A Brief History of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, London A.D. 1351-1889 / With an Appendix Containing Some Account of the Blacksmiths' Company

by T. C. Noble

CHAPTER IV.
FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OF THE IRONMONGERS’ HISTORY.—I.

Although Mr. Alderman Cotton, one of the Parliamentary City Companies’ Commissioners, reported five years ago “that the returns made to the Commission show conclusively that the members of the Livery Companies were never exclusively of the trade the name of which was borne by their Company, and that for about 400 years the larger proportion of the members have not pretended to follow the crafts of their Companies,” and that “the Livery Companies are not to be classed with friendly or benevolent societies, with monastic institutions, or with political or other clubs, but rather approached the character of a masonic body, exercising in the past and at the present time a very good and important moral influence not only upon citizens and City life, but upon public life generally,” and foremost in the promotion of education and charitable acts, we shall show that, like many other of the Companies, the Ironmongers’ has never proved indifferent to its particular trade or its kindred associations.

It was contended before the Commissioners in 1882 that the whole of the charters of the Companies are bad because the King parted with his right to grant charters conferring the right of search. Without attempting to enter into the question, or debate the correctness of such an assertion, as only a lawyer could and would in “the good old times,” upon the power of the sovereign to make a grant which has stood the test of centuries, no such right is to be found in either of the Ironmongers’ charters. The records of the Company show that statutory legislation for the protection and regulation of the iron trade was enacted in the reign of Henry IV., Richard III., Henry VIII., and Edward VI., and that on certain occasions this Company have laid abuses of the trade before the Common Council that they might deal therewith, this company not having the power in itself. Amongst its own commonalty only the Ironmongers’ exercised supervision and control of trading, but as none of the trade joined the Company other than of their own free will and for their own good, obedience to such control can only be regarded as voluntary, and not as infringing the liberty of the subject contrary to the provisions of Magna Charta.

We therefore desire in the present chapter, while giving a chronicle of the Ironmongers’ progress during the past 400 years, to show that the old City Guild has a history in many respects peculiarly its own, and that since its incorporation it has frequently proved most valuable to the State, the City, and the people.

And yet the Ironmongers as brethren have had their troubles. Witness the City Sheriff of 1479, Robert Byfield by name and Ironmonger by Company, who, with Sir Bartholomew James, the then Lord Mayor, attended prayers at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and had the audacity to kneel too close to his Civic Majesty. His Lordship chid him for the affront; Mr. Sheriff resented the scolding, and the end of the extraordinary squabble was that the Court of Aldermen tried the case, and fined Mr. Byfield, who, says Stow, “payd 50l. towards the water conduits,” one of which, the great conduit in Cheapside, was then building. Our Sheriff, who resided in Tower Street, did not long survive the trial, for he died in 1482, and by his will proved he was far from being unmindful of religious or charitable influences, for he not only founded a chapel and made many bequests, but did not forget his poorer brethren in Fenchurch Street.

But not alone and personally have the Ironmongers suffered. Our early Monarchs appear to have considered the rich and powerful Citizens a fair field for plunder. While Royalty was privileged to run to excesses, and by extravagance spent the income their loyal subjects provided, the Citizens, because they exercised their moral and more business-like spirit of showing a balance on the right side of the ledger, were made victims of repeated extortions. It is no use denying, and unjust to deny, that our Sovereigns have so loved London as to sacrifice their comfort or their greed by visiting it for other than personal motives, and the records show but too plainly that Royalty in the past has depended upon the wealth of “a nation of shopkeepers” for a constant supply of the “needful.” The Royal draw upon the City purse commenced early in London’s existence, and great has been the loss to the Citizens; and yet to-day there are those who still clamour for the extinction of the very source which has kept the nation alive! Our remarks are not overdrawn, as our proofs are many—too many, in fact, to be detailed at large. One or two must suffice now.

Beginning, then, more than 350 years ago, King Henry VIII. set a bad example to his descendants. Having asked the City for 20,000l.—only as a loan, of course—in the year 1523, he, the more readily to raise it, “comandyed to have all the money and platt that was belonging to every hawlle or craft,” and so the poor Ironmongers had to pay up among the other Companies. The book sorrowfully records, “At the whyche comandmentt he had all oure money,” and that amounting to only 25l. 1s. 2d., the plate was pawned or sold, realising 46l. more, or a total of 71l. 14s. 2d.; and even then, not being satisfied, twenty of the richest members of the Company “lent” him out of their own pockets something like 190l., “Mr. Willm Denham oure Warden” heading the list with 30l. We hope he was repaid, but we doubt it.

The King having obtained this “little loan” so easily did not forget to be “a suitor” to the City again; but the next time the Ironmongers went to the Pawnbrokers was in 1544, when they “layd to plege, the xxij. day of May,” their ewers, salts, and cups, to provide “xiiij. men in harnes to goe over the see wᵗʰ the Kyngs army in to France, that was iiij. bowmen and x. byll men” fully equipped for service. Now we do not intend to quote every occasion when the Sovereign borrowed money, but a few selected cases will tell the tale. In 1575 a precept from the Lord Mayor commanded the Company to assist the Queen’s demand by paying 60l., coolly adding, “if youe have not soe moche in store then you shale borrowe the same at ynterest at thonly costs and lossis of yoʳ hall.” Next year the Queen commanded the City to raise and hold in readiness for her 140,000l., and a few years later, in 1588, the celebrated Armada year, when every county in England lent its thousands to assist in the defence of the nation, and the Companies of the City advanced 51,900l., we find the Ironmongers’ proportion was 2,300l. (“The City Guilds Subscription Lists,” in “The Western Antiquary,” May, 1888), raised among fourteen of the wealthiest members. In 1598 the Queen’s Privy Council sent for 20,000l. more, and the Ironmongers lent 880l. In 1614, the treasury being empty, and Parliament dissolved, the King asked for 100,000l.; but the City was far from prosperous that year. Government demands, the Ulster and Virginia plantations, and other calls had drained the City purse; and it was only after several meetings that the Ironmongers obliged His Majesty by making “a benevolence” of 179l. And when, in 1620, another demand was made, and the Company granted 170l., the members were compelled for a time to be so economical that not only were all their dinners stopped, but they actually fined each other so that the current expenses could be paid. And still the obnoxious and oppressive precepts poured in. In 1627, in 1628, in 1630, the citizens were truly “dearly beloved” to the King, and when, in 1640 and 1642, the Parliamentary demands for another trifling “loan” of 100,000l. made matters more and more disheartening, the Ironmongers were forced to part with 3,400l., and another advance a little later made the Government a debtor to the Company in the year 1652 of no less a sum than 9,536l. 3s. 7d. If we calculate what was owing to the other Corporations at the same time at only half this sum each, is it to be wondered at that there were civil wars, or that the extravagances of the “Merry Monarch” and his saintly brother James brought about in succession the shutting up of the Exchequer and the revolution of two centuries ago?

The Ironmongers had all along proved to be such true friends to the State that they found out to their cost, and too late, that they had not been true to themselves. Their account with the Government and their Royal masters of fifty years before still remained unsettled, and to so low a pitch had their exchequer fallen that in 1691 they were again compelled to pawn their plate for 253l., and no longer trust to the promises or bonds of their debtors. And so, striking off the balance of 5,000l. as a bad debt, they determined in future to trust only those who were trustworthy. But even the loss or money, and having to pawn their plate and valuables, were not their only troubles. The harassing demands of the State at times were so oppressive that it makes us wonder the City did not revolt sooner than it did and shut its gates to tyranny as Derry did in 1688. Only one example of oppression need I give here. In 1675 the Hearth Tax collector called in Fenchurch Street and demanded 4l. 16s. for “chimney money” for two empty houses, belonging to the Company, then standing between the present Queen Victoria and Thames Streets. The Ironmongers declined to pay the demand, whereupon (says the record) “he (the collector) did, wᵗʰ his consorts and constable, goe upp into the hall and took away one of the Company’s salts.” This was distressing with a vengeance, everyone will admit, and, notwithstanding that we think empty houses to-day should pay their share of taxation and thus lighten parochial rates, we do not advocate the sharp practice of King Charles’s collector.