IT seems one Southend mayor was way ahead of his time.

While we are all now familiar with dating sites such as Tinder, Plenty of Fish and Match.com, Edward Frith - who held the prestigious post in the 1930s - was playing cupid well before all of them.

Historic documents have revealed how, in 1934, he was inundated with requests from Southend women after being tasked with finding wives for two men; a Geordie builder and a soldier from Yorkshire.

The builder, from Gosforth, near Newcastle, had asked Mr Frith for an “educated, plump, and virtuous” wife, which Mr Frith put to the people of Southend.

The mayor then received 518 letters in a matter of days, and had to put a stop to the requests after his office was swamped with letters.

Mr Frith then set about working on the second request to find a wife for the Yorkshireman.

Bizarrely, he then later a telegram from the soldier, telling him due to the huge number of requests, he would instead like to remain single.

A chuckling John Lamb, current Southend mayor, told the Echo: “This does tickle me. What an odd request to make!

“We’re not a marriage guidance agency. If that happened today, you would politely decline.

“You would think they would be joking!”

He added: “It shows how many people in Southend were looking to get married.

“There are several dating sites out there, and we’re not one of them!”

Vin Harrop, a prominent historian, echoed Mr Lamb’s thoughts, and added Edward Frith may have carved out a career as a marriage counsellor.

He said: “This is completely out of the blue. People write to mayor’s and politicians about anything.

“Perhaps the two had seen the mayor’s name in the paper or somewhere like that. They must have thought he was a good person to write to!”

He added: “I wonder how successful the marriages would have been?

“If it happened now, it would get a lot of responses. I’m not sure how many genuine ones there would be however.

“People always respond to things like this.

“They want their voices and stories out there.

“It would be great to find out how readers respond to this now! When I hold exhibitions that require people to come forward, they always do. This was clearly the same in 1934!”