Every year the Election of Llansteffan’s Mock Mayor is the first colourful event in what has now become known as Fiesta week. Held on the Friday night of that week of festivities, this huge and important event is an extension of a tradition which has it’s roots way back in the 19th Century and possibly much further . Llansteffan’s status as a borough was confirmed by King John in 1200, which meant that fairs and markets could be held there. Two fairs a year were held, Ffair Fawr and Ffair Fach. Dates changed periodically. A Mock Mayor-making ceremony coinciding with the August Fair was certainly established by 1875 as William Waters describes the ceremony in his History of Llanstephan:
The “Mayor” was `carried on chiefly by Glamorganshire visitors … on or about August 8 … The so-called mayor is drawn by his friends in a carriage for some distance, the procession generally terminating in the wood near the beach, when his representative announces to the audience that the the “newly elected mayor” will soon effect great improvements in the ancient “maritime borough” at his own expense; such as erecting an iron bridge from the Castle Hill to St Ishmael’s, purchasing a large number of bathing machines, and establishing coffee taverns on the sands!’
According to the late Griff Rees, a local historian and County Councillor, the origin of the election has been lost in the mists of the 19th Century when the tenants of the various small holdings that made up the village would congregate once a year in the lounge of the Union Hall, the local hostelry now known as the Sticks. There, they would pay their annual tithes and taxes to whatever local landowner held their leases and over the years this event evolved into a more social occasion, and whether to allieve the pain of paying large sums of money to their landowners or not, the village agricultural workers decided to elect one of their number as Mock Mayor for the year to come. The winner of the election was then mounted in the shafts of a local cart or gambo and made to parade around the village for the amusement of all and sundry.