THE COOKS
The official history is as follows:—
In consequence of the early records of the Company being destroyed by fire, the date of its foundation is not known, and from the existing documents in the Company’s possession its origin cannot be shown.
By inspeximus charter of George III. it appears that King Edward IV., in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, granted unto his well-beloved subjects the honest and freemen of the Mystery of Cooks of the City of London, that they and all men of the same mystery should be in substance and name one body, and one commonalty perpetual, with power to make two Masters or Governors with the aid of two Wardens and Assistants to govern the affairs of the mystery, and to have a common seal, and to hold meetings, and to make laws and vary the same for the government of the mystery.
By reference to the charter it will appear that power is given to the Masters or Governors to exercise superintendence and jurisdiction over every member of the mystery and the works of such; the local limits of the same are defined by the charter to be within the Cities of London and Westminster, their suburbs and liberties, and four miles’ compass thereof. Such control, owing to a late decision in a court of law, has fallen into abeyance.
The Livery is now 69; the Corporate Income is £2380; the Trust Income is £180. There is now no Hall; their old Hall, which escaped the Great Fire “by the space of a few houses,” was burned down in 1711 and never rebuilt. It stood on the east side of Aldersgate Street, facing Little Britain. At that time there was a passage leading beneath the houses in Aldersgate Street to the Hall, which was “ancient and of small compass.” Behind the Hall a garden and open land stretched toward a wide space where once had been the ditch without the City wall. In the fire of 1711 all the early papers of the Company perished, together with their charter. The Cooks’ Gild formerly included the Pastelers or Pie-bakers, as one would expect. Stow calls them Cooks or Pastelars.