Chapter IX: Preface (9)

From end to end Moorgate Street is composed of comparatively uniform stucco-fronted houses in a hideous Victorian style, with little projecting pediments and cornices over the windows. To this there is one exception, at the south-east corner, in the British and Fire Insurance Office, a stone and grey granite building of imposing size.

Great Swan Alley is a narrow entry which comes out just beside Ye Old Swan’s Nest public-house, which is a new stone-faced building. At the north-east corner are Swan Chambers, designed by Basil Champneys in 1891.

Moorgate Court (late Coleman Street Buildings) contains the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a very fine building of stone, with panels of female figures in relief; on each panel is a shield, and the words Arts, Sciences, Crafts, Education, Commerce, Agriculture, Manufacture, Mining, Railways, Shipping, India, Colonies, Building are inscribed on these shields. This frieze extends across the whole frontage, but is cut up by intersecting columns. It is the work of Hamo Thorneycroft. The angle at the corner has the merit of being thoroughly unconventional. The figure of Justice surmounts the balcony. The building was designed by John Belcher, 1892. Facing south is a red brick and stone building known as Moorgate Court. This is in a picturesque style of Perpendicular Gothic, and the building over the projecting porch is carried up to the roof, giving relief to the frontage. Altogether this is an unexpectedly picturesque Court. In the covered entry leading to it from Moorgate Street are two old doorways, the northern one fascinating, with grotesque faces on the keystone of the lintel, and vertical Wrenian ornaments on either side. Looking back at the entry from the street we see that these doorways belong to a very old plaster house, with tiled roof, which stands back from the street line, overlooking two shops, one on either side the entry, which are finished with parapets. The windows in the tiled roof also peep over a parapet. This is the only picturesque bit in that very ugly but useful thoroughfare—Moorgate Street.

Close at hand the Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation have fitted up their ground-floor with pink terra-cotta which jars with the yellow plaster above. Altogether, to the east of Moorgate Street lie an amazing number of quiet courts, without beauty, but lined by respectable solid brick-and-plaster houses.

Between Moorgate and Old Broad Streets east and west, and London Wall and Throgmorton Street north and south, lies a typical business quarter.

In Copthall Buildings we see great modern houses. The Chambers here are filled by stock-jobbers and stockbrokers. Copthall Avenue is made up of fine well-built houses and little old ones. Lanthorn, Moorgate, Throgmorton, Copthall Houses are all in a sensible but not displeasing style. Some are of the lighter red brick and light stone which shows up well in a London Street, others in grey stone and granite. Copthall House, which runs round the corner along the south part of Sun Court, has windows bayed in imitation of an old style. Basil Champneys was the architect. For the old houses, Nos. 4 and 6 on the east side date from the seventeenth century. Nos. 10 and 12 are of about the same date. Nos. 22, 24, and 26 farther northward are also old, and are perhaps early eighteenth century; their discoloured bricks and the bent lines of the windows and doorway bear testimony to their years.

Of =Lothbury= there is not much to say; it contains the Bank of Scotland, and the chief office of the London and Westminster Bank, and numerous companies are promoted and worked from this address.

The building at the corner of Tokenhouse Yard is in the style known as Venetian Gothic. It is harmoniously carried out. There is a somewhat deeply recessed doorway. The building bears a frieze or panel on it which divides an upper window into two parts. It was designed by G. Somers Clarke and built in 1866. No. 19, the Auction Mart in Tokenhouse Yard, owns the same architect, and is characterised by the same air of neatness and finish.

ST. MARGARET, LOTHBURY

St. Margaret, Lothbury, was probably rebuilt about 1440; the
building was destroyed by the Great Fire; the present church was
designed by Wren and completed in 1690. It serves, besides its own
original parish, for 6 other parishes—those of St. Christopher, St.
Bartholomew by the Exchange, St. Olave Jewry, St. Martin Pomeroy,
St. Mildred in the Poultry, and St. Mary Colechurch. The earliest
date of an incumbent is 1181.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: the Abbess and
Convent of Barking, Essex, 1303. Henry VIII. who seized it, and so
it continues in the Crown to the present time.

Houseling people in 1548 were 279.

The church measures 66 feet in length, 54 feet in breadth, and 36
feet in height. It contains a nave, chancel, and one aisle,
separated by Corinthian columns. The south aisle, which is railed
off, contains a side-altar at the east. The steeple consists of a
three-storied tower and cornice, surmounted by a lantern and obelisk
with finial and vane; its total height is 140 feet.

Chantries were founded here by: John le Boteler, sen., citizen, for
himself and Matilda his wife, for which the King granted his
licence, August 2, 1321; John Julyan, whose endowment fetched £7 :
4 : 0 in 1548, when John Badye was priest; John Iforde, whose
endowment yielded £6 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when Patrick Faber was
priest.

Reginald Coleman, son of Robert, who is supposed to be the first
builder of Coleman Street, was buried here in 1483. Also John Benet,
rector of the parish and a great benefactor; John Dimocke, who
served Henry VIII. and Edward VI.; Nicholas Style, Alderman of
London, who died in 1615.

On the demolition of St. Olave’s, a monument to Alderman John
Boydell, the engraver (Lord Mayor in 1790), was removed to this
church.

Anthony Bedingfield gave £100 to the parish; Mary Barnes, £100;
Thomas Bremley, £5; Henry VIII., £3 : 6 : 8; John Hanson, £50 for
the completion of the church. Many other names are recorded on the
Table of Benefactors.

=Throgmorton Street= takes its name from Sir Nicholas Throckmorton who, tradition says, was poisoned by Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton was born in 1515 and died in 1570. There is nothing to warrant the statement that he was poisoned by Dudley, with whom he was on friendly terms. What was the name of the street before the life and death of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton? Stow simply says that in Throgmorton Street, Thomas Cromwell built a large house in the place of certain tenements. The house in 1541 became the property, and the second hall, of the Drapers Company. It could hardly have been named after a man at that time only twenty-six years of age.

There were, however, other Throckmortons; the name in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ occupies nearly eight pages. Most of them lived a good deal in London; all of them occupied good positions; the street, formerly part of Lothbury, may have received its name from one or other of the family. The following imperfect genealogy of the family will illustrate this possibility:

Sir John Throgmorton (Under Treasurer of Chamberlain of Exchequer) Lived in London, where his will is dated (d. 1445). +Alianora, heiress of Sir Guy de la Spirn of Coughton. ├── Sir Thomas (d. 1472). │ └── Sir Robert, Privy Councillor Henry VII. (d. 1518). │ └── Sir George │ +Katherine, daughter of Lord Vaux. │ ├── Thomas (d. 1614). │ │ └── Thomas, Baronet, 1642. │ ├── Clement. │ │ └── Job (1545-1601), Puritan Controversialist. │ ├── Sir Nicholas (1515-1570). │ │ └── Etc. │ └── Sir John (Master of Requests, lived in London, d. 1580). │ └── Francis, Conspirator (b. 1554, executed Aug. 1584). ├── John. └── Seven daughters.

We have here a choice of four generations of Throckmortons, all more or less intimately connected with London, any one of whom may have given his name to the street.

The courts leading out of Throgmorton Street on the north were, in 1750, Whalebone Court, Angel Court, Copt Hall Court, Warnford Court, and Austin Friars. On the south were formerly Bartholomew Lane, Bartholomew Court, Shorters Court, and Crown Court. All of these, except Whalebone and the Bartholomew Courts, still exist.

The present =Throgmorton Street= is lined by the usual business houses in a decorative style, with a general uniformity pervading all. The Drapers’ Hall occupies a great part of the northern side with its curving frontage and highly decorative frieze.

THE DRAPERS COMPANY

The association from which the Drapers Company derive their origin
appears to have partaken of the nature of a social and religious as
well as a commercial guild. The exact date of their foundation
cannot be ascertained, but they undoubtedly existed as a brotherhood
at a very early period. Madox (_Hist. Exch._ p. 391) mentions the
Gilda Parariorum, whereof John Maur was alderman, among the
adulterine guilds amerced in the 26 Henry II. (1180). The Company
possess a certificate by William Camden, Clarencieux King-of-Arms,
certifying the arms borne by Henry Fitz Alwin, Lord Mayor 1198-1212,
and that he was a member of the Drapers Company.

The earliest charter of which the Company have any record is the
Charter of Privileges of 38 Edward III.

The earliest ordinances of which the Company possess any record
purport to be a revision of an earlier set made in 1322. The revised
ordinances were made in 1418.

The earliest accounts in the possession of the Company are those of
the wardens for the year 1415. In that year the number of members is
shown to exceed 100, and quarterage was received from 83 persons,
and due from 13 more.

The arms of the Company were first granted by Sir William Bruges,
Garter King-of-Arms, March 10, 1439-40. This grant was confirmed
with the addition of crest and supporters by William Harvey,
Clarencieux, July 10, 1561, and again confirmed with a slight
alteration by Sir William Segar, Garter, June 6, Jac. I. 1613.

In 1607 the Company obtained an entirely new charter (4 Jac. I.,
19th January), incorporating them by their ancient style of “The
Masters and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or
Fraternity of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of Drapers
of the City of London,” and vesting the government in the master,
four wardens and assistants. Under this charter the government of
the Company has been carried on down to the present day.

(1) The advantages incident to the position of a freeman of the
Company consist of the eligibility to participate in the various
charitable funds held by the Company in trust for their members, and
to become liverymen of the Company.

(2) Liverymen of the Company, as such, have no pecuniary or other
direct advantages, but they constitute the class from which the
governing body is elected, and every liveryman, except in cases of
special disqualification, is in his turn placed in nomination for
the governing body.

(3) The master is entitled to, and is paid, certain small bequests
which amount to £2 : 13 : 4 per annum.

The wardens are also entitled to certain bequests and allowances
which amount on an average to £106 : 4 : 10 per annum. This sum is
not paid to them, but goes towards the cost of the election dinner
in August, which in ancient times was provided by the wardens.

The members of the governing body, as such, have no direct pecuniary
or other advantages.

Freemen and liverymen of the Company receive no fees.

The fees paid to the master, wardens, and other members of the
governing body, for their attendance at courts and committees during
the last ten years, average £3225 : 12 : 6 per annum.

No pensions or donations are paid to liverymen. Liverymen who have
become reduced in circumstances, and have applied for and received
the return of their livery fine, are then eligible to receive
charitable assistance as freemen.

Assistance by way of pension or donation is not granted to any
member of the Company except on full inquiry into his circumstances,
to ascertain that he is in need of assistance, and that his
necessity is not occasioned by his own improvidence or misconduct.

The number of the livery of the Drapers is 300; their Corporate
Income is £50,000; their Trust Income is £28,000.

The Drapers have had several places of meeting. The first is said to
have been the Church of St. Mary Bethlehem outside Bishopsgate; the
next, where Nos. 19 to 23 St. Swithin’s Lane now is. This was
formerly the house of Sir John Hend, draper, Lord Mayor 1391 and
1404, who materially assisted towards the rebuilding of St.
Swithin’s Church in 1420. In 1479 the Company’s annals have this
entry respecting tithes: “Paid to the parson of St. Swithin for our
place for a year VIs. VIIId.,” implying that it had now regularly
passed into the Company’s hands. Herbert, in his _History of the
London Livery Companies_, has sifted out information regarding this
hall, which tells much concerning its apartments, and the brave
feasts held therein on election days and other occasions. The great
hall was strewed with rushes and hung mostly with tapestry, but the
upper end, above the dais for the high table, with blue buckram. It
must have been of large dimensions, capable of dining two to three
hundred persons, and here assembled bishop and prior and parson,
Lord Mayor and Mayoress, to feast with the master and wardens and
brethren and sisters of the Drapers Company all seated at table in
due order of rank. The sisters had a dining-room of their own, “the
ladies’ chamber,” and there was a “chekker chamber” laid with mats
and set apart for “maydens,” but both married and unmarried ladies
usually dined in hall with the brothers of the fraternity. Besides
the refectory, there was a large kitchen with its three fire-places,
and there were buttery and pantry, a store-house for cloth, and “a
scalding yard”; also a court-room, a “great chamber” or livery-room,
and parlours hung with tapestry or painted green, and all contained
beneath the shelter of leaded roofs. The Drapers continued to feast
and transact their business here until 1541, when they bought the
house in Throgmorton Street which had belonged to Thomas Cromwell,
Earl of Essex.

The Earl had suffered attainder under Henry VIII. This estate formed
the finest hall that any City Company had hitherto obtained. It
contained, besides the buildings, a large garden at the back. This
garden was still preserved until a few years ago, when the greater
part of it was sold and converted into offices.

The hall, after the Fire, was rebuilt, but a hundred years
afterwards, in 1774, it was greatly damaged by another fire. The
present hall was altered and remodelled, with the addition of a
screen, in 1866-70.

In February 1660 General Monk made Drapers’ Hall his headquarters.
The Company point to many illustrious members. The Pulteneys, Earls
of Bath; the Capels, Earls of Essex; the Brydges, Dukes of Chandos
were descended from members of the Drapers Company.

What was said of the Mercers may be repeated of this Company. They
administer their great Trust Income in the endowment of hospitals,
schools, and almshouses; and they have large funds for purely
charitable and philanthropic purposes. Of late the Drapers Company
have taken up the cause of Technical Education; at the People’s
Palace they have a Polytechnic attended by thousands of students,
with classes of instruction in all the principal trades.

At the north end of Throgmorton Avenue, near London Wall, is the Carpenters’ Hall.

THE CARPENTERS COMPANY

A brotherhood or guild of carpenters is believed to have existed in
London about 1350, but under what circumstances we have no
information. The first charter to the present Company was granted in
1477, 17 Edward IV. This granted to certain freemen of the mystery
of carpentry of the City of London, that they or any of them might
establish a brotherhood or guild within the City to remain for ever,
to consist of one master, three wardens, and commonalty of freemen
of the mystery of carpentry abiding in the City of London, and the
suburbs and precincts of the same, and of the brethren and sisters
of the freemen of the said mystery, and of all others who of their
devotion will be of the same brotherhood or guild; and that the same
master, wardens, and commonalty should be one body and one
commonalty, incorporated by the name of Master, Wardens, and
Commonalty of the Mystery of Freemen of the Carpentry of the City of
London.

This charter was exemplified, ratified, and confirmed by Philip and
Mary (a Charter of Inspeximus), and also by Elizabeth; the latter
exemplification being dated 8th November, 2 Elizabeth.

James I., by charter (dated 15th July, 5 James I.), granted to the
master, wardens, and commonalty of the mystery of freemen of the
carpentry of the City of London, that they should exercise the
powers of search, correction, and government of all the freemen of
the art or mystery of Carpenters of the City, or using or exercising
the said art or mystery within the said City or the suburbs of the
same, or within two miles thereof, together with powers for the
inspection of timber, and regulation of matters relating to the
trade.

_Drawn by Thos. W. Shepherd._

CARPENTERS’ HALL, LONDON WALL, 1830
]

Charles I., by charter (dated 17th July, 16 Charles I.), reciting
the preceding charters, and that various frauds and deceptions were
practised in the trade, granted to the master, wardens, and
commonalty of the Company, that the master, wardens, and assistants
for the time being, to the number of twelve or more, of which the
master and wardens for the time being to be four, being met together
upon summons to be made for that purpose, should have full power and
authority to appoint, constitute, and make ordinances, decrees, and
constitutions in writing for the good rule and government of the
master, wardens, and commonalty of the mystery, and of all other
persons being free of the art or mystery, or using the same art or
mystery within the City of London, or liberties of the same, and for
declaring in what manner the master, wardens, and commonalty, and
all such persons as aforesaid, should behave themselves, and use the
occupation of the said art or mystery.

Charles II., by charter (dated 20th October, 26 Charles II.),
reciting and confirming the preceding charters, granted, upon the
humble petition of the master and wardens of the Company, the
oversight and government of all and singular persons, whether
freemen of the said mystery, or using or occupying the same within
the City of London, or within four miles of the same, together with
very extensive powers and privileges for exercising the oversight,
search, and measurement of all and all manner of timber, timber
stuff, and materials, and the works and workmanship thereto within
the before-mentioned limits.

In 1666 an Act of Parliament was passed ordering brick building in
place of wood, and all carpenters, etc., not freemen of the City
employed in the building were, for the space of seven years, to be
allowed the liberty of working as freemen, and all who should so
help for seven years were to enjoy the same liberty for their lives.
In 1693 an Act of Common Council was passed by which all persons
carrying on the trade of carpentry in the City of London were
compelled to bind their apprentices to the Carpenters Company.

The Company is now governed by a master, three wardens, and a
varying number of assistants.

The livery numbers 150. The hall in Throgmorton Avenue was built
when the old hall at London Wall was taken down in 1876. The
Corporate Income of the Company is £16,000 and the Trust Income is
£1180.

GROUP IV

The next group is a triangle, of which Bishopsgate Street and Fenchurch Street are two sides. It is a part of very considerable interest, though not so full of history as Cheapside or Thames Street. It contains the great market of Leadenhall Street, which is itself a continuation of that market which extended eastward from West Chepe to the Poultry, to Cornhill, to Gracechurch Street or Grass Street, and so to Leadenhall, the distributing market of London, and from London to the country. Its financial centre was Lombard Street before the Exchange was built. At two points it had a City gate; it had three monastic houses, St. Helen’s, The Papey, and the Holy Trinity; it has been for three hundred years especially a Jewish quarter; it had the East India Houses one after the other, and it has within its borders the most ancient church in the City, that of St. Ethelburga, with three other churches which were not destroyed by the Fire.

=Fenchurch Street.=—The origin of the name has been generally accepted as from a supposed situation in a marsh or fen. According to Stow, “of a fenny or moorish ground, so made by means of this borne”—“Langborne.” We may admit the fenny ground, but we are not obliged to admit the existence of a stream here. Maitland, who loves to be precise, says that the stream rose in a place called Magpie Alley close to St. Katherine Coleman, and ran down Fenchurch Street and Lombard Street as far as the west end of St. Mary Woolnoth, where it turned south at Sherborne Lane (whence the name) and divided into many rivulets, where it fell into the Thames. Now, no trace of any such stream has ever been found. Moreover, though the levels of the streets have been raised by many feet, they have been raised in proportion, and if such a stream now ran along Fenchurch Street, it would run up-hill for half its course. Further, the name Sherborne does not mean what Maitland thinks at all. Its real meaning may be found in the _Calendar of Wills_ (vol. i. p. 147, and on many other pages). Langborne appears as Langford in an early list. Somewhere near the end of Sherborne Lane was the wall, and perhaps the fosse of the Roman citadel. But Stow, and Maitland after him, call the ward Langborne and Fennie About. Langborne was one part—that of which Lombard Street is the principal part—and Fennie About the other, in the marshy ground.

The ward is mentioned in a murder case (Riley’s _Memorials_) in 1276. Reference to the parish occurs repeatedly between 1276 and 1349 (_Calendar of Wills_). There are mentioned messuages, rents, tenements, shops, a brew-house, etc., in the parish. The street is mentioned separately later. In the fourteenth century there are dwelling-places, tenements, mansion-houses, brew-houses, bakehouses, and shops. But there are no signs of a fen in or about the street. It is suggested that as Gracechurch Street is the street of Grass, so Fenchurch Street is Foin-church, the street of Hay, both streets belonging to the market of hay, grass, and corn. But Professor Skeat replies to this suggestion: “It is impossible to derive _fen_ from the French _foin_. No French _oi_ becomes _e_ in English. But it might be derived from the Anglo-French _fein_, which is the corresponding word to the French _foin_ and had the same sense. In this case it ought to be possible to find the spelling _fein_. Otherwise _fen_ can only mean _fen_. Note that the English _fen_ may be spelt also _fenne_. But the Anglo-French _fein_ could not take either _n_ or _ne_ at the end of it. I suspect Stow is right. I see no evidence to the contrary.”

Again, writing later, Professor Skeat says: “I think we can get at Fenchurch now, by help of the history.

“Fen was an extremely common word in Middle English, not merely in the sense of _morass_, but in the sense of the modern word _mud_. ‘Mud’ is quite a late word, but I presume that the thing was known in the City even in the earliest times, and the name of it was ‘fen.’ This being so, it is tolerably certain that if the name originally was anything that could be readily turned into _fen_, that would soon become the pronunciation and the ‘popular’ etymology.

“If we start from the idea of Hay, we proceed through the Norman form which was not _foin_ (this could never have given us _fen_), but _fein_ or _fayn_, or _fain_, pronounced as modern English _fain_ (the nasal _n_ in Norman being of little account except after the simple vowels _a_ and _e_). But the corresponding verb ‘to cut hay’ was actually ‘fener.’ The phrase ‘Li fain estoient fené’ is quoted from Froissart in Godefroy’s _Old French Dictionary_, s.v. _Fener_. And the verb _fener_ is still in use in Burgundy.

“It is easy to see how the word _fain_ could thus be associated with a pronunciation _fen_, and Englishmen who knew no French (there were plenty of them) may very well have imagined in their hearts that the reference was to the mud in the streets. That there _was_ mud may be taken for granted. There is some left still.

“There was also a remarkable adjective _feneresse_, whence the word _feneresse_, a female seller of hay. And there was a word _fenerie_ which meant a barn for hay. And _feneron_, a hay maker.”

Professor Skeat later repeats that if the word for hay is used by itself in London, it will be in the form of fein-fain. The spelling Fanchurch is especially valuable; in fact, it settles it, for _fan_ may be short for _fain_ whereas _fan_ cannot be another form of _fen_.

There are extant many ancient deeds connected with this street. Here was a brew-house called Le George super le Hoop.

Roman remains have been found here, vases, things in bronze, and an iron candlestick.

At No. 119 Fenchurch Street is a tavern known as the Elephant. It stands on the site of a house called the Elephant and Castle. In the Great Fire this house, being built of stone, resisted the flames, and offered shelter to many homeless people. Is the same thing related of the churches? They, too, were built of stone. Why did not they resist the flames?

Wallace was taken, on his arrival in London as a prisoner, to the house of William de Leyre in Fenchurch Street.

At the King’s Head Tavern, Queen Elizabeth was regaled with pork and peas on a certain visit to the City.

In Fenchurch Street at present, on the south side, the building numbered 3 and 4, which contains the Castle Mail Packet Company, is well designed, with wide, deeply-recessed windows enriched by mouldings. The ground-floor is encased in grey polished granite. Langbourn Chambers is a huge mass of building. Down the side of the street are various plain brick buildings of different ages interspersed with modern erections, stone fronted.

The huge building at the west corner of Mark Lane running round into Fenchurch Street is so covered with stone ornamentation, statues, etc., that the red brickwork is hardly to be seen. This is the London Tavern, and contains the City Glee Club. Both Mark and Mincing Lanes abound in great commercial buildings. Fen Court has an old stuccoed house over the tunnel-like entrance, but in itself is all composed of flat-windowed expressionless offices. These look down on the ancient graveyard, a very large space for one of the City churches. It is surrounded by railings, and divided down the centre by a flagged path. Several flat tombstones lie in the middle, and one or two altar tombs complete the quiet picture, over which the leaves of the wych-elms throw shadows. Those who have read Mrs. Riddell’s tragic story _George Geith of Fen Court_ will remember her description of the Court. Beyond Fen Court is the Spread Eagle Bread Company, a fine old house of the beginning of the eighteenth century. The gilt eagle spreads its wings in front of a square red-brick block with antiquated windows, and a general tint of age.

The Ironmongers’ Hall, a large building, faces Fenchurch Street.

THE IRONMONGERS COMPANY

The earliest notice of the craft is in 1351. The first charter
incorporating the Company was granted by Edward IV. in the year
1463, but it appears that a voluntary company or fraternity of
members of the iron trade had existed for many years previous to
that date.

There followed an Inspeximus Charter of Philip and Mary, dated June
20, 1558, which confirmed the charter of Edward IV.; Letters Patent
of the second year of Queen Elizabeth, dated November 12, 1560, by
which the charter of Edward IV. was further confirmed. James I., by
Letters Patent dated June 25, 1605, confirmed the privileges and
possessions of the Company. He also, in 1620, confirmed the Company
in the possession of certain lands and tenements therein mentioned,
in consideration of £100 paid to him. James II., by charter dated
March 18, 1685, confirmed all their privileges and granted new and
additional privileges, and by Letters Patent, dated November 19,
1688, he confirmed the last-mentioned charter.

Stow merely mentions the Hall, which occupied the area between
Fenchurch and Leadenhall Streets. It existed in 1494 and was rebuilt
in 1587. The present Hall was erected in 1748-50 on the site of an
Elizabethan house which had escaped the Fire.

The number of liverymen varies; it is now thirty-seven. The
Corporate Income is £12,000; the Trust Income is £11,000.

IRONMONGERS’ HALL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
]

1. Freemen are invited to two dinners yearly, and they, their wives,
and children are entitled to the benefit of the various charities
bequeathed for their use by members of the Company or others,
particulars of which are furnished to them on admission to the
freedom.

2. Liverymen form the court and receive fees for their attendance on
courts and committees for transacting the business of the Company
and the charities. The amount of fees paid to members of the Company
for their attendances at courts and committees during the last ten
years averages £735 for each year. No fees are paid out of the trust
estates.

3. The master and wardens have no privileges beyond the other
liverymen, and no liveryman receives any money from the charities.

ST. KATHERINE COLEMAN

St. Katherine Coleman stands on the south side of Fenchurch Street,
farther east. Its second name is derived from its proximity to a
garden, anciently called “Coleman’s Haw.” In 1489 Sir William White,
Draper and Lord Mayor, enlarged the church; it was further enlarged
in 1620 and a vestry built in 1624. It escaped the Great Fire of
1666, but by the subsequent elevation of Fenchurch Street its
foundations were buried. In 1734 the building was pulled down and
the present one erected from the designs of an architect named
Horne. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1346.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Dean and Canons
of St. Martin’s-le-Grand since 1346, then the Abbot and Convent of
Westminster, 1509; Thomas, Bishop of Westminster, by grant of Henry
VIII., January 20, 1540-41; Bishop of London by grant of Edward VI.
in 1550, confirmed by Queen Mary, March 3, 1553-54, in whose
successors it continued. The present building is of brick, with
stone dressings. The tower rises at the west.

Sir Henry Billingsley, Lord Mayor of London, was buried here in
1606. A few monuments are recorded by Strype, but the individuals
commemorated are of little note. The finest monument still preserved
is that to Lady Heigham (d. 1634), wife of Richard Heigham,
gentleman pensioner to King Charles I.

Sir H. Billingsley left £200 for the poor at his death, but his
heirs did not carry out his instructions. Jacob Lucy was donor of
£100; Thomas Papillon of £61. Other names also were recorded on the
Table of Benefactors erected in 1681. There was a workhouse
belonging to the parish.

=St. Gabriel, Fenchurch=, was situated in the middle of Fenchurch
Street between Rood Lane and Mincing Lane. It was burnt down by the
Great Fire and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to St. Margaret
Pattens by Act of Parliament. The earliest date of an incumbent is
1321.

The patronage of this church was in the hands of: The Prior and
Convent of Holy Trinity, 1321-1519; the Crown from 1540 up to 1666,
when the church was burnt down and the parish annexed to St.
Margaret Pattens.

Houseling people in 1548 were 200.

For Rood Lane, Mincing Lane, and the other streets south of Fenchurch Street leading to Thames Street, see Group V.

=Billiter Street=, not, as Stow says, from its first owner Belzetter, but from being the quarter in which stood the Bell Founders. Agnes, sister of Thomas à Becket, had land in Bellzetter Lane, parish of St. Michael, Aldgate. The lane is mentioned in the _Calendar of Wills_ in 1298, and on many occasions afterwards. Strype, in 1720, calls it a lane of very ordinary account, the houses being very old and of timber (the place escaped the Fire), the inhabitants being “inconsiderable, as small brokers, chandlers, and the like.” But the chief “ornament” of this place was Billiter Square, which was then newly built with good brick houses “well inhabited.”

=Lime Street= runs between Fenchurch and Leadenhall Streets.

In 1576 a passage was constructed at the north-east corner of this street; in the necessary excavation was discovered what Stow calls a “hearth” made of Roman tiles, every tile half a yard square and two inches thick. It was six feet under ground, corresponding in depth with Roman remains found on Cornhill. The passage was duly set up and was standing.

The name of the street occurs in the _Calendar of Wills_ for the year 1298. We are now approaching that imaginary belt of the City lying between the markets and Thames Street, in which the merchants and the nobles mostly had their houses. Stow enumerates a long list of the great houses in Lime Street:

“In Lime Street are divers fair houses for merchants and others; there was sometimes a mansion-house of the kings, called the King’s Artirce, whereof I find record in the 14th of Edward I., but now grown out of knowledge. I read also of another great house in the west side of Lime Street, having a chapel on the south and a garden on the west, then belonging to the Lord Nevill, which garden is now called the Green yard of the Leaden hall. This house, in the 9th of Richard II., pertained to Sir Simon Burley, and Sir John Burley his brother; and of late the said house was taken down, and the forefront thereof new built of timber by Hugh Offley, alderman. At the north-west corner of Lime Street was of old time one great messuage called Benbrige’s inn; Ralph Holland, draper, about the year 1452 gave it to John Gill, master, and to the wardens and fraternity of tailors and linen-armourers of St. John Baptist in London, and to their successors for ever. They did set up in place thereof a fair large frame of timber, containing in the high street one great house, and before it to the corner of Lime Street three other tenements, the corner house being the largest, and then down Lime Street divers proper tenements; all which the merchant-tailors, in the reign of Edward VI., sold to Stephen Kirton, merchant-tailor and alderman: he gave, with his daughter Grisild, to Nicholas Woodroffe the said great house, with two tenements before it, in lieu of a hundred pounds, and made it up in money £366 : 13 : 4. This worshipful man, and the gentlewoman his widow after him, kept those houses down Lime Street in good reparations, never put out but one tenant, took no fines, nor raised rents of them, which was ten shillings the piece yearly: but whether that favour did overlive her funeral, the tenants now can best declare the contrary.

“Next unto this, on the high street, was the Lord Sowche’s messuage or tenement, and other; in place whereof, Richard Wethell, merchant-tailor, built a fair house, with a high tower, the second in number, and first of timber, that ever I learnt to have been built to overlook neighbours in this city.

“This Richard, then a young man, became in a short time so tormented with gouts in his joints, of the hands and legs, that he could neither feed himself nor go further than he was led; much less was he able to climb and take the pleasure of the height of his tower. Then is there another fair house, built by Stephen Kirton, alderman; Alderman Lee did then possess it, and again new buildeth it; but now it is in the custody of Sir William Craven.

“Then is there a fair house of old time called the Green gate; by which name one Michael Pistoy, a Lumbard held it, with a tenement and nine shops in the reign of Richard II., who in the 15th of his reign gave it to Roger Corphull, and Thomas Bromester, esquires, by the name of the Green Gate, in the parish of St. Andrew upon Cornhill, in Lime Street ward; since the which time Philip Malpas, sometime alderman, and one of the sheriffs, dwelt therein, and was there robbed and spoiled of his goods to a great value by Jack Cade, and other rebels, in the year 1449.

“Afterwards, in the reign of Henry VII., it was seised into the King’s hands, and then granted, first, unto John Alston, after that unto William de la Rivers, and since by Henry VIII. to John Mutas, a Picarde or Frenchman, who dwelt there, and harboured in his house many Frenchmen, that kalendred wolsteds, and did other things contrary to the franchises of the citizens; wherefore on evil May-day, which was in the year 1517, the apprentices and others spoiled his house; and if they could have found Mutas, they would have stricken off his head. Sir Peter Mutas, son to the said John Mutas, sold this house to David Woodroffe, alderman, whose son, Sir Nicholas Woodroffe, alderman, sold it over to John Moore, alderman, that then possessed it.

“Next is a house called the Leaden porch, lately divided into two tenements; whereof one is a tavern, and then one other house for a merchant, likewise called the leaden Porch, but now turned to a cook’s house. Next is a fair house and a large, wherein divers mayoralties have been kept, whereof twain in my remembrance; to wit, Sir William Bowyer and Sir Henry Huberthorne” (Stow’s _Survey_, pp. 162-163).

In modern Lime Street the first thing that attracts attention is an old iron gateway leading to a little paved yard where once stood St. Dionis Backchurch. Laid in a horizontal row are nine tombstones, on which one can look down. A steep flight of stone steps leads up to the parish offices, and the backs of business houses surround the court. At No. 15 is the Pewterers’ Hall.

THE PEWTERERS COMPANY

The earliest information respecting the Company is found in the
records of the City of London, 22 Edward III., A.D. 1348, when the
mayor and aldermen are prayed by the good folk of the trade to hear
the state and points of the trade, to provide redress and amendment
of the defaults thereof for the common profit, and to ordain two or
three of the trade to oversee the alloys and workmanship.

In the year 1443 (22 Henry VI.), in consequence of the complaints of
“the multitude of tin which was untrue and deceyvable brought to the
City, the defaults not being perceptible until it comes to the
melting,” the mayor and aldermen granted to the Company the right to
search and assay all the tin which was brought into the City of
London.

Edward IV. (1473-74) incorporated the Company by royal charter.

This power was recognised and confirmed by charters granted
successively by Henry VIII., Philip and Mary, Queen Elizabeth, James
I., and Queen Anne.

An Act of Parliament confirming the Company’s powers to search for
bad wares was passed in 1503-1504, 19 Henry VII. c. 6., confirmed by
other Acts, 4 Henry VIII. c. 7., 1512-13; 25 Henry VIII. c. 9.,
1533-34; and a statute 33 Henry VIII. c. 4., 1541-42, prohibited the
hawking of pewter.

The maintenance of the good faith of the trade appears to have been
one of the primary considerations in the proceedings of the Company.

In 1555 it was resolved that any member buying metal of tylors,
labourers, boys, women, or suspected persons, or between six at
night and six in the morning, if the metal should prove to have been
stolen, should not only be dismissed the Company, but stand to such
punishment as the Lord Mayor and aldermen might direct.

The Company appear to have furnished a certain number of men with
arms for the defence of the City, and to have kept at the Hall
equipments for them—calyvers, corslets, bills, pikes, etc.—and to
have appointed an armourer to preserve them in good condition.

The Company used to cast into bars such tin as was to be transported
out of the realm, whereby the poor of the Company were wont to
provide for part of their living; but after these bars were made by
strangers beyond the sea, the poor were greatly “hindered.” A
petition was presented to Queen Elizabeth in 1594, and after a delay
of four years Letters Patent were granted to the Company, giving
permission for a small charge to be made on the smelting and casting
of bars of tin.

The fellowship of the craft and mystery of Pewterers of London and
elsewhere represented, before Henry VIII.’s reign, one of the best
handicrafts within the realm.

The master and wardens appear at the commencement of the seventeenth
century to have exercised the right to nominate the casters of tin
in London, and the Company received a small royalty on the casting,
which was distributed to the poor of the Company. They also appear
to have had from the Council of the Revenue of the Prince of Wales
an allotment of certain proportions of the tin produced in Cornwall,
and to have derived some profit from the privilege. In fact, the
pewter trade in London was supplied with tin from Cornwall through
the Company, and frequent disputations are recorded between the
Company and the Prince’s Council as to the rate, which was sometimes
said to be so high that the poor of the Company could not live
thereby.

At a later period the Company, in order to prevent the public from
imposition, and to sustain the credit of the pewterers’ trade,
appointed the standard assays of the various wares and the weight of
metal for each article.

The Hall stands upon a piece of ground presented to the Company by
W. Smallwood, Master, 1487. The first building was destroyed in the
Great Fire and the present one is that which replaced it.

The Company now have a livery of 103; a Corporate Income of £5400;
and a Trust Income of £233.

The Ordinances of the Pewterers were submitted to the mayor and
aldermen in 1348. They may be found in Riley (_Memorials_, 241).
They contain clauses similar to those in the ordinances of other
trades, including the power of appointing overseers of their own
body. Two years later we find a Pewterer named John de Hiltone
brought before the mayor on the charge of making “false”
salt-cellars and “potels.” The “false” vessels were forfeited. The
use of pewter for domestic purposes was universal. Dishes, plates,
basins, drinking cups, measures were all made of pewter. There are
luncheon-rooms in the City at the present day where steaks and chops
are served on pewter: at Lincoln’s Inn the dishes are still of
pewter; in the last century children and servants took their meals
off pewter. These facts explain the flourishing condition of the
Company and its large income.

* * * * *

=St. Dionis Backchurch= was situated at the south-west corner of
Lime Street behind Fenchurch Street, from which position it probably
derived its name of Backchurch. It was burnt down by the Great Fire,
and rebuilt by Wren in 1674, and the steeple added in 1684. In 1878
this building was pulled down by an Order in Council. Part of the
money obtained from the site was given to the foundation of a new
church of St. Dionis at Parsons Green erected in 1885. The earliest
date of an incumbent is 1288.

The patronage of the church was in the hands of: In 1248, the Prior
and Chapter of Christ Church, Canterbury; then the Dean and Chapter
of Canterbury 1552, in whose successors it continued up to 1878,
when the church was demolished and the parish annexed to Allhallows,
Lombard Street.

Houseling people in 1548 were 405.

Chantries were founded here: By John Carby, Alderman of London,
whose endowment fetched £13 in 1548, when James Servaunt was priest;
by Maude Bromeholme, whose endowment yielded £5 : 7 : 4 in 1548; by
John Wrotham, whose endowment was £15 : 7 : 4, when Nicholas
Metcalfe was chaplain.

The church originally contained a considerable number of monuments,
the most notable of which were in memory of John Hewet of the
Clothworkers Company and benefactor of the parish; Sir Robert
Jeffreys, Knt., Alderman and Lord Mayor of the City, who died in
1703; and Edward Tyson, M.D.

Some of the donors of charitable gifts were: Dame Elizabeth Clark,
£30; Robert Williams, £25, towards a bell; James Church, £10. Many
others gave various fittings for the church.

Lionel Gatford (d. 1665); Archdeacon of St. Alban’s, was rector
here; also Nathanial Hardy (1618-1670), Dean of Rochester.

A REMARKABLE OLD HOUSE IN LEADENHALL STREET

From a drawing by S. Rawle. Published January 1801.
]

=Leadenhall Street= was so named after the Leadenhall, _i.e._ the hall covered with lead, which stood at the corner of that street and Gracechurch Street. An early reference to the place is found in the _Calendar of Wills_ in the year 1296, when certain “rents near la Ledenhalle in Gracechurch Street” are mentioned. The next reference does not occur till the year 1369. But in Riley’s _Memorials_, we are told that on the eve of St. John the Baptist, June 24, the mayor delivered to the chamberlain “one silver mark arising from a certain small garden annexed to Leden Hall, which mark was taken ... for completing the pavement belonging to the Court of Leaden Hall.” Riley gives a very brief history of the place:

“At the beginning of the 14th century, it was occasionally used as a Court of Justice; see the MS. _Liber de Antiqu. Legibus_, at Guildhall, fol. 61. In October, 1326, after the flight of Edward II., the Commons of London met there, when making terms with the Constable of the Tower” (Riley, _Memorials_, p. 138).

Stow gives a long account of the various hands through which the _manor_ of Leadenhall passed, confusing the hall with the manor on which it was built. In the year 1411, according to Stow, the manor came into possession of the City.

_Drawn by Thos. H. Shepherd._

LEADENHALL STREET
]

“Then in the year 1443, the 21st of Henry VI., John Hatherley, mayor, purchased licence of the said king to take up two hundred fodder of lead, for the building of water conduits, a common granary, and the cross in West Chepe, more richly, for the honour of the City. In the year next following, the parson and parish of St. Dunstan, in the east of London, seeing the famous and mighty man (for the words be in the grant, _nobilis et potens vir_), Simon Eyre, citizen of London, among other his works of piety, effectually determined to erect and build a certain granary upon the soil of the same city at Leadenhall, of his own charges, for the common utility of the said city, to the amplifying and enlarging of the said granary, granted to Henry Frowicke, then mayor, the aldermen and commonalty, and their successors for ever, all their tenements, with the appurtenances, sometime called the Horsemill, in Grasse Street, for the annual rent of four pounds, etc. Also, certain evidences of an alley and tenements pertaining to the Horsemill adjoining to the said Leaden hall in Grasse Street, given by William Kingstone, fishmonger, unto the parish church of St. Peter upon Cornehill, do specify the said granary to be built by the said honourable and famous merchant, Simon Eyre, sometime an upholsterer, and then a draper, in the year 1419. He built it of squared stone, in form as now it showeth, with a fair and large chapel in the east side of the quadrant, over the porch of which he caused to be written, _Dextra Domini exaltavit me_ (The Lord’s right hand exalted me). Within the said church on the north wall, was written, _Honorandus famosus mercator Simon Eyre hujus operis_, etc. In English thus: ‘The honourable and famous merchant, Simon Eyre, founder of this work, once mayor of this City, citizen and draper of the same, departed out of this life, the 18th day of September, the year from the incarnation of Christ 1459, and the 38th year of the reign of King Henry VI.’” (Stow’s _Survey_, p. 162).

Before the middle of the fourteenth century Leadenhall had become a market for poultry. In 1345 it was ordered that strange folk, _i.e._ people from outside the City, bringing poultry for sale should no longer hawk it about from house to house, but should take it to the Leaden Hall, and should there sell it, and nowhere else. Also that citizens who sell poultry should offer it on the west side of the Tun of Cornhill (Riley, pp. 220, 221).

The market was not, however, confined to the sale of poultry, as is proved by the following request of the commons of the City, in the year 1503:

“Please it, the lord mayor, aldermen and common council, to enact, that all Frenchmen bringing canvass, linen cloth, and other wares to be sold, and all foreigners bringing wolsteds, sayes, Stamins, Kiverings, nails, iron work, or any other wares, and also all manner of foreigners bringing lead to the city to be sold, shall bring all such their wares aforesaid to the open market of the Leaden Hall, there and no where else to be sold and uttered, like as of old time it hath been used, upon pain of forfeiture of all the said wares showed or sold in any other place than aforesaid; the show of the said wares to be made three days in the week, that is to say, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; it is also thought reasonable that the common beam be kept henceforth in the Leaden Hall, and the farmer to pay therefore reasonable rent to the chamber; for better it is that the chamber have advantage thereby than a foreign person; and also the said Leaden Hall, which is more chargeable now by half than profitable, shall better bear out the charges thereof; also the common beam for wool at Leaden Hall, may yearly pay a rent to the chamber of London, toward supportation and charges of the same place; for reason it is, that a common office, occupied upon a common ground, bear a charge to the use of the commonalty; also, that foreigners bringing wools, felts, or any other merchandises or wares to Leaden Hall, to be kept there for the sale and market, may pay more largely for the keeping of their goods than free men” (Stow’s _Survey_, p. 164).

SKIN MARKET, LEADENHALL, 1825
]

A granary was kept at Leaden Hall, the use of which depended entirely on the forethought of the mayor. Thus, in 1512, Roger Acheley, the mayor, found that there were not one hundred quarters of wheat in all the garners of the City. He took immediate steps, and not only imported wheat for present necessities, but also filled the granaries of the City. Stow adds a note as to the activity of the mayor: “He kept the market so well, that he would be at the Leaden Hall by four o’clock in the summer mornings; and thence he went to other markets, to the great comfort of the citizens.”

In 1529 a petition was presented by the Commons to the Common Council on the uses to which Leaden Hall might be put. It should not be let out to farm to any person or to any Company incorporate for any time of years, and they proceeded to give their reasons.

About the year 1534 an effort was made to convert Leadenhall into a Burse. This failed, and the Burse continued to be held in Lombard Street until the building of the Royal Exchange. This is interesting, because it shows that Gresham was not alone in desiring to have a convenient building for the meeting of the merchants.