London’s Livery Companies

UPDATE NOTES…

Page 27: in Bjork, R.E. (2010, OUP) The Oxford Dictionary of the Middles Ages 'GUILDS are defined as bringing together individuals with 'common goals', and such goals 'protected members against predation by rulers', 'managed labour markets', 'acted to increase and stabilize members' incomes', and were also 'social, legal and religious functions'; as well as the fact that the Guilds 'served as mechanisms for organising, managing, and financing the collective quest for eternal salvation' while at the same time provided insurance againsts the risks of everyday life ('In sum, guild members sought prosperity in this life and providence in the next' - including 'quick passage through Purgatory'!).

Page 47, the NOHE is now at 11 volumes since Harrison (2010) is out.

Page 87: For a balanced analysis of the culpability of central bankers, see: Davies, H. & Green, D. (2010) Banking on the Future: The Fall and Rise of Central Bankers (Princeton University Press). They explain that there were indeed valid warnings about the looming credit-crunch crisis, and also explain why the policy makers failed to act upon them because of complacency together with a lack of insight.

The flood of books on the 2007/08 Great Financial Crisis continues (as indeed arguably does the Crisis itself!). So, see, inter alia: Harold James, The Creation and Destruction of Value - The Globalization Cycle (2009, Harvard); Micheal Lewis, The Big Short - Inside the Doomsday Machine (2010, Penguin); Howard Davies, The Financial Crisis - Who is to Blame? (2010, Polity); Bethany McLean & Joe Nocera, All the Devils are Here - Unmasking the Men who Bankrupted the World (2011, Penguin).

Page 105: on Henrietta Maria as the nagging wife of Charles I, see Katie Whitaker (2010, Weidenfeld) A Royal Passion - The Turbulent Marriage of Charles I and Henrietta Maria.

Page 170, Black (2009, p 283) sees the 1885 Report as reporting 'on what was then in effect a cosy world of socially conservative male clubbery'.

Page 186 on Dickens, 'The Uncommercial Traveller': 'Sometimes, the queer Hall of some queer Company gives upon a churchyard... and, when the

Livery dine, you may hear them (if you are looking in through the iron rails...) toasting their own Worshipful prosperity...'

Page 199: SNOW (Corridors of Power, 1964, Chapter XXV, ‘A Speech to the Fishmongers’) – Lord Lufkin was a Fishmonger. Not that he had ever sold a fish: not even in the Hamletian sense. Lufkin had a singular gift for getting it both ways. He disapproved of the hereditary peerage, and had become a hereditary peer. In just the same way, he had nothing but scorn for the old livery companies. It was grotesque, said Lufkin, with acid scorn, for businessmen to take on the names of honest trades they had not a vestige of connection with: and to stand themselves good dinners out of money earned by better men. It was mediaeval juju, said Lufkin. It was ‘atavistic’, he said mysteriously, with the spirit that John Knox might have shown when he was less well disposed than usual to Mary Queen of Scots. None of that prevented him taking all the honours in his own livery, which, by some fluke, was the Fishmongers. That year, he had risen to be the Prime Warden of the Fishmongers. Most of his colleagues enjoyed each honorific job as it came, and would have enjoyed this. Lufkin showed no sign of pleasure: except, I sometimes fancied, at the thought of doing someone else out of it. He went through his duties. That was why he had invited Roger to the Michaelmas dinner and had arranged for him to speak. That was why Lufkin stood in a great drawing-room at the hall, that November night, dressed in a russet Tudor gown tipped with fur, surrounded by other officials of the livery, dressed in less grand gowns tipped with less grand fur. Above the fancy dress protruded Lufkin’s small, neat, handsome twentieth-century head, as he shook hand after hand with an impersonation of cordiality. With maces carried before him, he led the procession into the hall for dinner. It was a hall not unlike, though larger than a college hall: and the dinner was not unlike, though larger than a college feast. The food and drink were good, but not good enough to go out for… In the candlelight, looking at the table before me, I saw the sheen of glass, of gold and silver plate.

Page 254: there are still grumbles about the City Corporation (as over the past 150 years or more - see Chapter III), and Black (2009, p 375) comments on its 'unique - some would say uniquely undemocratic - voting system' (he finds offensive the existence of c24,000 'business people' as voters who swamp the c9,000 residents). He also adds: 'The ancient City of London authority can be viewed as a charming survivor of a former age, sitting comfortably alongside other much-loved features of London history such as ravens at the Tower, Beefeaters and jellied eels. But the authority has frequently been criticised as hopelessly anachronistic, 'an unreconstructed old boys' network whose medievalist pageantry camouflages the very real power and wealth which it holds...' (quoting from The Rough Guide to England, 2006).

Page 275 on historic charitable giving to the Companies for them to administer as charity funds: see also Jordan, W.K. (1960) The Charities of London, 1480-1660: The Aspirations and the Achievements of the Urban Society (Russell Sage Foundation).

Page 279: on the contents of the Goldsmiths' Hall see also W.S. Prideux (1896 & 1897, 2 volumes) The Memorials of the Goldsmiths' Company.

Page 282, see also, alongside Flanders (1974) on the Halls: Way, T.R. & Norman, P. (?1920s) The Ancient Halls of the City Guilds (George Bell & Sons).

Page 344: Further afield, over in Dublin there is The Tailors' Hall (Back Lane, Dublin 8), dating back to the 1700s as initially a large house and then becoming the meeting hall for the Tailors (but other guilds also met there - including the Freemasons). The guilds were abolished in 1841 and the Hall became a school, and in due course housed a range of activities over the decades; today the Irish national Trust is HQ-ed there, and the Hall is open for guided tours.

Page 378. There is a handsome 2010 book on the Upholders: (Hence add also to p 358) Houston, J.F. (2010) Featherbedds and Flockbedds: The Early History of the Worshipful Company of Upholders of the City of London (the Three Tents Press). In fact, this is a second/revised edition (apologies for not listing on this page the earlier edition (2006) as a Company with such a history of itself). Mr Houston (Archivist to the Company) nicely and well illustrates many of the themes in this book from the specific angle of this ancient Company (14th century): including the granting of arms in 1465 (at pp 25/26 in the Houston text), regulation of the trade (pp 29-34), the Company’s involvement in the Ulster Plantation (pp 37/38 & 58), incorporation by Royal Charters (pp 45/46 & 162-179 for the full 1668 Charter, along with the 1679 Byelaws on pp 180-197), the building of a Hall and its loss in the Great Fire (pp 47/48), disputes with other companies and the Witney blanket weavers (pp 65-67 & 88), charitable activity via the Peter Jackson Charity dating back to 1707 (pp 79-81), the attempt to create an undertakers’ guild/company in the 1720s (pp 85/86), welfare benefits for members (pp 88/89), data on modes of admission to the Company (servitude/patrimony/redemption) over 1698-1923 and on apprentice bindings 1704-1772 (pp 96-100), financial problems in the 19th century (pp 121-129), an example of a 15th century Will (pp 156-160), and a list of treasures (pp 198-200).