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.
“The use of Leaden Hall in my youth (says Stow) was thus:—In a part of the north quadrant, on the east side of the north gate, were the common beams for weighing of wool and other wares, as had been accustomed; on the west side of the gate were the scales to weigh meal; the other three sides were reserved for the most part to the making and resting of the pageants showed at Midsummer in the watch; the remnant of the sides and quadrants was employed for the stowage of wool sacks, but not closed up; the lofts above were partly used by the painters in working for the decking of pageants and other devices, for beautifying of the watch and watch-men; the residue of the lofts were letten out to merchants, the wool winders and packers therein to wind and pack their wools” (p. 166).
The market in 1754 is thus described by Strype:
“Leadenhall is a very large building of Free-stone, containing within it three large Courts or Yards, all encompassed with buildings, wherein is kept a market, one of the greatest, the best, and the most general for all provisions in the City of London, nay of the Kingdom; and, if I should say of all Europe, I should not give it too great a praise. The building hath flat battlements leaded at the top; and, for the conveniency of People’s coming to this great market, which is kept every day of the week, except Sundays, for one thing or the other, besides the principal entrance out of Leadenhall Street, there are two or three others, one out of Lime Street, and the rest out of Gracechurch Street.
“Of the three Courts or Yards that it consists of, the first is that at the north-east corner of Gracechurch Street, and opens into Leadenhall Street; this court or yard contains, in length, from north to south, one hundred and sixty-four feet, and, in breadth, from east to west, eighty feet; within this court or yard, round about the same, are about one hundred standing stalls for butchers for the selling only of beef, and therefore this court is called the Beef Market, many of which stalls are eight, ten, or twelve feet long, and four, five, or six feet broad, with racks, hooks, blocks, and all other conveniences for the sale of their meat: All which stalls are either under warehouses above head, or sheltered from the weather by roofs over them. This yard is, on Tuesdays, a market for leather, to which the tanners do resort. On Thursdays the waggons from Colchester, and other parts, come with Baiz, etc., and also the Felmongers with their wool; and on Fridays it is a market for raw hides, besides Saturdays for Beef, as also other provisions.
“The second market-yard is called the Green yard, as being once a green Plat of Ground. Afterwards it was the City’s Store-yard for Materials for building, and the like, but now a market only for veal, mutton, lamb, etc. This yard is one hundred and seventy feet in length, from east to west, and ninety feet broad from north to south: It hath in it one hundred and forty stalls for the butchers, all covered over, and of the bigness of those in the beef-market. In the middle of this Green yard Market, north to south, is a row of shops, with kitchens, or rooms over them, for fishmongers; and, also, on the south side and west end, are houses and shops also for fishmongers. Towards the east end of this yard is erected a fair market-house, standing upon columns, with vaults underneath, and rooms above, with a bell-tower and a clock, and under it are butchers’ stalls. The tenements round about this yard are, for the most part, inhabited by cooks, victuallers, and such-like; and, in the passages leading out of the streets, into this market, are fishmongers, poulterers, cheesemongers, and such-like traders for provision.
“The third market belonging to Leadenhall is called the Herb Market, for that herbs, roots, fruits, etc., are only there sold. This market is about one hundred and forty feet square; the west, east, and south sides have walks round them, covered over for shelter, and standing upon columns; in which walks there are twenty-eight stalls for gardeners, with cellars under them. There is also, in this yard, one range of stalls covered over for such as sell tripe, neats-feet, sheeps-trotters, etc., and, on the south side, the tenements are taken up by Victuallers, Cheesemongers, Butchers, Poulterers, and such-like.
“The rooms in the stone building about the beef-market, which is properly Leadenhall, are employed for several uses, as the west side was wholly used for the stowage of wares belonging to the East-India Company; on the east side is the meal-warehouse and the Wool-hall; on the south end is the Colchester Baiz-hall, and at the north end is the warehouse for the sealing of leather.
“The general conflagration of this city, in 1666, terminated in that part of the City near adjoining to this hall; all the houses about it, and within the yards belonging to it, being destroyed, there did, of this fabric, only remain the stonework; since which, the Courts and yards belonging to this building, and some other adjacent grounds purchased by the City, are wholly converted into a market for the City’s use; the place for the reception of Country butchers, and others who brought provisions before to the City, being then only in Leadenhall Street, between Gracechurch Street and Lime Street, which was very incommodious to the market people, as well as to the passengers.”
LEADENHALL CHAPEL IN 1812
Leadenhall Market is in four rays of varying lengths; the longest is about 80 feet, the shortest about 30. These are covered in by a wide arched roof of glass, supported by girders, and are about 30 feet wide. At each entrance there is a similar design. On either side a couple of massive fluted columns are surmounted by griffins, which support the arch. These are decorated with gilt. Over the entry is an arch of great height, with a stone relief, and on the frieze below the words “Leadenhall Market.” The market was built in 1881, designed by Sir Horace Jones, and is occupied to a very great extent by poulterers and butchers. There are roughly about fifty holdings and two taverns, the Lamb and the Half Moon.
There was a chapel in the market, to which was attached a Fraternity of the Trinity of sixty priests, with other brethren and sisters, in which service was celebrated every day.
The chapel was taken down in 1812 (see Mediæval London, vol. ii. p. 373).
In Leadenhall Street have been found Roman remains, a pavement, pottery, etc.
A crypt existed under the house 153 Leadenhall Street until 1896, when it was destroyed.
CRYPT IN LEADENHALL STREET, 1825
“Under the corner house of Leadenhall and Bishopsgate Streets, and two houses on the east, and one on the north, side thereof, was situate a very ancient church of Gothic construction, the principal part of which is still remaining under the said corner house, and two adjoining in Leadenhall Street; but part of the north aisle beneath the house contiguous in Bishopsgate Street, was lately obliged to make way to enlarge the cellar. When or by whom this old church was founded I cannot learn, it not being so much as mentioned by any of our historians or surveyors of London that I can discover.
“Some other ancient architectural remains, perhaps originally connected with the former, were also found under the houses extending up the eastern site of Bishopsgate Street. The description of their situation, given by Maitland, fixes their locality to the side of the very house at which the fire of 1765 commenced; and which appears to have continued until that time in the same kind of occupation as it was when the ensuing account of these ruins was written. ‘At the distance of 12 feet from this church,’—namely the remains already noticed at the north-east corner of Leadenhall Street—‘is to be seen, under the house at the late Mr. Macadam’s, a peruke-maker in Bishopsgate Street, a stone building of the length of 30 feet, breadth of 14, and altitude of 8 feet 6 inches above the present floor; with a door in the north-side, and a window at the east end, as there probably was one in the west. It is covered with a semi-circular arch, built with small piers of chalk in the form of bricks, and ribbed with stone, resembling those of the arches of a bridge. What this edifice at first was appropriated to is very uncertain; though, by the manner of its construction, it seems to have been a chapel; but the ground having been since raised on all sides, it was probably converted into a subterraneous repository for merchandise; for a pair of stone stairs, with a descending arch over them, seems to have been erected since the fabric was built’” (Wilkinson, Londina Illustrata).
The most important house in the street next to the Leadenhall itself was the East India House, which stood near to the Hall. The Company first met, according to tradition, at the Nag’s Head Tavern, Bishopsgate; they then had a house in Leadenhall Street; they took on lease in 1701—perhaps it was their first house—Sir William Craven’s large house in Leadenhall Street, with a tenement in Lime Street. This is probably the house pictured in a print in the British Museum.
In 1726 the “Old” East India House was built, of which several parts were retained in the new buildings of 1799.
Hardly any part of the City, unless it be the south of Cornhill, is so honeycombed with courts and passages as the quarter upon which we are now engaged. For the most part they are not distinguished by any historical associations. Some of them formerly contained taverns and inns. The courts are greatly diminished in size; some of them were narrow lanes with houses standing face to face, a few feet apart; some of them formerly contained gentlemen’s houses. Why were these houses built in a court? The explanation is easy. The town-house of noble or merchant was built like a college: a gateway with a chamber over it in front, rooms beside the gate in case of a nobleman with a retinue; in other cases a wall enclosing a garden in a square, on either side rooms, at the back the Hall and what we call reception rooms, with the private rooms of the family. When land became more valuable the rooms beside the gateway became shops, then there was building at the back of the shops, the sides became contracted, and there were left at last only the court, the gateway, and the house beyond. There are several places in the City where this history of a house may be traced, the modern offices being built on the site of the old foundation, the gateway having disappeared, and the court still remaining.
“Anno 1136. A very great fire happened in the City, which began in the house of one Ailward, near London Stone, and consumed all the way east to Aldgate, and west to St. Erkenwald’s shrine in St. Paul’s Cathedral, both which it destroyed, together with London Bridge, which was then constructed of wood.
“It is reasonable to conjecture, that the accumulation of ruins these extensive fires occasioned left the distressed inhabitants little choice in their determination; and as it would have caused infinite trouble and inconvenience to have cleared and removed the same, they wisely preferred sacrificing a few (to them) useless buildings, raised and levelled the ground, and began a foundation for new dwellings on the site of the roofs of some of their remaining habitations. The amazing descent to the banks of the Thames from several parts of the City confirms the opinion that most of the buildings denominated crypts, oratories, or undercrofts, were, in their pristine states, level in their foundations with the dwelling-places of their original builders. What greatly adds to the probability is the circumstance of our being informed that near Belzeter’s Lane (Billiter Lane) and Lime Street, three new houses being to be built, in the year 1590, in a place where was a large garden plot enclosed from the street by a high brick wall, upon taking down the said wall and digging for cellarage, another wall of stone was found directly under the brick wall with an arched gateway of stone, and gates of timber to be closed in the midst towards the street. The timber of the gates was consumed, but the hinges of iron were then remaining on their staples on both sides: moreover, in that wall were square windows with bars of iron on each side this gate. The wall was above two fathoms deep under the ground, supposed to be the remains of those great fires before mentioned. Again, we learn, on the east side of Lime Street opening into Fenchurch Street, on that site, after the fire of 1666, Sir Thomas Cullum built thirty houses, and that a short time previous to 1757, the cellar of one of the houses giving way, there was discovered an arched room, ten feet square and eight feet deep, with several arched doors round it stopped up with earth” (Wilkinson, Londina Illustrata, vol. ii. p. 43).
In 1660 the mayor, Sir Thomas Allen, resided in Leadenhall Street and entertained Monk. At the corner of St. Mary Axe stood, in the fifteenth century, the town-house of the De Veres, Earls of Oxford.
Gibbon’s great-grandfather, one of the last of the younger sons of county families who came to London and went into trade, had his shop as a draper in Leadenhall Street.
In this street Peter Anthony Motteux, translator of Don Quixote, kept an “East India” shop. He was a Huguenot, and could speak and understand many languages. He was also employed as a linguist at the Post Office. In addition to his shop and his office, he worked as a poet and man of letters generally; being the author of plays, prologues, and epilogues. He is best known by his completion of Urquhart’s Translation of Rabelais. He was a loose liver, and died in a disorderly house in St. Clement Danes. Like the lady of Père la Chaise, “Resigned unto the Heavenly Will, His wife kept on the business still.”