Chapter VI
.), and it helped to comfort their disappointment in being unable to meet in their own Hall upon the anniversary of the day they had assembled therein for nearly three hundred years.
Then, again, there are some personal reasons worth mentioning. A citizen born, the great-grandson of an eighteenth-century engineer and ironfounder, the grandson of a ship-owner, newspaper proprietor, and possessor of the historical property in the district which he named King’s Cross, and where to this day several of the great “iron roads” of England meet, and the son of a publisher and bookseller of Fleet Street, whose memory and that of my birthplace I commemorated in 1869 in the “Memorials” of the neighbourhood—in which year, too, by another remarkable coincidence, I was honoured by being admitted a member of the Ironmongers’ Company without the payment of fees—an honour only conferred on those who perform their duty to their fellow-citizens.
When the then member for Cork City asked Parliament twenty years ago to seize the estates of the Companies in Ireland, I was fortunately enabled by my knowledge of the subject to assist in the defeat of this wild, revolutionary scheme of seizing property personally paid for by the ancestors of the citizens of London. It was the Hon. the Irish Society and the Companies who voted me their thanks, and it was my two ever-revered friends, John Nicholl, our historian, and S. Adams Beck, our then clerk (the father of our present zealous official)—the memory of whom will long remain dear, for their portraits hang side by side in our Court-room—it was their kind notice of my humble efforts, and their repeated good advice, which helped me to the honour I so highly valued, and led me to be ever watchful of our rights and privileges.
Thirty years ago my said dear friend John Nicholl was Master of the Company (he died in 1871), and this year his son is our Senior Warden, and (I trust) our next Master. We wish him every best wish, we heartily pray that the Almighty will bless us all, and that “the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, root and branch,” may be permitted to “flourish for ever.”
Dalston, London, March, 1889.
T. C. NOBLE, Warden of the Yeomanry, 1888-1889.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.—The Old City, its Citizens and Guilds 1
II.—Iron, Ironworks, and Ironmongers 6
III.—The Worshipful Company of Ironmongers 11
IV., V., VI.—Four Hundred Years of the Ironmongers’ History 19-40
VII.—The Apprentices, the Hall, and the Irish Estate 41
VIII.—The Ironmongers’ Charities and Charitable Ironmongers 51
APPENDIX.
Some Account of the Blacksmiths’ Company and their Exhibition at Ironmongers’ Hall 61-74
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATE PAGE
I.—_Frontispiece_: Arms of the Ironmongers’ Company
II.—(_a_) The Old Church of Allhallows Staining, Mark Lane, 1807, now removed (except the tower), and the parish united with St. Olave, Hart Street; Ironmongers’ Hall is in the parish of Allhallows 1
(_b_) The Church of St. Luke’s, Old Street, Middlesex, 1807; erected on land part of the Ironmongers’ estate; consecrated on St. Luke’s Day, 1733 1
III.—(_a_) One of the ancient silver-gilt salt-cellars 12
(_b_) One of two fifteenth-century maple-wood mazer-bowls, with silver-gilt mountings 12
IV.—A cocoa-nut cup, or hanap, of sixteenth-century date, with silver-gilt bands and mountings, and 8½ inches high 18
V.—(_a_) The “Estridge,” or ostrich, carved in wood, about 4 feet high, which was used in the Lord Mayor’s pageant of 1629, and now preserved at the Hall; it has a horseshoe in its beak 26
(_b_) A bronze token representing the fourteen almshouses erected under Sir Robert Geffery’s trust, in the Kingsland Road, 1713-1714 26
VI.—The hearse-cloth, or Ironmongers’ funeral pall, of crimson velvet and cloth-of-gold tissue, the gift of John Gyva, 1515, 6 feet 5 inches long by 22 inches wide; the centre of each side represents “The Blessed Virgin Mary in Glory”—Plate I. 34
VII.—(_a_, _b_, _c_) Ditto, Plate II.—The Three Saints 42
VIII.—Ditto, Plate III.—Monstrance at each end 50
IX.—(_a_) The Devil gives St. Dunstan a morning call 60
(_b_) St. Dunstan compels the “Evil One” to sign a treaty of peace 60
X.—St. Dunstan gives a practical reminder of the power of the horseshoe 65
XI.—(_a_) The “Evil One” on his rounds sees the effect of the treaty 69
(_b_) The horseshoe puts to flight the Devil and pursues the “Evil One” and all his evil companions 69
[Illustration: THE OLD CHURCH OF ALLHALLOWS STAINING, MARK LANE, LONDON, 1807. (See page 45.)
THE CHURCH OF ST. LUKE THE EVANGELIST, OLD STREET, MIDDLESEX, 1807. (See page 57.)]
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE IRONMONGERS’ COMPANY.
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