The London Weaver's Company 1600 - 1970 by Plummer Alfred

Author:Plummer, Alfred. [Plummer, Alfred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781136583988
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

These outlays show a slight upward trend between 1677 and 1697: the average annual expenditure during the decade 1677-86 was approximately £72, while in the following decade it was nearly £86. In 1694, when there was anxiety about the Company’s solvency, it was said that the two yearly feasts had recently ‘run the Company mightily behind hand and in debt’.32 Therefore, by the turn of the century the Company had adopted a more economical policy, reducing its Lord Mayor’s Day expenditure to £60 or £65; a policy adhered to, by and large, for many years. Indeed, in October 1738, the Court of Assistants,

taking notice of the approaching solemnity of the Lord Mayor’s day and seriously considering the low circumstances of this Company and the heavy Debt with which it is at present Incumbred and being sensible that it will not be in the power of this Company to attend with that decent appearance which their inclination as well as duty requires, without plunging this Company into further and almost inextricable difficulties, Resolved: That this Company cannot appear in Publick to pay their duty to the New Lord Mayor on Lord Mayor’s day next.

In 1743 a dinner was provided, but the cost was kept down to £50.

No small part of the Company’s financial difficulties in this period can be traced to its barge, which, with all its grace and grandeur when afloat on festive occasions, was an expensive luxury. It was built for the Company in 1673 by John Graves, shipwright, for £115, including eighteen oars but not the painting and gilding. The dimensions were; length 72 feet; breadth 11 feet; the ‘house’ to be 34 feet long. Mr Reeve, a painter-stainer, undertook to ‘paint the Barge according to models now presented as to figures’ and to gild the mouldings of capitals, washboards, carved work, arms and supporters,33 leopards’ heads, ‘and other fit and convenient parts’. He agreed also to plain-grain the interior and paint all benches, forms and oars ‘in a blue colour’. The banner and pendant staves too were to be painted, but the colour is not specified. All this work to be done ‘within the rate of £55’.34 The silk banners, streamers and pendants, painted by one Edmond Pickering, cost £75, including the silk. The shipwright received £5 more than the sum first agreed upon. The inventory of 1677 and the total cost are shown in Table 11.3.

When the barge was finished in October 1673, a barge master, a steersman and a crew of eighteen oarsmen had to be engaged and properly clothed. Recruitment was easy, for the Office of Barge Master and the position of watermen regularly employed by the Lord Mayor of London and the Livery Companies were eagerly sought after by the watermen of the River Thames for the reason that they were generally exempted by the Admiralty from impressment to serve in the Navy. The appointments were formally registered by the Water-men’s Company.’35 As to clothing, two long coats in blue satin (for the

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