THE GIRDLERS COMPANY
The Girdlers Company traces its existence to a very early period, and cannot, in the strict sense of the word, be said to have been founded. It is believed to have been a fraternity by prescription, which owed its origin to a lay brotherhood of the order of Saint Laurence, maintaining themselves by the making of girdles and voluntarily associating for the purpose of mutual protection and for the regulation of the trade which they practised, and the maintenance of the ancient ordinances and usages established to ensure the honest manufacture of girdles with good and sound materials.
The earliest public or State recognition of the Company of which it now possesses any evidence consists of Letters Patent of the first year of King Edward III., A.D. 1327, addressed to them as an existing body, as “les ceincturiers de notre Citée de Loundres,” by which the “ancient ordinances and usuages” of the said trade are approved and their observance directed. The King also grants licence to the girdlers that they shall have power to elect one or two of their own trade to seek out false work and present it before the mayors or chief guardians of the places where found, who shall cause the same to be burnt and those who have worked the same to be punished; all amercements resulting therefrom to belong to the mayors of the places where the false work is found.
Some ten years later we find the girdlers presenting a code of laws for the governance of their trade to the mayor and aldermen; therefore, though their charter enabled them to search into and discover bad work, it gave them no power to make laws for the safeguarding of the trade. Moreover, the charter gave them no power over wages, nor did it compel the workers of the trade to join the Fraternity, nor did it empower them to hold land, to sue or to be sued. Considering these omissions, the document quoted by Riley ought not, strictly speaking, to be considered a charter.
The said Letters Patent were confirmed in 1 Richard II. (1377) and 2 Henry IV. (1401), and the Company was incorporated in 27 Henry VI. (1448) by the Master and Guardians of the Mystery of Girdlers of the City of London.
Further confirmations were made in 2 Edward IV., 10 Elizabeth, 15 Charles I., and 1 James II.
No important change in the original constitution of the Company was made by any of the charters prior to that of 10 Elizabeth, which directed that the three arts or mysteries called Pinners, Wyerworkers, and Girdlers should be joined and invited together into one body corporate and polity, and one society and company for ever, and did incorporate them by the name of the Masters and Wardens or Keepers of the Art and Mystery of Girdlers, London.
It does not appear that the Pinners and Wyerworkers brought any accession of property to the Girdlers.
The Hall has always been in Basinghall Street. Here it is mentioned by Stow along with Masons’ Hall and Weavers’ Hall.
No. 1 on the east of Basinghall Street was probably built early in the nineteenth century; the buildings which follow it are chiefly modern. The whole street is rather fine, though too narrow for much effect. There are in it many great “houses,” “chambers,” and “buildings” occupied in floors. Gresham Buildings are faced with dark-coloured stone and rise comparatively high. The ground-floor walls on the exterior are covered with the most elaborate stonework representations of flowers and foliage. The City of London Court in the passage known as Guildhall Buildings is picturesquely built in a perpendicular style of Gothic. A great square stone building opposite was built in 1890, and next to it a plain Portland stone edifice contains the Lord Mayor’s court office. The City Library and Museum form a picturesque group of buildings in the west of Basinghall Street.
Near at hand is the Coopers’ Hall with a narrow frontage.