Charles II., by charter (dated 20th October, 26 Charles II.), reciting and confirming the preceding charters, granted, upon the humble petition of the master and wardens of the Company, the oversight and government of all and singular persons, whether freemen of the said mystery, or using or occupying the same within the City of London, or within four miles of the same, together with very extensive powers and privileges for exercising the oversight, search, and measurement of all and all manner of timber, timber stuff, and materials, and the works and workmanship thereto within the before-mentioned limits.
In 1666 an Act of Parliament was passed ordering brick building in place of wood, and all carpenters, etc., not freemen of the City employed in the building were, for the space of seven years, to be allowed the liberty of working as freemen, and all who should so help for seven years were to enjoy the same liberty for their lives. In 1693 an Act of Common Council was passed by which all persons carrying on the trade of carpentry in the City of London were compelled to bind their apprentices to the Carpenters Company.
The Company is now governed by a master, three wardens, and a varying number of assistants.
The livery numbers 150. The hall in Throgmorton Avenue was built when the old hall at London Wall was taken down in 1876. The Corporate Income of the Company is £16,000 and the Trust Income is £1180.
GROUP IV
The next group is a triangle, of which Bishopsgate Street and Fenchurch Street are two sides. It is a part of very considerable interest, though not so full of history as Cheapside or Thames Street. It contains the great market of Leadenhall Street, which is itself a continuation of that market which extended eastward from West Chepe to the Poultry, to Cornhill, to Gracechurch Street or Grass Street, and so to Leadenhall, the distributing market of London, and from London to the country. Its financial centre was Lombard Street before the Exchange was built. At two points it had a City gate; it had three monastic houses, St. Helen’s, The Papey, and the Holy Trinity; it has been for three hundred years especially a Jewish quarter; it had the East India Houses one after the other, and it has within its borders the most ancient church in the City, that of St. Ethelburga, with three other churches which were not destroyed by the Fire.
Fenchurch Street.—The origin of the name has been generally accepted as from a supposed situation in a marsh or fen. According to Stow, “of a fenny or moorish ground, so made by means of this borne”—“Langborne.” We may admit the fenny ground, but we are not obliged to admit the existence of a stream here. Maitland, who loves to be precise, says that the stream rose in a place called Magpie Alley close to St. Katherine Coleman, and ran down Fenchurch Street and Lombard Street as far as the west end of St. Mary Woolnoth, where it turned south at Sherborne Lane (whence the name) and divided into many rivulets, where it fell into the Thames. Now, no trace of any such stream has ever been found. Moreover, though the levels of the streets have been raised by many feet, they have been raised in proportion, and if such a stream now ran along Fenchurch Street, it would run up-hill for half its course. Further, the name Sherborne does not mean what Maitland thinks at all. Its real meaning may be found in the Calendar of Wills (vol. i. p. 147, and on many other pages). Langborne appears as Langford in an early list. Somewhere near the end of Sherborne Lane was the wall, and perhaps the fosse of the Roman citadel. But Stow, and Maitland after him, call the ward Langborne and Fennie About. Langborne was one part—that of which Lombard Street is the principal part—and Fennie About the other, in the marshy ground.
The ward is mentioned in a murder case (Riley’s Memorials) in 1276. Reference to the parish occurs repeatedly between 1276 and 1349 (Calendar of Wills). There are mentioned messuages, rents, tenements, shops, a brew-house, etc., in the parish. The street is mentioned separately later. In the fourteenth century there are dwelling-places, tenements, mansion-houses, brew-houses, bakehouses, and shops. But there are no signs of a fen in or about the street. It is suggested that as Gracechurch Street is the street of Grass, so Fenchurch Street is Foin-church, the street of Hay, both streets belonging to the market of hay, grass, and corn. But Professor Skeat replies to this suggestion: “It is impossible to derive fen from the French foin. No French oi becomes e in English. But it might be derived from the Anglo-French fein, which is the corresponding word to the French foin and had the same sense. In this case it ought to be possible to find the spelling fein. Otherwise fen can only mean fen. Note that the English fen may be spelt also fenne. But the Anglo-French fein could not take either n or ne at the end of it. I suspect Stow is right. I see no evidence to the contrary.”
Again, writing later, Professor Skeat says: “I think we can get at Fenchurch now, by help of the history.
“Fen was an extremely common word in Middle English, not merely in the sense of morass, but in the sense of the modern word mud. ‘Mud’ is quite a late word, but I presume that the thing was known in the City even in the earliest times, and the name of it was ‘fen.’ This being so, it is tolerably certain that if the name originally was anything that could be readily turned into fen, that would soon become the pronunciation and the ‘popular’ etymology.