The hall has a lofty, carved roof of wood, and a sombre, rich appearance from its antique furniture and numerous old portraits. There is a sky-light in the roof, which may have served to cast light on bodies dissected on the great table below. In old times the barbers and surgeons formed but one company; but we believe that the latter alone now claim the possession of this hall (one of the oldest now standing in London, and the work of Inigo Jones), although, in official nomenclature, they still retain the double title of barber-surgeons. Close by Monkwell Street is shown a dilapidated Elizabethan row of almshouses, erected by a pious and charitable alderman for six poor men. Their successors and representatives still enjoy the founder’s bounty, but the almshouses are now choked up by a network of unwholesome streets, and the funds of the institution, which have enormously increased in relative value, remain in the hands of the trustees. The number of those who, under different names, belong to the fraternity of goldsmiths, is, at a rough calculation, nearly eight hundred, exclusive of watchmakers who are also jewellers. Indeed, in the country these two trades are always joined, and even many shops of this mixed kind are found in London.
The Fishmongers were the fourth of the incorporated companies, ranking just before the goldsmiths. At one time they were the wealthiest and most powerful; but although they existed and flourished as a civic association long before they obtained a regular charter, they referred the latter privilege to no earlier date than 1433. The inherent spirit of division and local jealousy which seems to animate all bodies
corporate, whether political, commercial, or artistic, caused the fishmongers punctiliously to keep asunder and form two separate companies—that of the salt-fishmongers (which had the earliest charter), and that of the stock-fishmongers, whose letters-patent were not granted till 1509. In Catholic times, of course, the consumption of fish was great among all classes, and its sale a very important business. The salt-fishmongers naturally had the largest trade, and at one period so great was the influence of their company that it gave to the city six lord-mayors in the space of twenty-four years. The last and most famous of these was Sir William Walworth, who in 1381, under Richard II., slew the rebel Wat Tyler with his own hand, in the market-place at Smithfield, when that leader was at the head of thirty thousand rebels. The king knighted him for this act of prowess—a far different cause for the honor from that which is so indulgently thought sufficient now, i.e., the accident of a royal visit during a mayor’s term of office, irrespective of any merit in the holder of the office.
The glory and power of the fishmongers stirred up the envy and ill-will of their fellow-citizens, and Walworth’s successor, John of Northampton, a draper of an imperious and turbulent character, well known in his day by the popular titles of Troubletown and Cumbertown, was able to array the interest of several rival companies against the too prosperous fishmongers, and to procure from the crown leave for foreigners (meaning strangers or persons not freemen) to sell fish in London, in violation of the company’s right of monopoly. Maitland even records that he
made the company acknowledge that its occupation was “no craft, and was therefore unworthy of being reckoned among the other mysteries.” It was also enacted that for the future no lord-mayor should be chosen from among the fishmongers. But the credit of the fishmongers revived as soon as John of Northampton’s term of office ended, and the company was soon restored by Parliament to all its old rights and privileges, except the right of holding courts for the trial of complaints. This was transferred to the supreme city court, that of the lord-mayor himself. In 1536 the two companies of salt and stock fishmongers were incorporated into one by Henry VIII. under the title of “The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Fishmongers.”
After the Reformation the sale of fish diminished so as to endanger the trade of the company, and a curious act of Parliament was passed in 1563, under Elizabeth, enjoining the exclusive use of fish on Wednesdays and Saturdays, “as well for the maintenance of shipping, the increase of fishermen and mariners, and the repairing of port-towns, as for the sparing and increase of the flesh victual of the realm.” The cases excepted, of course, were those of sickness, and of ability and willingness to pay for a license to eat flesh-meat on those days. The fine for disobeying the law was £3 for each offence, and the licenses of exemption cost for a peer £1 6s. and 8d., for a knight and a gentleman 13s. and 4d., for the commonalty 6s. and 8d. Even the license, however, only authorized the eating of mutton and fowl, not beef; but that there might be no mistake as to the motive of this odd, restrictive law—so like the sumptuary
laws, and almost as unavailing—this clause was added:
“But because no person shall misjudge the intent of this statute, be it enacted that whoever shall, by preaching, teaching, writing, or open speech, notify that any eating of fish, or forbearing of flesh, mentioned in this statute, is of any necessity for the soul of man, or that it is the service of God, otherwise than as other politic laws are and be, then such persons shall be punished as spreaders of false news ought to be.”
It is probable that this regulation failed of its effect, for a subsequent statute again renewed the prohibition, though limiting it to Saturdays only; still, the concession was but partial, for the sale of flesh was forbidden on Fridays and Saturdays and during all Lent.
There were three streets in the city named after the Fishmongers’ Company—Old Fish Street, New Fish Street, and Fishmonger Row, now called Thames Street. In each of these the two original companies had each one hall, making no less than six halls for the whole guild; but on their fusion they chose one in Thames Street for their common hall, since which time there have been three successive buildings on or about the same spot. The first, a very old one, originally the gift of Sir John Cornwall, Lord Franhope, was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, and soon after Sir Christopher Wren built them another, famed for a magnificent double flight of stone stairs on the wharf. According to old historians, those were the times when the Strand was an open road, bordered sparsely with pleasant houses, having large gardens down to the river’s edge. This hall was taken down about 1830 to make room for the approaches of the new London Bridge, and the present hall was built just a little to the west of the