St. Anne can be traced back as far as 1332. The patronage was anciently in the Dean and Canons of St. Martin's-le-Grand, in whose gift it continued till Henry VII. annexed that Collegiate Church, with its appendages, to the Abbey of Westminster. In 1553 Queen Mary gave it to the Bishop of London and his successors. One of the monuments here bears the following inscription:—
"Peter Heiwood, younger son of Peter Heiwood, one of the counsellors of Jamaica, by Grace, daughter of Sir John Muddeford, Kt. and Bart., great-grandson to Peter Heiwood, of Heywood, in County Palatine of Lancaster, who apprehended Guy Faux with his dark lanthorn, and for his zealous prosecution of Papists, as Justice of the Peace, was stabbed in Westminster Hall by John James, a Dominican Friar, An. Dom. 1640. Obiit, Novr. 2, 1701.
"Reader, if not a Papist bred,
Upon such ashes gently tred."
The site of Haberdashers' Hall, in Maiden Lane, opposite Goldsmiths' Hall, was bequeathed to the Company by William Baker, a London haberdasher, in 1478 (Edward IV.). In the old hall, destroyed by the Great Fire, the Parliament Commissioners held their meetings during the Commonwealth, and many a stern decree of confiscation was there grimly signed. In this hall there are some good portraits. The Haberdashers' Company have many livings and exhibitions in their gift; and almhouses at Hoxton, Monmouth, Newland (Gloucestershire), and Newport (Shropshire); schools in Bunhill Row, Monmouth, and Newport; and they lend sums of £50 or £100 to struggling young men of their own trade.
INTERIOR OF ST. MICHAEL'S, WOOD STREET
The haberdashers were originally a branch of the mercers, dealing like them in merceries or small wares. Lydgate, in his ballad, describes the mercers' and haberdashers' stalls as side by side in the mercery in Chepe. In the reign of Henry VI., when first incorporated, they divided into two fraternities, St. Catherine and St. Nicholas. The one being hurrers, cappers, or haberdashers of hats; the other, haberdashers of ribands, laces, and small wares only. The latter were also called milliners, from their selling such merchandise as brooches, agglets, spurs, capes, glasses, and pins. "In the early part of Elizabeth's reign," says Herbert, "upwards of £60,000 annually was paid to foreign merchants for pins alone, but before her death pins were made in England, and in the reign of James I. the pinmakers obtained a charter."
In the reign of Henry VII. the two societies united. Queen Elizabeth granted them their arms: Barry nebule of six, argent and azure on a bend gules, a lion passant gardant; crest or, a helmet and torse, two arms supporting a laurel proper and issuing out of a cloud argent. Supporters, two Indian goats argent, attired and hoofed or; motto, "Serve and Obey." Maitland describes their annual expenditure in charity as £3,500. The number of the Company consists of one master, four wardens, forty-five assistants, 360 livery, and a large company of freemen. This Company is the eighth in order of the chief twelve City Companies.