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Livery Companies in the City of London and England

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Associated with the England Project | Click here for the England Project - Topics Team


This topic page is about the Livery Companies in the City of London and England.


Contents

Team Members

Things we need to do

  1. Document a proposal for the creation of Livery Company Stickers for use on Profiles. Propose it in G2G.
  2. Review the Categories in use and propose any updates/changes considered to be required to the England Project Category manager. Include a link to the Category page on this page.
    • Potentially introduce a new maintenance category for Profiles of members requiring improvement.
  3. Seek out Profiles to be added to this page to showcase prominent Livery Company members? Or just use Category pages (per Profile section below)?
  4. Expand on sections below and add some images.

Background and Context

Livery Companies have been part of the social, commercial and political fabric of London and England since medieval times. Some Livery Companies can trace their origins back to the 12th century. They were originally founded to protect the interests of various trades and their practitioners - to guarantee that a member was trustworthy and fully qualified, and that the goods they produced were of reputable quality. The aim being to protect the public and to protect members from unscrupulous activites. They were given their authority by being granted a Royal charter.

Each Company had its own coat of arms which can be seen here:

The word 'livery' refers to the distinctive clothing and regalia worn by members to distinguish them from those in other companies. This is how they became known as livery companies. Each Livery Company has its own colours and its own coat of arms. Each company had it own hall where its members could gather for business and social meetings. Some of these halls, including records, were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Some halls are still standing today and actively in use.

To work in a particular trade in the City of London, you first had to work as an apprentice learning your trade. You would be bound by indenture to a master, usually for many years, with an accompanying fee to be paid to the master, often by the apprentice's father or another sponsor. Eventually the apprentice would become a freeman (an apprentice who has been granted freedom of the company). Becoming a freeman was important as once awarded the status it meant the individual could carry on business and prosper in trade with in the Square Mile [expand on Square Mile, when it changed and what it meant].

A person who is a Freeman of both the City and a Livery Company is referred to as "Citizen and [Livery Company name] of London".[1]

The various stages of the guild are; apprentice, freeman, liveryman, Master, Warden, Assistant and Clerk. There was also a Company's Court (board of governors). [expand on roles].

There are over 100 Livery Companies in the City of London now and today they mainly act as charitable patrons and keepers of their history. The livery companies have always been benevolent giving help to members of the Company or their dependents who might fall on hard times.

The Great 12

The "senior" Companies are known as the Great 12 and they have an Order of Precedence. They were given their Order of Precedence by the Lord Mayor 1516 [check]. At the time there were many more companies but only the 12 most powerful and influential companies were identified to be ordered. To be Lord Mayor, one had to be a member of one of the Great 12, or if elected Lord Mayor, leave their Company and join one of the top 12 - such was the importance of this 12.

  1. Worshipful Company of Mercers (general merchants)
  2. Worshipful Company of Grocers (spice merchants)
  3. Worshipful Company of Drapers (wool and cloth merchants)
  4. Worshipful Company of Fishmongers (sellers of fish and seafood)
  5. Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths (bullion dealers)
  6. Worshipful Company of Skinners [The Skinners' and Merchant Taylors' Companies alternate their precedence each year.] (fur traders)
  7. Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors [The Skinners' and Merchant Taylors' Companies alternate their precedence each year.] (tailors)
  8. Worshipful Company of Haberdashers (clothiers in sewn and fine materials, eg. silk and velvet)
  9. Worshipful Company of Salters (traders of salts and chemicals)
  10. Worshipful Company of Ironmongers
  11. Worshipful Company of Vintners (wine merchants)
  12. Worshipful Company of Clothworkers

Full List of the Companies

Full lists of the Companies can be found here:

Guilds and Companies outside of the Great 12

Finding a member

Various online geneaology sites have apprentice records which are worth searching.

The Records of London's Livery Companies Online (ROLLCO) is a site which provides records of Apprentices and Freemen in the City of London Livery Companies between 1400 and 1900.

Most of the Companies have an extensive archive and if you contact their archivist, they can provide valuable information about individuals who were once members. You can usually find a contact via the History page, or Contact Us link, on their website.

Property owned by the Livery Companies

The Companies generated some of their wealth by owning and leasing property. Members would sometimes bequeath property to the Companies also.

The British History Online has: London Livery Companies; A Survey of Documentary Sources for Property Holding in London before the Great Fire. Originally published by London Record Society, London, 1985.

Other Cities with Guilds and Companies

Several other Cities in England had similar systems in place;

Other related organisations

There were several other Companies involved in the importing and exporting of goods into and out of England. Some of them were;

Profiles

Sources

  1. London, England, Freedom of the City Admission Papers, 1681-1930, Information Leaflet No.14, City of Freedom Archives, https://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/dbextra.aspx?dbid=2052, Ancestry.com, accessed 3 September.
  • A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, Borough of Southwark And Parts Adjacent : the Whole Being an Improvement of Mr. Stow's and Other Surveys, by Adding Whatever Alterations Have Happened in the Said Cities, Etc. to the Present Year By John Stow, John Mottley · 1735.Google Books online. Page 337. Accessed 20 January 2022.
  • Livery companies, The Origins, Date updated: 30/06/2021. City of London Corporation. Accessed 20 January 2022.
  • Wikipedia contributors, "Livery company," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Livery_company&oldid=1056816563 (accessed January 20, 2022).
  • "The Coats of Arms", The Heraldy Society website.(https://www.theheraldrysociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/CoA-213-Gadd-paper.pdf). Accessed 20 January 2022.
  • The history of the twelve great livery companies of London; principally compiled from their grants & records; with an historical essay and accounts of each company, its origin, constitution, government, dress, customs, halls, and trust estates and charities; including notices and illustrations of metropolitan trade and commerce, as originally concentrated in those societies; and of the language, manners, and expenses of ancient times; with attested copies and translations of the companies' charters by Herbert, William, 1772-1851. The Internet Archive online. Accessed 22 January 2022.

Other sources:

  • Merchants and Revolution; Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653, By Robert Brenner · 2003. Google Books Online. Accessed 20 January 2022.




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Comments: 13

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Another city - Bristol - Freedom of the city was granted to "Burgesses". I don't have ancestors there, but I did help someone uncover records for his ancestor. More info here:

https://bafhs.org.uk/resources/burgesses/?v=7516fd43adaa "The Burgess Books of Bristol recording the names of men admitted to the freedom of the city exist in an almost unbroken sequence from 1558...The freedom of the town and the freedom of the craft guilds were also closely linked, and it was difficult, and at some periods virtually impossible, for a man to set up as a master in his own craft or trade and take apprentices without first being admitted a freeman."

posted by S Brooks
Could the Worshipful Company of Tin Plate Workers alias Wire Workers be added as a category, please?
posted by S Brooks
Re this post - Not sure if this is the correct place to respond.

My daughter is a about to become the Master of the "Worshipful Company of Mercers" www.mercers.co.uk and my other daughter is a Member of "The Worshipful Company of Masons" www.masonslivery.org and several of my ancestors were members of "The Worshipful Company of Feltmakers" www.feltmakers.co.uk could these Guilds be kindly added as categories. Many thanks

posted by Paul Snook Esq
Thanks Paul,

How exciting! Well done to your daughter's.

We will add the Masons and Feltmakers to this page - thanks for the links. Mercers are already here, as they were part of the Great 12.

You can find the existing categories (eg. Mercers of City of London) here: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Livery_Companies_of_the_City_of_London

Are all related to the City of London or were they in different cities? We still have a lot to do on categories especially outside of the City of London.

Regards

SusieO.

Edit: While the categories are exciting, I meant to say they were existing :)

posted by Susie (Potter) Officer
edited by Susie (Potter) Officer
Hi S

There is no reason we can't add company's outside of the Great 12, which is what this page currently covers.

Can you provide the official websites and then we can add?

Thanks

SusieO.

posted by Susie (Potter) Officer
Yes -

https://tinplateworkers.co.uk/ "The craft of the tin plate worker is an ancient one and there are well documented accounts of tinned copper and bronze articles dating from pre-Roman times. Tinned iron sheets, the earliest tin plates, were produced in Bavaria in the fourteenth century and imported into England from at least 1483 for use in domestic articles. There was limited production in Britain from about 1670, but the industry did not become established until around 1730" Thank you!

posted by S Brooks
Super - thanks S - have added :)
posted by Susie (Potter) Officer
Another 'other city' for possible inclusion. Coventry had a number of medieval guilds. An overview is at https://coventryfreemensguild.wordpress.com/history/ and there are records in the Coventry Archive starting at https://www.coventrycollections.org/search/details/archive/110292759
posted by Peter Mason
Many thanks for the suggestion Peter - it's been added.
posted by Susie (Potter) Officer
Under Other Cities with Guilds and Companies you could add Durham http://www.durhamcityfreemen.org/
posted by Andrew Millard
Many thanks for the suggestion Andrew. I've added it :)
posted by Susie (Potter) Officer
Hello Susie,

I think this page should be categorised under "England, Topics" rather than "England Project", to be consistent with the other topics. Thanks!

Stephen

posted by Stephen Heathcote
Fixed - thanks for letting me know Stephen :)
posted by Susie (Potter) Officer