At Grocers' Hall we stop to sketch the history of an ancient company.
The Grocers of London were originally called Pepperers, pepper being the chief staple of their trade. The earlier Grocers were Italians, Genoese, Florentine or Venetian merchants, then supplying all the west of Christendom with Indian and Arabian spices and drugs, and Italian silks, wines, and fruits. The Pepperers are first mentioned as a fraternity among the amerced guilds of Henry II., but had probably clubbed together at an earlier period. They are mentioned in a petition to Parliament as Grocers, says Mr. Herbert, in 1361 (Edward III.), and they themselves adopted the, at first, opprobrious name in 1376, and some years later were incorporated by charter. They then removed from Soper's Lane (now Queen Street) to Bucklersbury, and waxed rich and powerful.
The Grocers met at five several places previous to building a hall; first at the town house of the Abbots of Bury, St. Mary Axe; in 1347 they moved to the house of the Abbot of St. Edmund; in 1348 to the Rynged Hall, near Garlick-hythe; and afterwards to the hotel of the Abbot of St. Cross. In 1383 they flitted to the Cornet's Tower, in Bucklersbury, a place which Edward III. had used for his money exchange. In 1411 they purchased of Lord Fitzwalter the chapel of the Fratres du Sac (Brothers of the Sack) in Old Jewry, which had originally been a Jewish synagogue; and having, some years afterwards, purchased Lord Fitzwalter's house adjoining the chapel, began to build a hall, which was opened in 1428. The Friars' old chapel contained a buttery, pantry, cellar, parlour, kitchen, turret, clerk's house, a garden, and a set of almshouses in the front yard was added. The word "grocer," says Ravenhill, in his "Short Account of the Company of Grocers" (1689), was used to express a trader en gros (wholesale). As early as 1373, the first complement of twenty-one members of this guild was raised to 124; and in 1583, sixteen grocers were aldermen. In 1347, Nicholas Chaucer, a relation of the poet, was admitted as a grocer; and in 1383, John Churchman (Richard II.) obtained for the Grocers the great privilege of the custody, with the City, of the "King's Beam," in Woolwharf, for weighing wool in the port of London, the first step to a London Custom House. The Beam was afterwards removed to Bucklersbury. Henry VIII. took away the keepership of the great Beam from the City, but afterwards restored it. The Corporation still have their weights at the Weigh House, Little Eastcheap, and the porters there are the tackle porters, so called to distinguish them from the ticket porters. In 1450, the Grocers obtained the important right of sharing the office of garbeller of spices with the City. The garbeller had the right to enter any shop or warehouse to view and search for drugs, and to garble and cleanse them. The office gradually fell into desuetude, and is last mentioned in the Company's books in July, 1687, when the City garbeller paid a fine of £50, and 20s. per annum, for leave to hold his office for life. The Grocers seem to have at one time dealt in whale-oil and wool.
During the Civil War the Grocers suffered, like all their brother companies. In 1645, the Parliament exacted £50 per week from them towards the support of troops, £6 for City defences, and £8 for wounded soldiers. The Company had soon to sell £1,000 worth of plate. A further demand for arms, and a sum of £4,500 for the defence of the City, drove them to sell all the rest of their plate, except the value of £300. In 1645, the watchful Committee of Safety, sitting at Haberdashers' Hall, finding the Company indebted £500 to one Richard Greenough, a Cavalier delinquent, compelled them to pay that sum.
No wonder, then, that the Grocers shouted at the Restoration, spent £540 on the coronation pageant, and provided sixty riders at Charles's noisy entrance into London. The same year, Sir John Frederick, being chosen Mayor, and not being, as rule required, a member of one of the twelve Great Companies, left the Barber Chirurgeons, and joined the Grocers, who welcomed him with a great pageant. In 1664, the Grocers took a zealous part with their friends and allies, the Druggists, against the College of Physicians, who were trying to obtain a bill granting them power of search, seizure, fine, and imprisonment. The Plague year no election feast was held. The Great Fire followed, and not only greatly damaged Grocers' Hall, but also consumed the whole of their house property, excepting a few small tenements in Grub Street. They found it necessary to try and raise £20,000 to pay their debts, to sell their melted plate, and to add ninety-four members to the livery. Only succeeding, amid the general distress, in raising £6,000, the Company was almost bankrupt, their hall being seized, and attachments laid on their rent. By a great effort, however, they wore round, called more freemen on the livery, and added in two months eighty-one new members to the Court of Assistants; so that before the Revolution of 1688 they had restored their hall and mowed down most of their rents. Indeed, one of their most brilliant epochs was in 1689, when William III. accepted the office of their sovereign master.
EXTERIOR OF GROCERS' HALL
Some writers credit the Grocers' Company with the enrolment of five kings, several princes, eight dukes, three earls, and twenty lords. Of these five kings, Mr. Herbert could, however, only trace Charles II. and William III. Their list of honorary members is one emblazoned with many great names, including Sir Philip Sidney (at whose funeral they assisted), Pitt, Lord Chief Justice Tenterden, the Marquis of Cornwallis, George Canning, &c. Of Grocer Mayors, Strype notes sixty-four between 1231 and 1710 alone.
The garden of the Hall must have been a pleasant place in the old times, as it is now. It is mentioned in 1427 as having vines spreading up before the parlour windows. It had also an arbour; and in 1433 it was generously thrown open to the citizens generally, who had petitioned for this privilege. It contained hedge-rows and a bowling alley, with an ancient tower of stone or brick, called "the Turret," at the north-west corner, which had probably formed part of Lord Fitzwalter's mansion. The garden remained unchanged till the new hall was built in 1798, when it was much curtailed, and in 1802 it was nearly cut in half by the enlargement of Princes Street. For ground which had cost the Grocers, in 1433, only £31 17s. 8d., they received from the Bank of England more than £20,000.