The lady mayoress accompanies the lord mayor to many events and in the past may also carry out engagements on her own.
[1][4] When Jessie Beatrice Kitson was the first female lord mayor of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England in 1942–1943, she chose her friend Elinor Gertrude Lupton as her lady mayoress.
[5] When Bernard Atha was lord mayor of Leeds in 2000–2001, he selected 18 "high-profile, well-known Yorkshire women" to act in turn as his lady mayoress.
[6] As a colonial outpost, as in the United Kingdom, the lady mayoress of an Australian capital city is generally the wife of an elected lord mayor.
Although, during part of the time in office as lord mayor of Brisbane of Sallyanne Atkinson, her mother served as lady mayoress.