The sympathies of the Company at this crisis in the national history are sufficiently evidenced by an entry in the Court-Book for 1687, subscribed by thirty-seven names: “Now whose names are hereunder subscribed doe declare that noe fforeigne prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or Authority Ecclesiasticall or Spirituall within this Realme. Soe help me God.”
During the struggle which led to the deposition of James II, a very leading part was taken by Sir Thomas Pilkington, Master in 1677 and 1681. He was elected M.P. for the City of London in 1679, and again in 1680 and 1689. He was Sheriff in 1681, and was very conspicuous in his opposition to the Court party at the election of his successor in the following year. Before steps could be taken against him for his conduct on this occasion, he had already, in November, 1682, been sent to prison, where he remained until June, 1686, for words spoken in disparagement of the Duke of York. On being tried, while a prisoner, for his behaviour at the election of Sheriffs, he was again convicted and fined, but this judgment was set aside by the House of Lords in 1689. He and others, including Roger Kemp, the donor of the Leopard snuff-box, were removed from the Court of the Company at the instance of the Crown, but by Order in Council of September 25th, 1687, they were ordered to be re-admitted, and those who had been substituted for them to be displaced: which was carried out by order of the Court on the 15th October, 1687. He had been Alderman of Farringdon Without since 1680, but removed to Vintry in 1688; and on the death of Sir John Chapman, the Lord Mayor, in March, 1689, he was elected to succeed him for the remainder of the year. Such was the esteem in which he was held, that he was re-elected at the end of the year, and again for a third year. On his becoming Lord Mayor, the King and Queen were present at his banquet, together with the Prince and Princess of Denmark (afterwards Queen Anne), and most of the dignitaries of the Kingdom and foreign representatives. The Company provided a pageant on his re-election in 1689; and so enthusiastic were his colleagues in the Company that, on his second re-election to the Mayoralty, the Court, on November 25th, 1690, passed a resolution which, after setting out various claims which he had to their gratitude, proceeded as follows:—“This Cot therefore, well weighing the p’misses and calling to minde his Lopps sufferings by the excessive ffines and exorbitant veredicts formerly given against him, meerly for the faithfull discharge of his duty and trust when Sheriffe of this Citty, and opposeing the arbitrary and popish designs then carrying on for the subversion and totall overthrow of the Lawes and Established Religion of the Kingdom, and that his Lopp by his wise and prudent government of this Citty for ye yeare last past (being a yeare of extraordinary difficulty) hath done great service to their Maties, the Nation, and the Citty. This Cort did and hereby doe unanimously agree to pr’sent his Lopp with the use of the Hall for the yeare ensueing. And did alsoe agree that the Master and Wardens and the body of all the Assistants of the Worpll Company now prsent should immediately attend Sr. Thomas Pilkington, Knight, the prsent Lord Maior, and acquaint his Lopp with their Order and acknowledgement, and likewise to returne his Lopp their hearty thankes for the good service he hath done their Maties, the Nation, and this Citty in his Lopps last yeares prudent and good Governmt thereof.” Lord Mayor Pilkington’s picture, painted at this time by order of the Court, still hangs in the Court-Room.
In 1689, the honorary freedom was presented to the Earl of Monmouth (Master in the following year), Sir Rowland Gwyn, the Earl of Portland, and Lord Sydney; and on Nov. 12th, 1689, it was “Ordered that the Mar and Wardens (and others) be desired as a Comm’ee to joyne with the Right Honorable the Lord Mayor and the other Honorary Members of this Compa to attend on their Maities when the noble persons aforesaid shall appoint to prsent them with the copyes of their Freedomes, each in a Box of Gold, of which the Mar, Wardens, and Commee aforesaid were desired and ordered to provide the same.” This was followed up by the following order on Nov. 5th, 1690:—“Ordered that boxes of gold to ye value of £60 prsented to their Maties with their ffreedomes, and that the Rt Honble the Mr (the Earl of Monmouth) be acquainted with it, and that the Wardens attend his Lopp touching the same and to follow his Lopps direc’con therein.”
The time of the Court was not entirely occupied with matters of state. On June 25th, 1689, the following entry occurs:—“Mr Glover (Thomas Glover, the executor of Lewis Newbury, the founder of the almshouses at Mile End) appeared and complayned of diverse great disorders com’itted by severall of the Pen’coners or Almesffellowes in the Almshouses at Mile End of the erec’con of Mr. Lewis Newberry, perticularly of the Wid: Barrett, her unruly sons sometimes comeing in at unseasonable houres and lodgeing there, and of an impudent girle of ill Fame wch Tho. Row employs there; likewise of others selling ale on Sabbath daies after sermon, namely Goodwife Dawson and Wid: Carver. All which were respectively called in and their sevrall misbehaviours reprsented to them and rebuked for it; but upon their promise of amendmt for the future (and this being the first complt against them), the Court was pleased to pardon their sevrall offences at prsent.” This warning seems to have been only partially successful, for on Dec. 11th, 1696, the following further entry appears:—“This Cort being informed that the widow Carver and the widow Goodwin, who inhabit in the almeshouses at Mile End, did sell strong water and ale, haveing been cautioned agt the same, yett nevertheless do still persist therein. Itt was therefore ordered they should have notice given them that unless they discontinue their practice in a week’s time from the date hereof, they shall bee removed from their almeshouses and penc’ons.”
After the close of the seventeenth century, the matters recorded are of less interest, and the troubles of the Company were of a minor order. Thus, in July, 1738, “Mr. Thomas Zachary acquainted this Comee that he had casually dropt out of the Bag the little keys of this Compays small iron chest wherein the Seal of this Company was put, and also the Key of the Poors Box, whereupon this Comee sent for Mr. Cooke, the Smith, and directed him to break open the said small Chest and Poors Box, which was done in their presence, and the Seal of this Company and the other things therein contained was taken out of the small iron chest, and also twelve pounds fifteen shillings and six pence out of the Poors Box, and were put into a bag and sealed up by this Comee and lockt up in this Compas large iron chest untill such time as the Smith could mend the Locks and make new keys to the said chest and Poors box, which they ordered him forthwith to do.”
The Honorary Members elected in the eighteenth century were:—in 1766, H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland; in 1767, the Rt. Hon. C. Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer; in 1794, Earl Howe, Admiral of England.
The Honorary Members elected in the nineteenth century were:—in 1834, Viscount Strangford, a descendant of Sir Andrew Judd; in 1861, Lord Clyde; in 1877, the late Earl of Dartmouth, a descendant of Sir Thomas Legge; in 1878, T. G. Kensit, Esq., Clerk of the Company, 1828–1878; in 1886, Sir Saul Samuel, Agent-General for New South Wales (on the occasion of the Colonial Exhibition); in 1893, the present Earl of Dartmouth; in 1895, the Rt. Hon. A. W. Peel, Speaker of the House of Commons, afterwards Viscount Peel, and the Most Rev. E. W. Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury; in 1896, the Most Rev. W. Alexander, Archbishop of Armagh, an old Tonbridge scholar; in 1897, the Rt. Hon. W. C. Gully, Speaker of the House of Commons, afterwards Viscount Selby; in 1900, General the Rt. Hon. Sir Redvers Buller.
Since the commencement of the present century the following have been elected:—in 1905, the Most Revd. R. Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earl of Cromer; in 1906, the Rt Hon. J. W. Lowther, Speaker of the House of Commons, and Viscount Milner.
The later decade of the nineteenth century, and especially the last twenty-five years, have constituted a period of great activity and progress on the part of the Company, especially in the direction of education; and it has been a matter of great satisfaction to the Company to see the number of young persons, trained up under their direction, increased from the two hundred, or fewer, boys, educated at Tonbridge School so late as the early ’eighties, to approximately 1,100, distributed over four schools, of which the second in point of date was opened so recently as 1887. Out of the 1,100, nearly 400 are girls.
These schools are, in addition to Tonbridge School, of which the numbers now exceed four hundred, the Commercial School at Tonbridge, also on Sir Andrew Judd’s Foundation, opened in 1888; the Company’s Middle School for Boys at Tunbridge Wells, opened in 1887; and the Company’s Middle School for Girls at Stamford Hill, opened in 1890. Important buildings have been erected at all these new schools. The rebuilding and enlargement from time to time of Tonbridge School have been already mentioned.