Plomer then became Mayor in the aftermath of the Gordon Riots, but the Lord Mayor in the intervening year was Sir Watkins Lewis, a description of whose inaugural banquet in the journal of William Hickey reads as follows:

“The 9th being the Lord Mayor’s day, I arrayed myself in my full suit of velvet. Alderman Woolridge called at my father’s and conveyed me in his chariot to the Guildhall at half past four o’clock, about an hour after which the procession arrived from Westminster. At six we sat down to a profusion of turtle and venison, followed by all the etceteras of French cookery, with splendid dessert of pines, grapes and other fruits. I was seated between Mrs Healy, sister to Wilkes, and Lord Lewisham, eldest son of the Earl of Dartmouth. Mrs Healy almost enveloped me in her immense hoop, but was vastly attentive to me, whom she perceived to be a stranger, ordering one of her servants to wait upon me and naming to me the different persons who sat at the same table, amongst whom were most of the great officers of state, the Lord Chancellor, Judges, and Master of the Rolls. The heat from the crowd assembled, and the immense number of lights was disagreeable to all; to many quite oppressive and distressing. The Lord Mayor’s table at which I was, and nearly opposite his Lordship, was less so than other parts of the hall from being considerably elevated above the rest. The wines were excellent and the dinner the same, served too with as much regularity and decorum as if we had been in a private house, but far different was the scene in the body of the hall, where in five minutes after the guests took their stations at the tables the dishes were entirely cleared of their contents, twenty hands seizing the same joint or bird and literally tearing it to pieces. A more determined scramble could not be, the roaring and noise was deafening and hideous, which increased as the liquor operated, bottles and glasses flying across from side to side without intermission. Such a bear garden altogether I never beheld. This abominable and disgusting scene continued till near ten o’clock, when the Lord Mayor, sheriffs, the nobility, etc. adjourned to the ball and card rooms and dancing commenced.”

This description may well have been equally true of Plomer’s own banquet, and while his “top table” no doubt conducted itself with the same decorum as that observed by Hickey the conduct of the lower tables gives some credence to the tale told in the City Biography that Plomer was observed at a dinner in a city tavern with the claw of a fowl protruding from his pocket.

This period of some twenty years from 1760 to the early 1780s covers a lively period in City history and the Tylers and Bricklayers’ Lord Mayors come at either end, and between them as Aldermen they have played a part in the discussions of the issues of the day. They are very different characters these two, Fludyer a commercial magnate out to make a fortune and a place in society for himself, and having little to do with the minor Company from which he has been translated after his election as Alderman, and Plomer also a wealthy man, but not in the same league as Fludyer, a rougher diamond altogether, at home in taverns and often the subject of humorous prints, but a good Company man assiduous in his attendance at Court meetings even during the year of his Mayorality.