Part 1

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AN OLD CITY COMPANY

Privately Printed Opuscula

ISSUED TO MEMBERS OF

THE SETTE OF ODD VOLUMES.

No. LIV.

AN OLD CITY COMPANY.

AN OLD CITY COMPANY:

A Sketch of the History and Conditions of the Skinners’ Company of London,

The substance whereof was compiled by command of His Oddship

Brother MAX PEMBERTON, Hack,

and read before Ye Sette of Odd Volumes on November 25th, 1902.

by

LEWIS BOYD SEBASTIAN,

Skynner to ye Sette.

London: Imprynted at ye Bedford Press, 20 & 21, Bedfordbury, W.C. --- MDCCCCVI.

IMPRIMATUR

Let this be imprinted.

By Order of the Publication Committee,

CONRAD W. COOKE (_Mechanick_), Secretary, Publication Committee.

_This Edition is limited to 299 Copies, and is imprynted for private circulation only._

_No_....

Presented unto

BY

DULCE EST DESIPERE IN LOCO. _Horace. Odes, iv, 12._

DULCE—_Delightful_, says the Poet, EST—_is it_, and right well we know it, DESIPERE—_to play the fool_ IN LOCO—_when we’re out of school_. W. M. T.

Introductory Note.

THIS historical sketch of the Skinners’ Company of London, to which I was apprenticed some forty years ago, and which I have since had the exceptional honour of serving through seven Wardenships and two Masterships (1886–7 and 1894–5) is an expansion of a Paper read before Ye Sette of Odd Volumes at Limmer’s Hotel, on the 25th November, 1902.

Who that reads can feel surprise that such a Company, with such a past—and such a present—commands and receives the loyal and enthusiastic devotion of all its members.

Five-and-twenty years ago disparaging criticisms of the ancient Livery Companies of the City of London were not uncommon. It had become a habit with writers of a certain class to describe the members of the Companies as illiterate people battening on public money, employing themselves in what was often spoken of as “gorging and guzzling” at the expense of their trusts, incapable of sitting down to a meal without the incentive of £5 notes secreted under their plates; and whose business, when any was done, largely consisted in granting beneficial leases of their trust estates to one another. All ignorant and malignant fiction.

Whether anyone ever believed these stories it is difficult to say. At the present time, at all events, there can be few, if any, who can continue to do so. In point of fact, the members of the Companies are very much like other people, educated in the same ways, and actuated by the same motives, but with a strong sense of their responsibility for the maintenance by their Companies of the high position which they gained, centuries gone by. The funds of which the Companies dispose are either their trust funds—as to the dealings with which the Charity Commissioners can speak—or their corporate funds, which are governed by their own pleasure. No £5 notes are hidden under plates; no beneficial leases of a Company’s property are granted to its members. The employment of a member of the Court of the Skinners’ Company to work for the Company for remuneration, whether professionally, commercially, or otherwise, is strictly prohibited. It is no doubt true that portions of the Companies’ own incomes are spent on entertainments, in accordance with the practice which has prevailed ever since the Companies existed at all; but I do not think that here, at all events, or in any other place where good fellowship prevails, any complaint will be made of this. Moreover, as the money spent is the Companies’ own, criticism would appear to be irrelevant. The entire income of the Companies, after payment of their expenses, including the cost of the entertainments, &c., is allocated to objects of public utility, selected by the owners.

The former misconceived attacks were very wounding to the members of the Companies, whose feelings of personal honour and of affection towards their Company were sorely outraged by them. For my own part, when I compare my Company, my School, my University, my College, my Inn of Court, I doubt whether any but William of Wykeham’s Winchester can vie with the Skinners’ Company in my affections.

There are several reasons for this which appear to me to be good. One is, that a member of such a Company feels himself to be connected by a direct link with the History of England, of which these Companies are part. Their destinies have been shaped and guided by men, of whom many have done good service to their country, and who stand towards their successors of later date in the position of honoured and revered ancestors, to be followed and imitated so far as change of circumstances permits. They are gone, but their work remains to be preserved and extended.

Another reason is the opportunity which membership of a Company affords of being of some little use in one’s own day and generation. There is great scope for this in the wise and prudent management of the affairs of a great Company. The sick have to be tended, the poor to be relieved, the schools to be governed, the exhibitions and prizes to be awarded, the estates to be managed, worthy institutions to be selected for support, all the multifarious matters connected with the ownership of property and the dispensation of charity to be controlled. All these must be of interest to any generous mind.

Then there is the association with agreeable and congenial comrades. Both Oxford and Cambridge are well represented in the Court of the Skinners’ Company, and few of the greater public schools lack at least one supporter. Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Harrow, Rugby, Charterhouse, Marlborough, Clifton, Tonbridge, King’s College School, are all to be found there. Other members have been claimed by Commerce at an early age, but all are cultivated and kindhearted, and united in the desire to promote the benefit of the Company and the useful and just disposal of its resources. A pleasanter or more congenial society could not easily be found. It has been a source of much gratification to me that I was allowed to assume the title of “Skynner” to ye Sette.

The narrative which follows can be filled in by reference to the “Account of the Worshipful Company of Skinners of London,” which was published by my regretted friend and colleague, the late James Foster Wadmore, A.R.I.B.A., while this Paper was in course of preparation. He had then recently completed fifty years of service in the Court of the Company, of which he was for several years the senior member, but survived the publication only a few months.

An Old City Company.

THE corporate name of the Company is “The Master and Wardens of the Guild or Fraternity of the Body of Christ of the Skinners of London.” The association with the feast of Corpus Christi, held on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, goes back to the earliest days of the Company, and the annual Corpus Christi procession and feast of the Company are referred to and expressly sanctioned by the Charter of 1392—16 Ric. II. When the name is Latinized, the word “Pelliparii” serves as the equivalent of Skinners.

The Arms of the Company date from 4 Edw. VI., and are as follows:—The Shield—_Ermine_, on a chief _gules_, three ducal coronets _or_, capped of the field and tasselled gold. The Crest—a lizard (Lynx) statant proper, gorged with a wreath, leaved _vert_, purffled _or_. The Supporters—Dexter, a lizard proper; Sinister, a martin _sable_; each gorged with a wreath, leaved _vert_. Motto—“To God only be all Glory.” Down to the seventeenth century “In Christo Fratres” was used.

The date of the first establishment of this Company is unknown, but it was certainly long prior to the year 1327—1 Edw. III—when the first Royal Charter was granted to “Our beloved men of the City of London called Skynners.” Later charters were granted from time to time, but it is not necessary to refer to them here. The Company also holds an unlimited license in mortmain. The earlier of the City Companies, such as the Weavers, Saddlers, and others, claim to have had their beginning in Saxon times. Whether the same is true of the Skinners, it is now impossible to say, but at all events the grant of the charter constituted a Royal recognition of what was already a voluntarily existing fraternity.

An old book in the possession of the Company, written on vellum and illuminated, which dates from the end of the fifteenth century, contains a list of names of the “Founders and Bretherne and Susterne of the fraternity of Corpus Christi founded by the Worshipful Fellowship of Skynners of the Citee of London, that is to wit.”—

King Edward the III. Dame Philip, his Queen. King Richard the II. Dame Anne, his Queen. Prince Edward, father of the said King Richard. King Henry the IIII. Dame Johan, his Queen. King Henry the V. Dame Kateryn, his Queen. King Henry the VI. King Edward the IIII. Dame Elizabeth, his Queen. Leonell, Duke of Clarence. Henry, Duke of Lancastre. Thomas, Duke of Clarence. John, Duke of Bedford. Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester. Richard, Duke of York. John, Duke of Excestre. George, Duke of Clarence. Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Edmund, Erle of Rutland. Richard, Erle of Salesbury. John, Lord Faunhope.

And others of less distinction, several of whom are described as “clerk,” nearly 600 in all.

Then follows a list of names of sisters of the fraternity, rather more than 100 in all. The membership of the Skinners’ Company is still open to females, but only through patrimony; and as a female member can only become a freewoman, and is not eligible for the Livery, only few take advantage of the opportunity.

So far as the records of the Company show, there is no evidence to support the idea that membership of the Company was ever confined to skinners or furriers. A list of 1446 contains the names of persons variously described as “doctour,” “bocher,” “dier,” “joyner,” “groser,” “skynner,” and so on. So again, in a list of members admitted to the Livery in 1738, there were only six skinners out of twenty-seven, the remainder of whom are described as engaged in other occupations.

The working or “Artesan” Skinners, however, made attempts on various occasions to obtain admission as such into the governing body of the Company, but such attempts invariably proved unsuccessful. In 1606, the “Artesan” Skinners applied for and obtained the grant of a new charter to the Company, providing for the election of a certain proportion of working skinners, and the admission to the Court of certain persons named; but the Company brought the matter before the Privy Council, and they after report made by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, ordered the improperly-obtained charter to be cancelled.

Again, in 1744, the “Artesan” Skinners proceeded in the Court of King’s Bench for a mandamus, to compel the Court to choose certain of the “Artesans” as members of the Court, but such proceedings failed. In 1747–8, a similar further attempt was made without success; and since then the Company has had no further annoyance of this description.

The constitution and government of the Company are as follows:—At the head comes the Court, consisting of the Master, four Wardens (known respectively as First or Upper Warden, Second Warden, Third Warden, and Renter Warden, of whom the Renter Warden, though possessing the privileges of a member of the Court, is not one technically until elected to membership at the end of his year of office), and Assistants, all of whom but one (the last-preceding Renter Warden) are usually Past-Masters. The above form the governing body of the Company. The total number of the Court is fixed at not exceeding thirty. At one time the Assistants were termed the XVI., and apparently did not exceed that number. The members of the Court are all members of the Livery, and next to them come the other members of the Livery, who are without seats in the governing body. Below them come the Freemen, and after them the Apprentices.

To trace the career of a member up to the Chair—if he is not the son of a freeman, born after the date of his father’s freedom, so as himself to be entitled to the freedom by patrimony, he must be apprenticed to a freeman while between the ages of 14 and 21. After seven years of apprenticeship he is entitled to the freedom, and it is usual to take up the freedom of the City of London at the same time as the freedom of the Company. Those entitled by patrimony are able to take up the freedom on attaining 21. The Livery are elected by the Court from the freemen. The practice has fluctuated. Sometimes the Court have elected practically all qualified candidates free from objection. At other times, when the numbers appeared to be growing too fast, limits have been imposed. At the present time, the rule is to restrict the number of Liverymen elected after apprenticeship to not exceeding three a year. This is in addition to patrimonial candidates.

From the Livery one is chosen annually by the Court, on Corpus Christi Day, to serve as Renter Warden for the year ensuing. The Renter Warden was in former years the Bursar of the Company. He received the rents and made the payments. He had the charge of the moveable property of the Company, and was responsible for all. In return for this, certain of the Company’s benefactors directed small annual payments to the Renter Warden. The Renter Warden still checks over the plate of the Company on taking office, but his responsible duties are now discharged by the salaried officers of the Company, under the directions of the Court and its committees. At the end of the Skinners’ year, _i.e._, on the following Corpus Christi Day, it is usual for the retiring Renter Warden to be elected to the Court, and through the following year he acts as junior member, without office. The following year he is elected third Warden, the next second Warden, the next first Warden, and then Master; so that in six years from his election as Renter Warden he has passed the Chair, and goes to the bottom of the Assistants, with only his own ex-Renter Warden below him.

The ancient officers of the Company are the Clerk and the two Beadles, the Clerk being the trusted and chief executive official, while the Beadles discharge duties of a humbler character. To these have been added, in more recent times, the Solicitor, the Surveyor, and the Accountant.

On Corpus Christi Day the Election Court is held at noon, the members being arranged round the horseshoe table in their usual order: that is to say, the Master in the Chair at the head of the table, with the Clerk at his right hand. Beyond him, the four Wardens in order of precedence. The Master and Wardens alone wear their gowns at this and all other meetings of the Court. On the Master’s left hand the Senior Assistant sits, and beyond him, and round the outside and inside of both branches of the table, come the remaining Assistants, more or less in order of seniority, though this is not strictly adhered to. After the Minutes of the previous meeting have been read, the first Warden is nominated for the Mastership by a member, and leaves the room. Another member is nominated in competition with him, and after the first Warden has been elected on a show of hands, he is called back into the Court-Room, and returns his thanks. The same course is adopted with the retiring second and third Wardens and the Renter Warden of the year before, who are respectively elected first, second, and third Wardens. Then follows the election of most interest—that of the new Renter Warden, who is to join the Court for the first time. Subject to the rule incapacitating more than two near relatives from membership at the same time, any member of the livery is eligible after the completion of seven years of membership, and of these some will have been nominated by various members of the Court in the previous March. The selection between these is made by ballot, the name or names having the fewest votes being removed from the list at each round, so that the final result represents the general sense of the Court as nearly as possible. After this, it is usual for the retiring Renter Warden to be elected to the Court. The various committees are then appointed, and the annual re-election of Officers follows. Shortly after 2 p.m., the Court, and such of the livery as are able to attend, preceded by the Beadles with their staves, and by the Clerk, and accompanied by the Preacher, proceed through the streets to the Church of St. Mary, Aldermary (since the demolition of St. Antholin’s), where a service is performed and the annual sermon delivered by the Preacher, who is selected by the Master, and is usually a highly-placed ecclesiastic, sometimes of episcopal—or even archiepiscopal—rank.

In the evening the traditional election banquet takes place in the Company’s Hall, in Dowgate Hill. The Master has on his right the four outgoing Wardens, in order of precedence, and next to them the third and Renter Wardens elect. On his left are the Guests of the Company, and the remaining seats are occupied by the Court and Livery, all of whom are invited. When dinner is over, and the loyal toasts have been honoured, the doors of the hall are thrown open to the strains of music, and a procession enters, headed by the musicians, who are followed by ten Christ’s Hospital boys, representing the ten scholars formerly nominated by the Company under the will of Mr. Stoddard (1611). Then come ten of the junior Liverymen, each carrying alternately one of the five Cokayne cups, referred to later on, or one of the election caps, and after them the two Beadles with their staves, and the Clerk. The procession marches round the hall from left to right, and halts when the first of the Liverymen comes opposite the Master for the second time. The Master then takes from him the first cap and, after trying it vainly on the heads of some of the chief Guests, fits it successfully on the Master-elect, to whom he then drinks from the first of the five cups. Then the music strikes up, and the procession moves round the hall again, till a circuit has been completed, when another halt is called, and the first, second, and third Wardens elect are successively capped and pledged. Then follows another circuit of the procession, and a similar recognition of the Renter-elect, after which the procession resumes its march, and leaves the hall. As each of the five Elect is capped, he returns to his seat, wearing the cap, the retiring Renter Warden making way for the third and Renter Wardens elect to pass above him. After an interval, the caps are laid aside, and the Master proceeds to propose the health of the Master-elect, and after his response the ordinary proceedings are resumed.

The Cokayne cups bear the date-mark of 1565, and passed to the Company under the will, dated 1598, of Mr. William Cokayne. Each stands 16½ in. high, and is in the form of a silver-gilt cock standing on a tortoise, the head of the cock being removable. Ever since the cups came into the possession of the Company they have been used at the election banquet, in pursuance of an engagement entered into by the Company at the time of the bequest becoming operative. Their value must be very great. The workmanship is somewhat delicate, and repairs have had to be executed from time to time. Thus, Renter Warden’s account, 1661–2:—

“Paid Jacob Boddendicke for makeing a new tayle for one of the cockes and refreshing 3 other cockes and mending their tayles and one of the cases—005–10–00.”

The actual change of office does not take place until the Swearing-in Court, held on the Thursday following Corpus Christi. At that Court the outgoing Master takes the Chair, having a second similar Chair on his left hand, and the outgoing Wardens in their usual places on his right. After the Minutes of the Election Court have been read, the new Master makes his declaration, and takes the Chair, the ex-Master moving into the vacant Chair placed for him. Then the Senior Past-Master heads a procession round the Court-Room, the other members falling into their places as the procession moves on, the Wardens coming last, and so they file past the two Chairs, offering congratulations to the new Master, and condolences to his predecessor. Then the three senior Wardens elect make their declarations simultaneously, and proceed past the Master, ex-Master, and Senior Member, and round the room, to receive the felicitations of their colleagues. Then the new Renter Warden is called into the room, and goes through the same process. As the Master and Wardens make their declarations, to which all the members present listen standing, they assume their gowns, which, as already stated, they alone wear habitually throughout the sittings of the Court, though not in Committees. Then the ex-Renter Warden makes his declaration as a Member of the Court. The two Beadles are present. Then follows the reading of a selection from the Ordinances of the Company, after which a vote of thanks to the ex-Master for his “prudent government of the Company during the past year” is proposed, carried, and responded to, and the proceedings then follow a normal course. At the banquet in the evening the new Master is in the Chair, having the ex-Master in a similar Chair at his left hand. The latter’s health is proposed in the course of the evening, after which his retirement is complete. At this banquet the Master and Wardens wear their badges for the first time, of which the Master’s badge was provided by the Company in 1874–5, and the Wardens’ badges have been presented since by various Past-Masters.