London City

by Walter Besant

For the purpose of the assay they had an assay office in the early part of the fourteenth century. The statute of 28th Edward I. enacts that no vessel of gold or silver shall depart out of the hands of the workman until it is assayed by the wardens of the craft, and stamped with the leopard’s head; the leopard being at that time part of the royal arms of England.

The Company and its members, even at this early period, appear to have acted as bankers and pawnbrokers. They received pledges, not only of plate, but of other articles, such as cloth of gold and pieces of napery.

The London goldsmiths were divided into two classes, natives and foreigners. They inhabited chiefly Cheapside, Old Change, Lombard Street, Foster Lane, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, Silver Street, Goldsmiths’ Street, Wood Street, and the lanes about Goldsmiths’ Hall. Cheapside was their principal place of residence; the part of it on the south side, extending from Bread Street to the Cross, was called “the Goldsmiths’ Row.” The shops here were occupied by goldsmiths, and here the Company possess many houses at the present time. The Exchange for the King’s coin was close by, in what is now called Old Change.

The native and foreign goldsmiths appear to have been divided into classes, and to have enjoyed different privileges. First, there were the members of the Company, who were chiefly, but not exclusively, Englishmen; their shops were subject to the control of the Company; they had the advantages conferred by the Company on its members, and they made certain payments for the support of the fellowship. The second division comprised the non-freemen, who were called “Allowes,” that is to say, allowed or licensed. There were the “Allowes Englis,” “Allowes Alicant,” “Alicant Strangers,” “Dutchmen,” “Men of the Fraternity of St. Loys,” etc. All these paid tribute to the Company, and were also subject to their control. The quarterage paid by the members, and the tribute so paid by the “Allowes,” constituted the Company’s original income. We find frequent mention of efforts made by the English goldsmiths to prevent foreign goldsmiths from settling in London, but they did not succeed. The wise men of the craft probably knew that the best artists were foreigners, and were willing to profit by observation of their works and mode of working. In 1445, thirty-four persons, who were strangers, were sworn, and paid 2s. a head. In 1447 Carlos Spaen paid £8 : 6 : 8 to the alms of St. Dunstan, to be admitted a freeman, and in 1511 John de Loren paid £20 for the same object.

The wardens also frequently obliged foreigners applying for the freedom to produce testimonials from the authorities of the towns abroad where they had resided.

The government of the trade under the Company’s charters continued up to the reign of Charles the Second. But some time before this period, and in the interval between it and the passing of the Act of the 12th George II., cap. 26, the powers which had been granted to the Company began to be questioned, and the Company experienced difficulty in putting them into force. In 1738 the Company considered it expedient to obtain an Act of Parliament.

And the 12th George II., cap. 26, passed in 1739, was prepared by the officers of the Company, brought into Parliament by them, with the assent of the government of the time, and all the cost of soliciting it and getting it passed was paid for by the Company, although it is a public Act.

Under this Act the Assay Office is regulated. The Company are empowered thereby to make charges for the assaying and marking plate sufficient only to defray the expenses of the office, and are prohibited from making any profit thereby or deriving any pecuniary advantage therefrom.

It may here be mentioned that at a very early period we find members of the governing body of the Company, both wardens and assistants, who were not of the craft. Amongst others, the leading bankers, themselves the descendants in trade of the old goldsmiths, from the time of the Stuarts to the present time, have been some of the most conspicuous members of the body. Amongst them we find the names of Sir Martin Bowes, who was Master of the Mint in the reign of Elizabeth; Sir Hugh Myddelton, the enterprising founder of the New River; Sir Francis Child, of Temple Bar; Sir Charles Duncombe, Sir James Pemberton, Sir Robert Vyner; and in the 19th century, Robert Williams and Thomas Halifax, Henry Sykes Thornton, William Banbury, John Charles Salt, Herbert Barnard, William Newmarch, William Cunliffe Brooks, Robert Ruthven Pym, Arthur B. Twining, Charles Hoare, and Robert Williams, jun.

It remains to mention the connection of the Company with the coinage of the realm in what is called the trial of the Pyx, an office which has been performed by the Company ever since the reign of Edward I. Its object is to ascertain that the metal of which the gold and silver money coined by the Mint is composed is standard, and that the coins themselves are of the prescribed weight.