CHAPTER VIII.
THE IRONMONGERS’ CHARITIES AND CHARITABLE IRONMONGERS.
Citizenship is the birthright of every man, but it is not every man who is worthy of the name of citizen. What makes the honourable distinction all the more valuable is when “a citizen of no mean city,” and the true representative of “a nation of shopkeepers,” so truly values his rights and privileges as to be ever ready to come forward when occasion requires to protect it from the ignorance and contamination of those whose only design must be to overthrow its virtues for the sake of personal gains. It was Lord Chancellor Selborne who some years ago publicly declared that his ancestors for four generations had been connected with one of the City Guilds, and he had never been ashamed of anything either of those ancestors had done, and never regretted his own connection with the City or its Companies. And another eminent man of earlier days most emphatically declared, “I would rather be born of the basest and meanest of mankind, and rise to fame and distinction by my own exertions, than that, being born of noble ancestry and high degree, I should bring disgrace on an exalted name, and cross with a bar sinister the proud escutcheon of my father’s house.”
To the humble traders of old London their richer brethren left their trusts, their charities, and their blessings. Their estates had been obtained by hard work and hard-earned money in a great many instances, and having been associated with the zealous and careful men of their own Guilds they left to them the carrying out of the designs expressed in their wills. No one would have left to a Government department such a trust then, and no one will do so now.
The Government inspector, in his evidence before the Companies Commission, declared that he considered William Thwaytes’ bequest of 20,000l. “to make the Society comfortable”—and that Society was the Clothworkers’ Company, to which he belonged some half a century ago—really meant “to make the traders comfortable”! Or that every clothworker in the kingdom—shall we say the world?—ought to participate. On the same principle, if a workman in a shop left “to the workmen in the shop” 5l., every shop in that trade should have its share. Pray what would be the value of the bequest?
The City Companies, as we have shown in the history of the Ironmongers, had a terribly uphill battle to fight with early monarchy. Whenever there was a chance to rob the citizens, down pounced the Government or Royalty. Henry VIII. commenced by dissolving the religious houses, and the good King Edward VI. seized the properties left to the Companies by the wills of benefactors on the plea that they were for superstitious uses. Having taken possession he was glad enough to sell the property back to them, so that he made a very profitable business of the transaction. The result of this “clever” and “sharp” practice was that the Ironmongers had to sell their private property to buy back the trust estate. Having done this, is it not creditable to a City Company to be still administering that trust of which the King himself had originally deprived them?
Coming down to more modern times, Thomas Betton, Hoxton Square, Shoreditch, left the Ironmongers’ Company, in 1723, the residue of his estate for the purpose of redeeming slaves in Barbary. Other notable citizens had done a similar good deed before then, for so long previous as 1641 Roger Abdy, merchant, had left 120l. “for or towards the ransoming and redeeming of sixe poore English Protestant captives out of the bondage and slavery of the Turks.” Thomas Betton’s bequest was a noble one, for just about the date of it all the world was suffering from the terrors of slavery. Between 1734 and 1825 the Company appears to have paid away in redemption money something like 21,000l., or as much as the whole estate had been originally worth, but the Ironmongers, having been good trustees, had “improved” the estate, and the result was that after Lord Exmouth’s great victory, no more slaves being likely to be redeemable, and there being a large balance at the bank, the Company desired to utilise the surplus for the benefit of charity, reserving a certain sum per annum for future redemptions and contingencies. This was serious, so down came the Government and popped the whole into Chancery. The Company believed they were right, and did not want the interference; but they had to fight against the Crown, and from 1829 to 1845 did the battle last. Several thousands of pounds did Government law cost the charity, but that the Company was right is evident, because the highest tribunal, the House of Lords, decided that what the Company had proposed so many years before should now be carried out—bequests to the poor of the company and to every national school in the kingdom.
The Ironmongers’ charities are not so extensive as many of the other City Guilds’, but they represent a variety of really good and seasonable benefactions. Among these are two almshouse foundations (Geffery and Lewen), scholarships to schools and exhibitions to universities, a small free school in Cornwall, the poor of the City wards, loans to poor young freemen to help them on in life, bequests to hospitals, to poor maids upon their marriage, to poor prisoners in debt, to the poor freemen and their widows, to poor ministers and clergy, to the national schools of the kingdom, &c. The charity trusts amount to about 12,000l. a year, half of which, being from rents, have of late years fluctuated. The Company does not possess any ecclesiastical patronage, except the appointment of a chaplain, who is also the minister to the almshouse poor. There was a priest of the company 400 years ago, but the present chaplain, the Rev. H. M. Baker, is the fourteenth since 1715, when the first appointment to the almshouses in the Kingsland Road was made.
Through the changes of the times and the “compulsory” sales by Act of Parliament for modern improvements, some of the old property has changed hands and new property has been purchased. This has been specially the case under the Geffery and Betton trusts, and round about East and West Ham and the Isle of Dogs. The Company now possesses houses and premises in Old Street, St. Luke’s (Mitchell), Basinghall Street, Philpot Lane, and Fleet Street. It also possesses the site of the famous New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, where the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon first preached when he came to London; also, farms in the counties of Bucks, Essex, and Surrey. When in the good old times—so says a newspaper in July, 1769—the Company went on tour to view their Essex estate, they “held their annual feast at the Devil’s House” (now Duval’s House), near East Ham, a house of entertainment at that date. The sign of the house is suggestive to the disciples of St. Dunstan. In recent years two great districts have grown up in and around East and West Ham—Beckton, which takes its name from the worthy clerk of the Company (S. Adams Beck), who died in 1883, and Silvertown, from a recent Master of the Ironmongers’ Company (S. W. Silver), who has proved most energetic in promoting the Company’s welfare. One word more about the old estates. The great fire of London of 1666 burnt down nearly all the City property of the Companies, and the loss to the Ironmongers was serious. Fortunately, the Hall was saved.
Charitable Ironmongers, whether we view them as donors of land, of houses, of plate, or other things, or for the time they have given towards promoting the welfare of the Company, have been in many ways worthy benefactors to the City and the citizens. We have been curious in one inquiry—to what extent the donations of some classes of plate have been made, and we find that in the 400 years ending 1865 “brother” Ironmongers have given twenty-nine silver gilt cups and covers, many very large and valuable, seventeen basins and ewers, and seven salts; besides many other descriptions of plate, such as silver spoons, ornaments, candlesticks, and the like. Of course, the Company does not possess all the valuables now. Our former Monarchy, who had the citizens’ welfare so much at heart, took good care (as we have already shown) not to allow these valuables to remain too long in the hands of “the City Fathers,” and so to-day the Ironmongers have but a small collection of plate. When the charitable Ironmongers left these cups for their brethren “to make themselves comfortable,” whether at a dinner or other feast, they never thought that their radically-inclined descendants would object to the good old English greeting: “The Master and Wardens drink to you in a loving cup, and bid you all a hearty welcome.”