Also for evˀy searche for the name of evˀy freman or appˀntice iiijd.
Also for evˀy pˀson that is taken into the livˀy iijs. iiijd.
Also for evˀy pˀson that is taken into the Assistantꝭ iiijs. iiijd.
All wch ordinancꝭ and allowances were ratiefied & confirmed by this Court.
6th July, 1609. Uppon the humble suite & petic͠on of ffrancꝭ Rowdon Clarke to this Company It is this daye ordered by this Courte that wthin one moneth next ensuinge hee shall noĩat to the pˀnt Mrs a sufficient Clarke to whom hee is desyreous to surrender his place and office of Clark to this Company And his suite shalbe graunted unto him if such pˀson so to be pˀnted unto this Court shalbe lyked and allowed.
26th July, 1609. Rowdon presented Richard Ratsdale, Scrivener, for the office of Clerk, about whose sufficiency and ability enquiries were ordered to be made, but they were not satisfactory, for, on the 10th August, William Syddon was elected Clerk vice Rowdon.
The same day it was ordered that Rowdon was to continue in the Livery and to have the use of the Hall and his house until Michaelmas, also that Syddon was to be translated from the Cutlers’ Company.
Syddon’s records of the Company’s business were very meagre and a great contrast to those of the former Clerk.
7th October, 1625. Syddon surrendered his clerkship to Richard Turner (a son of Cressens Turner, Clerk in the Lord Mayor’s Court), who was admitted and sworn. Turner died in 1643, and by his will left some property to the Company to be annually distributed in charity amongst freemen of the Barber-Surgeons, and this became the source of a protracted litigation between his widow and the Company. On the 17th November, 1643, she filed a bill against the Company, which they defended, and succeeded in retaining the greater portion of the bequest. The accounts appear to have been very intricate and involved, remaining unsettled for many years. The Court, however, distributed the whole of the bequest in accordance with the will, as long as the estate (which was leasehold) held out.