The influence and development of English gilds

by Francis Aidan Hibbert

End of the companies.

It is interesting that we have recorded for us the way in which this sweeping change was received by those most concerned. The Mercers had foreseen (July 31, 1835) that it would be advisable to drop all pending actions against foreigners until the result of the Act then before Parliament should be decided. After it had become law the company met, for the last time under the old conditions, on March 25, 1836, to consider their position and to take steps for the future. It was apparently a stormy meeting. An influential minority proposed to divide the property among the members there and then, and so have done with the company. It was however carried “That the chief rents ... be not disposed of, but reserved to meet the payments to be made to the Alms people of St. Chad’s Almshouses[224], and for other purposes.” The fire engine, the company’s weights and measures etc., were sold. The other companies acted in a similar manner. The Saddlers divided at once the funds which remained in the treasurer’s hands, and which amounted to £1. 7s. 0d. for each member[225]. Their arbour was however retained, and the rent from it expended on the annual feast on Show Monday. This arrangement was to continue so long as any of the freemen should be living: on the decease of the last survivor the arbour was to devolve to the town council. Lastly, all books, and whatever else remained to the company, were to be deposited with the wardens for the time being.

Partial continuation of the companies.

For attempts were made, even in the desperate pass to which the companies seemed to be brought, to prolong the end. A few patriotic members kept up the shadows of the old fraternities. The ancient custom of electing officers was maintained; the Mercers’ records bring the lists complete down to 1876. The arbours were repaired, mostly at the cost of private individuals, and at spasmodic intervals, while the Show still continued to afford opportunities for dissolute revelry to the lowest of the town and neighbourhood. The companies themselves fell back into their original condition of voluntary associations of individuals united for purposes partly benevolent but mainly social, and of which the state took no cognisance. “No one can give much attention to the subject without coming to the conclusion that feasting was one of the essential and most valued features of the companies in their early days[226]:” it became so again in their later. As they had existed long before external circumstances brought them into prominence, so they continued long after they had ceased to influence public affairs, and so they lingered on even after the nation had plainly signified that their existence was not only superfluous but injurious. For their endeavours to restrict trade had been, so far as they had been successful, detrimental to the prosperity of the town, while they had allowed the duty of succouring needy workmen to slip entirely from their hands.

The Friendly Societies which had long taken up this very important part of the functions which the mediæval Gilds had performed rose meanwhile into public favour. Their excellent work was so apparent that an Act of Parliament was passed for their encouragement in 1793, and it was even urged that they should be made compulsory.

Their property gives them life.

The companies had to all intents and purposes long forgotten their duty in this respect, and they could not take it up again now, though had this course been possible they might have commended themselves to public favour. There was only one means which kept them alive. The secret of their vitality was their possession of property[227], and as that melted away the companies were found dropping out of existence. For being deprived of their real essence they had nothing to recommend them. Even the Show degenerated into a public scandal, and the companies, like their annual pageant, at length died, one by one, unnoticed and unregretted[228].

Return to organisation.

Yet there was arising, even at the time when the old companies were being destroyed, a movement in favour of some return to organisation and regulation. Organisation indeed seems to have been a characteristic of the English people at all stages of their history. The Saxons had their Frith Gilds and their Monks’ Gilds; the English of the Middle Ages had their Merchant, Religious, Social, and Craft Gilds; in the sixteenth century they had their Trade Societies, the direct and in many cases the little-altered successors of the Craft Gilds. Then came the larger Regulated Companies, which also had some features in common with the mediæval Gilds, more with the sixteenth century societies. The main differences between the earlier associations and those of a later date lay in the avowed motive of confederacy and in the nature of the influence they exercised. The ostensible motive of the Gilds was the general welfare: in the case of the companies it was individual gain. The influence of the Gilds may be called a healthy social and moral influence[229]; that of the post-reformation companies in the towns was in the main directed to selfish and political ends[230].

New organisations, adapted to altered conditions of life and new modes of thought, resembling and yet differing from the Gilds, were now to arise and take the place of the companies as these had taken the place of the mediæval fraternities. The growth of these however will be beyond the scope of the present essay.