THE FISHMONGERS COMPANY
The origin of the Fishmongers Company is lost in remote antiquity; it is unquestionable that it existed prior to the reign of Henry II., and originated in an association or brotherhood.
The Fishmongers Company lost the greater part of its earlier records, books, and muniments in the Great Fire of London; the earliest existing record in the possession of the Company being a court book dating from 1592.
The privileges of the Company were confirmed by royal charters in the reign of Edward I., 1272, Edward II., 1307, and Edward III., 1327.
The first extant charter is in Norman French, dated July 10, 1364, 37 Edward III.
It recites that from ancient times, whereof memory runs not, it was a custom that no fish should be sold in the City of London but by fishmongers, except stockfish, which belongs to the mistery of stockfishmongers (subsequently incorporated with the fishmongers), and further recites that the mistery of fishmongers had grants from the King’s progenitors in ancient times, that the fishmongers should choose yearly certain persons of the mistery to well and lawfully rule the same.
The foregoing charter was confirmed by a proclamation of the following year, July 12, 1365, 38 Edward III., which granted further power and privileges to the mistery of fishmongers of the City of London.
Pictorial Agency.
FISHMONGERS’ HALL, PRESENT DAY
By a further mandate of King Edward III., dated July 24 in the same year, the King granted to the fishmongers of the said city, and of the liberty of the halmote of the same mistery, that no person, stranger or inhabitant, should in any manner occupy the mistery of fishmongers in the said city, or intermeddle therewith, unless he were of the same mistery; and that the fishmongers of the same liberty should be able in every year to elect four persons (to be sworn) to oversee the buying and selling of fish in the said city, and well and faithfully to rule the said mistery “for the common commodity of our people.”
In the twenty-second year of King Richard II., May 9, 1399, another charter was granted.
By an Inspeximus of 6 Henry VI., July 10, 1427, the charter of King Richard II. was confirmed.
By charter of 23 Henry VII., dated July 3, 1508, the Letters Patent of 11 Henry VI., 1433, are set forth and ratified and confirmed.
By a charter of 24 King Henry VII., dated September 20, 1508, the stockfishmongers of the City of London were incorporated by the name of “The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mistery of Stockfishmongers of the City of London,” with perpetual succession and a common seal.
In the twenty-seventh year of King Henry VIII., 1537, a charter was granted by which the two corporations of the Fishmongers Company and Stockfishmongers Company were incorporated as one company, and in the same year a deed was executed between the two companies regulating the terms of such union.
Pictorial Agency.
LONDON BRIDGE
The rest of the brief history furnished by the Company is a recital of the later charters, which do not seem of very great importance. The number of liverymen in 1898 was 344; the Corporate Income was £46,053; the Trust Income was £7235.
Freemen, the widows of freemen, and freewomen, being in poor circumstances, are eligible for pecuniary relief by way of grant or pension, or for election to the Company’s almshouses. The children of freemen are eligible for weekly pensions or pecuniary relief.
Loans are also made by the Company in special cases in aid of freemen in necessitous circumstances.
The Company has established a number of educational exhibitions for the children of deserving freemen, and subscribe liberally to the City of London Institute.
FISHMONGERS’ HALL IN 1811
The children of freemen are also eligible for the nominations to Christ’s Hospital in the gift of the Company.
Liverymen have the usual privileges, and receive invitations in turn to dine at livery dinners in the Company’s hall.
The Company’s first hall was the house of Lord Fanhope given to the Fishmongers by him in the reign of Henry VIII. It was rebuilt after the Fire by Jarman. It stood on the north foot of the present bridge. The present hall was erected when New London Bridge swallowed up its predecessor.