Origin of Livery Companies
The Livery Companies of the City of London can trace unbroken descent from mediaeval Trade Guilds.
Guilds protected consumers and employers against incompetence or fraud, by training sufficient apprentices to provide an adequate supply of skilled craftsmen selling goods of true quality and weight. They helped workers by preventing unlimited competition and ensuring reasonable wages and conditions. They searched out inferior work and punished the offenders. They settled internal disputes by arbitration. Members paid contributions whilst working, then received relief when ill or infirm and had their burial expenses paid.
There was a strong religious element in the Guilds, each adopting a patron saint and being attached to a local monastery or church. On special occasions, the members wore distinctive costumes, or liveries and thus the Guilds became known as 'Livery Companies'.
Many Companies regulated branches of the cloth industry: the Woolmen, Weavers, Fullers, Shearmen, Dyers, Haberdashers, Drapers, and Merchant Taylors. This reflects the importance of wool and the cloth trade to the medieval economy. These Guilds wielded great power and it was inevitable that rivalry should develop as they struggled to preserve their individual rights.
The Fullers and the Shearmen
The rivalry that developed between different branches of the cloth trade resulted in two new companies splitting from the Company of Weavers.
These craftsmen clearly saw themselves as distinct groups before they were formally incorporated as companies. The site of the present Clothworkers' Hall was conveyed to a group of individually-named shearmen in 1456.
In 1480, the Fullers were incorporated as a separate body by Royal Charter and in 1508, the Shearmen too became a Company in their own right.
Once the Companies were incorporated, they became a legal entity and could acquire lands as corporate bodies. This was the basis of their future wealth. Several of the London properties still owned by The Clothworkers' Company may be traced back to bequests by early fullers and shearmen.
Both Companies were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose image appears on the Shearmen's seal of 1509.
The Origin of The Clothworkers' Company
The Fullers and the Shearmen found that they lacked the power of the older and larger companies. They therefore amalgamated to strengthen themselves against their rivals and the united body was called the Guild or Fraternity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Clothworkers in the City of London.
The new Company took over Shearmen's Hall and succeeded to the precedence of the Shearmen, as the most junior of the 'Great Twelve' Livery Companies. This led to a long-lasting rivalry with the Dyers who, at number 13, felt that they should have succeeded to twelfth place.
A Royal Charter was granted on 18th January 1528 and the first Ordinances of 1532 were signed by Sir Thomas More and others.
The new Company soon gained some important members, including William Hewett, Master 1543-44, who served as Lord Mayor of London. Adam Winthrop, Master in 1551-52, was the grandfather of John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts and Connecticut. William Lambe, Master in 1569-70, founded Sutton Valence School in Kent and brought water to the part of London later crossed by Lamb's Conduit Street.
Civil War and Samuel Pepys
The status of the Company was enhanced in 1607 by the admission of its first royal Freeman, King James I. Thereafter several members of the Royal Court were admitted as Freemen.
The political troubles of the time made things hard for the Livery Companies. In 1643 The Clothworkers' Company was forced to sell most of its Plate to pay its debts. During the Civil War, the City sided with Parliament against King Charles I. In 1652-3 the Master was Alderman Sir John Ireton, brother of Henry Ireton, Oliver Cromwell's regicide son-in-law.
Nevertheless, when King Charles II re-entered London in 1660, the Company took great pains to greet him with appropriate pomp.
Given the importance of currying favour at Court, it might have seemed useful to elect as Master in 1677 Samuel Pepys, then best known as a senior naval civil servant.
Although Pepys's diary terminates before he served as Master, it mentions events which must have had great impact on the Company. He noted that the 1665 Plague was particularly virulent in the vicinity of Clothworkers' Hall. And in 1666, he described the effect of the Great Fire of London on the building: 'But strange it was to see Cloathworkers-hall on fire these three days and nights in one body of Flame'
A Change of Emphasis
The Great Fire of London caused great disruption to the trades and crafts in the City of London and began the process which led to the almost complete divorce of The Clothworkers' Company from its craft.
The ceremonial side of the Company continued, however. An important Master of the period was Sir Robert Beachcroft, elected in 1700, who served as Lord Mayor in 1711-12.
The occasion of the Lord Mayor's Day involved much pageantry, including a floating procession along the Thames. The Company ordered a new barge in 1728, which was moored in a bargehouse in Vauxhall.
Charitable work also remained and the Company continued to acquire new Trusts. Chief among these were the 8 charities established by John and Francis West, mainly concerned with support for the blind, with which the Company became particularly associated.
A Golden Age
After a period of relative stagnation, in 1837 the Company elected a dynamic new Master, Thomas Massa Alsager. Alsager was one of the managers of The Times newspaper and the founder of its City pages. He turned the affairs of the Company around so that it became a forward-looking financial corporation.
Sir Owen Roberts, Clerk to the Company 1867-1907, built on Alsager's work and presided over a Golden Age. Never had the Company been so rich, nor its affairs in such good order. Here was a fine opportunity to ensure that the less affluent should benefit increasingly from its wealth.
As well as continuing the association of the Company with aid for the needy, particularly the blind, Roberts developed its work in the sphere of education. The Company made pioneering grants to the causes of female education and re-established its links with the textile industry, particularly through grants to technical education.
In line with its burgeoning charity work, the Company acquired new honorary members in associated spheres, including Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, Angela Burdett-Coutts and the American philanthropist, George Peabody.
The Modern Era
The good works of the Company continued into the twentieth century, surviving the stock-market crash and Great Depression. However, the outbreak of the Second World War was to prove more cataclysmic. For the first time, bombardment caused huge damage to the City and Clothworkers' Hall itself was destroyed on 10-11 May 1941. Many of the Company's properties were also destroyed and after the War, the Company sold its suburban estates, enabling it to reinvest the money in building up larger blocks in the City for redevelopment on a substantial scale.
Rationalisation of the properties was accompanied by reorganisation in other spheres and in 1977. The Clothworkers' Foundation was founded as the Company's charitable arm.
In 1984, the Company drew up a new set of Ordinances, the first since 1639. Amongst other changes, these placed female members on an equal footing with their male counterparts, allowing them to be promoted within the Company for the first time.
The Company continues to seek new ways in which to promote excellence: for example, in 1987 the refurbishing of the Hall was awarded a City Heritage Award.