borough-reeve
(ˈbʌrəriːv)
Forms: 1 burhᵹeréfa (also Hist. in 9), 2 burhreve, 9 borough-reeve.
[f. borough + reeve.]
† a. A governor of a town or city; esp. the official who before the Norman Conquest represented the king's authority for fiscal and other purposes in boroughs, as the sc{iacu}r-ᵹeréfa (sheriff) did in shires. The office seems to have been substantially identical with that of portreeve.
| c 1000 ælfric Gloss. in Wr.-Wülcker Voc. 110 Prætor uel præfectus, uel quæstor, burhᵹerefa. c 1225 Leg. Kath. 1927 Com a burhreve [orig. urbis prefectus] as þe þat wes þes deoueles budel. [1861 Pearson Early & Mid. Ages Eng. I. 84 The præfectus, or burh-gerefa, was rather a royal than a civic officer.] |
b. The chief municipal officer in certain unincorporated English towns, before the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835.
| 1808 Chron. in Ann. Reg. 325/1 The weavers assembled..near Manchester..Mr. Starkie, the Boroughreeve strove to persuade them to disperse, but in vain. 1846 M{supc}Culloch Acc. Brit. Empire (1854) II. 191 The officer of the king, called port-reeve or borough-reeve. 1881 Morley Cobden I. 121 He was intolerant of the small politics of the Borough-reeve and the Constables. 1885 Manch. Exam. 20 Mar. 8/4 He filled the office of boroughreeve, or chief magistrate, of Salford in 1839. |