


Stokes points out that the office of The Worshipful the Mayor is both Chief Citizen and Chief Magistrate and that he (the Mayor) is father or leader to a family of 150,000 people.  His mayoral year was opened with a church service at St. Bartholomew's, East Ham. The procession was headed by the borough Fire Brigade and the sermon preached by the Rt. Rev. J E Watts-Ditchfield, the first Bishop of the (then) new Diocese of Chelmsford. He is the author of the seminal work on the history of the borough "East Ham from Village to County Borough" published in 1933 which contains two chapters of reminiscence on his mayoral year.

Stokes