From the Livery one is chosen annually by the Court, on Corpus Christi Day, to serve as Renter Warden for the year ensuing. The Renter Warden was in former years the Bursar of the Company. He received the rents and made the payments. He had the charge of the moveable property of the Company, and was responsible for all. In return for this, certain of the Company’s benefactors directed small annual payments to the Renter Warden. The Renter Warden still checks over the plate of the Company on taking office, but his responsible duties are now discharged by the salaried officers of the Company, under the directions of the Court and its committees. At the end of the Skinners’ year, i.e., on the following Corpus Christi Day, it is usual for the retiring Renter Warden to be elected to the Court, and through the following year he acts as junior member, without office. The following year he is elected third Warden, the next second Warden, the next first Warden, and then Master; so that in six years from his election as Renter Warden he has passed the Chair, and goes to the bottom of the Assistants, with only his own ex-Renter Warden below him.
The ancient officers of the Company are the Clerk and the two Beadles, the Clerk being the trusted and chief executive official, while the Beadles discharge duties of a humbler character. To these have been added, in more recent times, the Solicitor, the Surveyor, and the Accountant.
On Corpus Christi Day the Election Court is held at noon, the members being arranged round the horseshoe table in their usual order: that is to say, the Master in the Chair at the head of the table, with the Clerk at his right hand. Beyond him, the four Wardens in order of precedence. The Master and Wardens alone wear their gowns at this and all other meetings of the Court. On the Master’s left hand the Senior Assistant sits, and beyond him, and round the outside and inside of both branches of the table, come the remaining Assistants, more or less in order of seniority, though this is not strictly adhered to. After the Minutes of the previous meeting have been read, the first Warden is nominated for the Mastership by a member, and leaves the room. Another member is nominated in competition with him, and after the first Warden has been elected on a show of hands, he is called back into the Court-Room, and returns his thanks. The same course is adopted with the retiring second and third Wardens and the Renter Warden of the year before, who are respectively elected first, second, and third Wardens. Then follows the election of most interest—that of the new Renter Warden, who is to join the Court for the first time. Subject to the rule incapacitating more than two near relatives from membership at the same time, any member of the livery is eligible after the completion of seven years of membership, and of these some will have been nominated by various members of the Court in the previous March. The selection between these is made by ballot, the name or names having the fewest votes being removed from the list at each round, so that the final result represents the general sense of the Court as nearly as possible. After this, it is usual for the retiring Renter Warden to be elected to the Court. The various committees are then appointed, and the annual re-election of Officers follows. Shortly after 2 p.m., the Court, and such of the livery as are able to attend, preceded by the Beadles with their staves, and by the Clerk, and accompanied by the Preacher, proceed through the streets to the Church of St. Mary, Aldermary (since the demolition of St. Antholin’s), where a service is performed and the annual sermon delivered by the Preacher, who is selected by the Master, and is usually a highly-placed ecclesiastic, sometimes of episcopal—or even archiepiscopal—rank.
In the evening the traditional election banquet takes place in the Company’s Hall, in Dowgate Hill. The Master has on his right the four outgoing Wardens, in order of precedence, and next to them the third and Renter Wardens elect. On his left are the Guests of the Company, and the remaining seats are occupied by the Court and Livery, all of whom are invited. When dinner is over, and the loyal toasts have been honoured, the doors of the hall are thrown open to the strains of music, and a procession enters, headed by the musicians, who are followed by ten Christ’s Hospital boys, representing the ten scholars formerly nominated by the Company under the will of Mr. Stoddard (1611). Then come ten of the junior Liverymen, each carrying alternately one of the five Cokayne cups, referred to later on, or one of the election caps, and after them the two Beadles with their staves, and the Clerk. The procession marches round the hall from left to right, and halts when the first of the Liverymen comes opposite the Master for the second time. The Master then takes from him the first cap and, after trying it vainly on the heads of some of the chief Guests, fits it successfully on the Master-elect, to whom he then drinks from the first of the five cups. Then the music strikes up, and the procession moves round the hall again, till a circuit has been completed, when another halt is called, and the first, second, and third Wardens elect are successively capped and pledged. Then follows another circuit of the procession, and a similar recognition of the Renter-elect, after which the procession resumes its march, and leaves the hall. As each of the five Elect is capped, he returns to his seat, wearing the cap, the retiring Renter Warden making way for the third and Renter Wardens elect to pass above him. After an interval, the caps are laid aside, and the Master proceeds to propose the health of the Master-elect, and after his response the ordinary proceedings are resumed.
The Cokayne cups bear the date-mark of 1565, and passed to the Company under the will, dated 1598, of Mr. William Cokayne. Each stands 16½ in. high, and is in the form of a silver-gilt cock standing on a tortoise, the head of the cock being removable. Ever since the cups came into the possession of the Company they have been used at the election banquet, in pursuance of an engagement entered into by the Company at the time of the bequest becoming operative. Their value must be very great. The workmanship is somewhat delicate, and repairs have had to be executed from time to time. Thus, Renter Warden’s account, 1661–2:—
“Paid Jacob Boddendicke for makeing a new tayle for one of the cockes and refreshing 3 other cockes and mending their tayles and one of the cases—005–10–00.”
The actual change of office does not take place until the Swearing-in Court, held on the Thursday following Corpus Christi. At that Court the outgoing Master takes the Chair, having a second similar Chair on his left hand, and the outgoing Wardens in their usual places on his right. After the Minutes of the Election Court have been read, the new Master makes his declaration, and takes the Chair, the ex-Master moving into the vacant Chair placed for him. Then the Senior Past-Master heads a procession round the Court-Room, the other members falling into their places as the procession moves on, the Wardens coming last, and so they file past the two Chairs, offering congratulations to the new Master, and condolences to his predecessor. Then the three senior Wardens elect make their declarations simultaneously, and proceed past the Master, ex-Master, and Senior Member, and round the room, to receive the felicitations of their colleagues. Then the new Renter Warden is called into the room, and goes through the same process. As the Master and Wardens make their declarations, to which all the members present listen standing, they assume their gowns, which, as already stated, they alone wear habitually throughout the sittings of the Court, though not in Committees. Then the ex-Renter Warden makes his declaration as a Member of the Court. The two Beadles are present. Then follows the reading of a selection from the Ordinances of the Company, after which a vote of thanks to the ex-Master for his “prudent government of the Company during the past year” is proposed, carried, and responded to, and the proceedings then follow a normal course. At the banquet in the evening the new Master is in the Chair, having the ex-Master in a similar Chair at his left hand. The latter’s health is proposed in the course of the evening, after which his retirement is complete. At this banquet the Master and Wardens wear their badges for the first time, of which the Master’s badge was provided by the Company in 1874–5, and the Wardens’ badges have been presented since by various Past-Masters.
The “othe of the newe maister and wardeyns the morowe after the day of corporis X’pi,” as taken in the fifteenth century, is worthy of note. “Ye shall swere that ye shalbe true liegemen unto oure liege lorde the Kyng, and to his heyres Kyngs; ye shall be indifferent jugis betwene party and party, withoute favoure, love, or affeccion, and withoute malice or any evill will to any parsone or parsons: all maner ordenances and good rules that bene made or shall be made for the wele of this craft of Skynners ye shall truly execute and kepe; ye shall not breke any of the ordenances made by ye comyn assente and hole agreement of all the XVI of thys Companye wtoute ye hoole agrement of alle or of ye most part of ye same XVI. All these thyngs ye shall truly observe and kepe; so help you God and all seyntes, and by the boke; and kys ye hyt.”
The old custom was that the Lord Mayor of London acted as Chief Butler at the Coronation of a Sovereign, assisted by a representative of each of the twelve great Companies. John Pasmer, Pellipar, represented the Skinners’ Company in this way at the Coronation of Richard III, in 1483; and so recently as the Coronation of George IV, in 1821, the Company was similarly represented by Mr. Thomas Moore, who was Master of the Company at the time of that King’s accession to the throne.
The Company has in its possession a complete list of the Masters from 1485 downwards. A few only of the earlier Masters can be identified. Thus, John Penne is described as Master of the Company in 1409 in a deed of that year, and William Newenham as Master in 1434 in a will of that date.