A Short History of the Worshipful Company of Horners

by H. G. Rosedale

Favourite Inns.

During the eighteenth and first part of the nineteenth century the favourite inns selected for the annual dinner seem to have been the “Crown and Sceptre” at Greenwich, the “Plough,” or “Folly House,” Blackwall, the “Star and Garter,” Richmond, and, in much later days, the “North and South American Coffee House,” which latter, however, was probably used more for the ordinary meetings of the Company than for the annual dinner.

Aldgate the Horners’ Home.

It is a little difficult to define the area in which the Horners of London were originally located, but it may be somewhat vaguely described as the district of Aldgate. Many were the streets and alleys to which Horners have given a name, and one well-known Horn Alley was, until a comparatively late date, to be found on the East side of Bishopsgate Street, and in Korneman’s book on “Old Street Signs and Tablets” is an allusion to one with the following inscription:—“This is Horn Alley, 1670.” In Stow’s “Survey of London,” 1633, the following passage occurs:—“I read in the 26th of Henry VI (1447), that in the parish of St. Dunstan’s in the East a tenement called Horners Key was granted to William Harrington, Esq.” Doubtless this alludes to a building used by the Horners for the purposes of their trade, at a time when all was couleur de rose with them, and it is extremely likely that upon further investigation this William Harrington will be found to be the Guardianus or Alderman of the Gild.

The warehouses of the Gild.

Time, however, brought its changes, and when, in 1603-4, the Horners’ Act was repealed, it would seem likely that they found it either impossible to continue to pay the rent, or, realising that disaster awaited them, may have sold the property, if it were theirs to sell. It is, however, certain that in 1604 the Company leased a house with storehouses and sheds in Wentworth Street, Whitechapel, for the term of 1,000 years at a ground rent of £4. When, in 1789, these premises were no longer required for the use of the trade, which had declined, they were let for £30 a year, and in 1879 were sold to the Metropolitan Board of Works and the money invested on behalf of the Horners’ Company.

Was there a Horners’ Hall?

It has been stated that the Horners’ Company never had a Hall. It is difficult to see quite why this statement has been made, for there is much to make the student of Gild lore think otherwise. The Charter of 1638 expressly provides for one, and, as in every other respect, it simply imposes the absolute conditions then existing, there would seem no reason to doubt that the sum of £40 per annum therein mentioned was the exact value of the property then held. The Bottlemakers would not have joined the Horners had the latter Company not had a hall or meeting place.

As with other Craft Gilds, the Fire of London probably proved very disastrous to the Company, and, no doubt, very little was saved.

The fact that there are hardly any deeds of importance anterior to 1666, that the Old Book of the Company, which has recently been recovered, after wandering so long, ceases to have an entry after 1636, together with the fact that the two or three early deeds which ante-date the Fire of London are in a deplorable condition, as well as the fact that the Company owned a considerable amount of silver plate, which was sold in 1789, makes it not improbable that the Horners, like every other City Gild, had its regular Hall or meeting place.