An Old City Company: A Sketch of the History and Conditions of the Skinners' Company of London

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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.

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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.

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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.