It is probable that, like other traders who came to London in early times, men following the trade of Skinners were assigned some separate locality in the town and associated together for the purposes of a guild.
In course of time, as the guild grew in importance, the Skinners seem to have absorbed or affiliated unto themselves two other trades, the Upholders and the Tawyers.
It is clear that as long ago as the reign of Henry VI. the guild included among its members other than those who exercised the trades of Skinner, Tawyer, and Upholder, for in one of the Company’s books, dated 25th July, 23 Henry VI., there is a list of names of the brethren and sistren of the guild at that time. They amount to twenty in all, and include one doctor, three gentlemen, nine of no trade or description, two butchers, one dyer, one joiner, one skinner, one grocer, as brethren, and one sister as silkwife.
The Company has a copy of the charter of Henry VI., but none of that of Philip and Mary. They are Inspeximus charters, as also is that of 22nd March, 2 Elizabeth.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth differences arose between the working “artesans” of the guild and the rest of the fraternity, especially the governing body, which continued for many years and culminated in a surreptitious application in 1606 by the Artisan Skinners for new Letters Patent from the Crown without the consent or privity of the master and wardens of the guild, and in December 1606 (4 James I.) a charter was issued. Full inquiry was made. The Lord Mayor and aldermen made their report to the lords of the Privy Council, who thereupon ordered (March 22, 1606) that the privy seal that had been procured by the Artisan Skinners for this new charter appertaining to the Company of Skinners should be cancelled.
The charters and title deeds of the Skinners Company were surrendered in 1625 like those of the other City Companies, but in 1641 their privileges were restored.
After the restoration of King Charles II. the Skinners Company obtained the charter dated 20th June, 19 Charles II. It grants nothing new, but merely confirms to the master and wardens of the guild or fraternity all they had under any of their previous charters.
Passing to 1744, the Artisan Skinners appear to have thought that if they could only be more fully represented on the governing body of the Company, their trade grievances would be redressed, and they accordingly, in October 1744, presented a remonstrance to the Court.
The result of this was that in three months the master and three wardens were served with a copy of a rule for a mandamus commanding them to choose a number of Artisan Skinners to be wardens and assistants. The governing body, in reply, set out the whole of the proceedings of 1606, but the mandamus was ultimately issued and a return made to the writ. At the hearing, counsel for the prosecutors, the artisans, informed the Court of King’s Bench that he had perused the return and could not find any fault with it, and accordingly the judges ordered the return of the master and wardens to be affirmed.
In December 1747 similar hostile proceedings were renewed, and led finally to an information for a false return being filed against the master and wardens in June 1748. The cause came on for trial at the King’s Bench bar on the 24th April following, and the jurors, without going out of court, brought in a verdict of not guilty.