TITLE “ESQUIRE.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3994, 7 September 1929, Page 4

TITLE “ESQUIRE.”

: WHEN IT SHOULD' BE USED. A subscriber asks when the title “esquire” should be used. There is no evidence available as to the age at which a person may call himself an esquire. It is .interesting to note, however, that old English law supplies a definite list of people entitled to use the title.. jAmongst those included are all sons of peers and lords of Parliament during their fathers’ lives. Noblemum of all other nations are also included. The eldest sons of baronets and knights, persons bearing aims and a title of esquire by letters. Patent and other technical holders are contained in the schedule. Although solicitors must content themselves with the title of “Gentleman,” barristers, justices of the peace, and mayors in office are entitled to be called esquire. Attorneys in the colonies who function in the dual capacities of counsel and attorney are also numbered amongst the esquires. At one time an esquire’s duty was to bear the shield of a knight and act as his attendant. When 'Knights discarded their shields it became possible for a gentleman to aspire to the title of esquire by simpler means. Anybody who was not an esquire or evej a gentleman was a vagabond. Shakespeare, it is worth noting, rose from the ranks of an official vagabond to the status of a gentleman by the simple process of being granted a coat of arqis. In practice, however, the title of esquire as we know it to-day is to all intents and purposes quite meaningless. It can be used indiscriminately by anyone, who, as an old document puts it, considers lie “could bear the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman.”