Wrexham Council elects a Mayor to serve for one year.  It’s always a busy year and includes five formal civic events: The Annual Meeting of the Council, Civic Visit to Church, Royal Welch Fusiliers Reunion Weekend, a Charity Dinner Dance and Annual Service of Remembrance.

The Mayor will attend over 400 engagements during the year, and receives many more invitations – many of which are attended by the Deputy Mayor.

The Mayor for 2019/2020 is Councillor Rob Walsh, who is accompanied by his Mayoress Ms. Sharon Pope.

Each Mayor nominates a charity or charities to receive funds raised during the year. The Mayor’s charities for this year are:

  • Bowel Cancer UK
  • H.A.C.K. Horse Sanctuary
  • Sands (stillbirth and neonatal death charity)

In addition to nominated charities, the Mayor considers requests for donations from other worthy causes.

Mayoral appointment booking

If you would like to invite the Mayor to an event you’re organising, please email mayoralty@wrexham.gov.uk or call 01978 292279.

 

Roles and functions of the Mayor

Roles

  • as First Citizen, to act as a figurehead  of the council  and Wrexham County Borough
  • to represent the whole of the county borough and act as a symbol of continuity
  • to act as a link between the council and the citizens of the county borough, as an expression of social cohesion
  • as someone elected irrespective of class, gender and ethnic background, the Mayor is a symbol of open society
  • to act as a focal point in times of crisis, tragedy or triumph

Functions

  • to preside over meetings of the Council and to exercise a casting vote in the event of an equality of votes
  • to have precedence at any function in the county borough, except in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen and members of the royal family (including  the Lord Lieutenant in his/her official capacity)
  • to preside at civic functions

Mayors of Wrexham - historical background

Before 1857, the administration of Wrexham was undertaken largely by the manorial courts of the leading gentry and the parish Vestry. The courts had become unable to cope with increasingly complicated local government duties and the Church’s Vestry added secular matters to its original church business.

Problems carrying out local government duties continued, until local people petitioned for a Charter of Incorporation for the Borough of Wrexham, which was granted on the 23 September 1857.

This was the basis for modern local government in Wrexham, and the Borough Council of Wrexham was created with Wrexham’s first mayor, Thomas Edgworth.

List of previous Mayors of Wrexham

Armorial bearings and official blazon

The county borough council's Coat of Arms is largely derived from the arms of the two former Wrexham authorities. The shield combines their green 'field', ermine spots and gold crosiers with the blue lion on gold of the Hanmers of Maelor and the River Dee in a map of the new area.

The crest has a red walled crown symbolising brick-making and Madog ap Meredydd's castle at Overton.

The Red Dragon rests on a black diamond that’s edged with gold - representing coal and other mineral wealth - and the tree stands for forestry and the rural areas.

The Welsh dragons hold a green flag for agriculture; one dragon with a gold symbol of Mars for iron founding and the other with a gold cogwheel for engineering.

The motto, LABOR OMNIA VINCIT, from Virgil means 'Hard work overcomes all things'.

The arms were designed by H Ellis Tomlinson MAFHS.

Image
Civic regalia
Mayoral etiquette guidance