Merchant Adventurers. See Hamburgh Merchants.
Merchant Taylors, the seventh of the twelve principal companies, was incorporated by Edward IV. in the year 1466; and was anciently denominated Taylors and Linen Armourers: but many of the company being great merchants, and Henry VII. one of the members, that Prince in the year 1503 re-incorporated it, by the name of, The Master and Wardens of the Merchant Taylors of the fraternity of St. John the Baptist, in the city of London.
This fraternity is governed by a Master, four Wardens, thirty-eight Assistants, and 394 Liverymen, who upon their admission pay a fine of 20l. The company is possessed of a great estate, out of which they pay to charitable uses, pursuant to the wills of the respective donors, about 2000l. per annum.
This company has a spacious hall on the south side of Threadneedle street. Strype’s Stowe.
Merchant Taylors Almshouse, near the west end of Rosemary lane, contains twenty-six apartments for so many poor widows, the relicts of deceased members, who annually receive 6l. and a chaldron of coals each, with a gown every third year. Maitland.
Merchant Taylors rents, Moor lane.
Merchant Taylors School, in Suffolk lane, Thames street, was founded by the company of Merchant Taylors in the year 1568, for the education of boys. It was anciently kept in a house which belonged to the Duke of Buckingham, and was called the Manor of the Rose; but that edifice being destroyed by the fire of London in 1666, the present structure was erected upon the same spot.
The school is a long and spacious building, supported on the east by many stone pillars that form an handsome cloister, within which are apartments for the three Ushers. Adjoining to the school is a library supported also by stone pillars, and well furnished with books. And on the south of the library is the part called the chapel. Contiguous to these is a large house appropriated to the use of the head Master.
The school consists of eight forms, in which near three hundred boys have their education; an hundred of whom, according to the constitutions of the company, are taught gratis; an hundred more at 5s. and fifty at 2s. 6d. a quarter.
The head Master receives from the company a salary of 10l. 6s. per annum, and thirty shillings for water; besides the quarterage from the scholars, which renders his salary very considerable. The first Usher has 30l. a year, and the two last 25l. per annum, and all of them have proper apartments.