Livery Companies of the City of London

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The Livery Companies of the City of London

Introduction

There are 110 livery companies of the City of London, comprising London's ancient and modern trade associations and guilds.^[1]

These livery companies play a significant part in the life of the City of London (i.e. the financial district and historic heart of the capital), not least by providing charitable-giving and networking opportunities. Most livery companies still maintain contacts with their original trade, craft or professional roles. Some still exercise powers of regulation, inspection and enforcement, while others are awarding bodies for professional qualifications.

Almost all are now styled the 'Worshipful Company of...'. However, they were not always known so and the wikitree approach to categorization is to follow the City of London's own list of the Livery Companies.^[2]

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Livery_Companies_of_the_City_of_London

The ROLLCO Project

The Livery Companies can be a useful source of records for genealogical research. The Records of London's Livery Companies Online (ROLLCO) project has been established to create a fully searchable and freely accessible online database of membership information for the City of London's Livery Companies, from their earliest surviving records to c.1900.^[3]

Sources on the Livery Companies

• Apothecaries' Society^[4]
• Barber-Surgeons' Company^[5]
• Drapers' Company^[6]
• Founders' Company^[7]
• Glaziers' Company^[8]
• Goldsmiths' Company^[9][10]
• Grocers' Company^[11][12]
• Ironmongers' Company^[13][14]
• Merchant Taylors' Company^[15]
• Mercers' Company^[16][17]
• Pewterers' Company^[18]
• Skinners' Company^{[19][20][21][22]}
• Stationers' Company^[23]

See also:

• Medieval Genealogy Website: The City Livery Companies medgen
• General Information^[24]

Other Companies Linked to London

• Levant Company^[25]
• Muscovy Company^[26][27][28]
• Virginia Company^{[29][30][31][32]}

Sources

1. ↑ Livery companies of the City of London wikipedia.
2. ↑ Database of Livery Companies City of London.
3. ↑ Records of London's Livery Companies Online. Apprentices and Freemen 1400-1900 London Roll.
4. ↑ A History of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London. Vol I: 1617-1815. By Copeman, W S C. Oxford University Press, 1963.
5. ↑ The Annals of the Barber-surgeons of London. By Sidney Young. 1890 Internet Archive.
6. ↑ History of the Worshipful Company of the Drapers of London. By the Rev. A H Johnson. Five Volumes. Vol I, 1914 HathiTrust.
7. ↑ Annals of the Worshipful Company of Founders of the City of London. By William Meade Williams. 1867 Internet Archive.
8. ↑ History of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers of the City of London, otherwise the Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass. By Charles Henry Ashdown. Published London, 1919 Internet Archive.
9. ↑ The Early History of the Goldsmiths' Company 1327-1509. Including the Book of Ordinances 1478-1483. By T F Reddaway and Lorna E M Walker. Published by Edward Arnold, 1975.
10. ↑ Memorials of the Goldsmiths' Company being gleanings from their records between the years 1335 and 1815. By Sir Walter Sherburne Prideaux. Vol I & II. 1896 Vol. I and Vol. II.
11. ↑ History of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, Principally Compiled from their own Records. By William Herbert. Published London, 1838 Internet Archive.
12. ↑ The Worshipful company of grocers, an historical retrospect, 1345-1923. By J. Aubrey Rees. 1923.
13. ↑ Some Account of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers. By John Nicholl. 1851 Internet Archive.
14. ↑ Rhys, L. The Aldermen of the Ironmongers' Company, 1400–1580. Medieval Prosopography Vol. 33, 2018, pp 63-88 JSTOR.
15. ↑ Miscellenea Genealogica et Heraldica. Second Series Vol. 5, 1894, starting at p 289 Internet Archive.
16. ↑ History of the Mercers' Company of the City of London. By Sir John Watney. 1914 HathiTrust.
17. ↑ The Mercery of London. Trade, Goods and People, 1130–1578. By Anne F Sutton. Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2005.
18. ↑ History of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers of the City of London. By Charles Welch. Vol. 1, 1902 pdf.
19. ↑ History of the Worshipful Company of Skinners of London : principally compiled from their own record. By W Herbert. Published London, 1837.
20. ↑ Wadmore, J F (1881) Some Account of the History and Antiquities of the Worshipful Company of Skinners. Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society. Vol 5 part I, pp 92-182 lamas.
21. ↑ Wadmore, J F (1902) Some Account of the History and Antiquities of the Worshipful Company of Skinners of London being the Guild or Fraternity of Corpus Christi. London Internet Archive.
22. ↑ Lambert, J J (1933) Records of the Skinners of London, Edward I to James I. London.
23. ↑ The Stationers' Company: A History, 1403-1959. By Cyprian Blagden. Stanford University Press, 1977.
24. ↑ Ditchfield, P H. The City Companies of London and their good works: A record of their History, Charity and Treasure. 1904 Internet Archive.
25. ↑ History of the Levant Company. By Alfred C Wood. 1935 (Second Impression 1964) Internet Archive.
26. ↑ The Muscovy Merchants of 1555. By T S Willan. 1953.
27. ↑ Treasures of the Royal Courts. Tudors, Stuarts & the Russian Tsars. Dmitrieva O and Murdoch T (Eds). V&A Publishing, 2013.
28. ↑ English Trade and Adventure to Russia in the Early Modern Era: The Muscovy Company, 1603-1649 (Empires and Entanglements in the Early Modern World). By Maria Salomon Arel. 2019.
29. ↑ The Records of the Virginia Company of London. The Court Book. Kingsbury S M (Ed.). Vol I. Washington, 1906.
30. ↑ The Records of the Virginia Company of London. The Court Book. Kingsbury S M (Ed.). Vol II. Washington, 1906 Internet Archive.
31. ↑ The Records of the Virginia Company of London. Kingsbury S M (Ed.). Vol III. Washington, 1933 Internet Archive.
32. ↑ Women Investors and the Virginia Company in the early Seventeenth Century. The Historical Journal. Vol. 62 Issue 4, 2019 Cambridge University Press.