THE BLACKSMITHS
This craft, like that of the Basketmakers, is one of the earliest arts learned by man after the discovery of the metals. The Fraternity of the Blacksmiths must, therefore, have existed from the time when workmen first began to work together and to form associations. The trade is gregarious. It requires the collective labour of several to conduct the furnace, to beat and to mould the metal, to design, to shape the metal in the rough, to make the instruments, etc. As the Blacksmiths are not enumerated among the “adulterine” Gilds under Henry II., we may conclude that they were recognised as of long standing even then.
In the year 1372 (Riley’s Memorials, p. 361) “the reputable men of the Trade” delivered to the mayor and aldermen their Articles. We learn from these that the places of sale or market for blacksmiths was Gracechurch Street, the Pavement by St. Nicholas Fleshambles (Newgate Street), or near the Tun upon Cornhill; that every Master should place his mark upon his work; and that no one was to be free of the trade till he could show that he was able to follow it.
This Company is reputed to have been incorporated by prescription by King Edward III. in the year 1325.
It was incorporated by charter, and united to the Spurriers by Queen Elizabeth in the year 1571, under which charter, confirmed by King Charles I. in the year 1639, power was given to make bye-laws; certain bye-laws so made were confirmed by the Lord Treasurer and by the Chief Justices of the King’s Bench, and the Common Pleas, December 1640, and under such charter and bye-laws the Company is now, as far as the usages of the present day permit, carried on.
By the charter of King Charles I., “power to make reasonable laws and ordinances in writing for the good rule, governing, and correcting of the freemen of the said arts or mysteries within the City of London and four miles of the said City.”
Maitland, writing in 1750, says: “They have a pleasant Hall in Lambeth Hill.”
The Company has now no Hall; its Corporate Income is about £700; its Trust Income is £136; the number of its Livery is 98.