Part 5

Richard Baroun, we read, was one “whom the King retained to serve him with Horns & other things pertaining to his Mistery, & to whom was granted the King’s livery of clothing every year, in the great wardrobe, as other Horners of his condition had been wont to receive.” Thus William Karlile was a man of considerable importance in his own time, and a man of great wealth. To suppose that so important a Craft Gild, under the patronage of such influential persons, would neglect to arm itself with every possible weapon of defence, such as Grants and Charters, is to suppose the impossible, and, indeed, in the year 1455, towards the end of the reign of Henry VI, on petitioning to have further powers of administration conferred upon it, this Gild is expressly mentioned as having been already “enfranchised in the City of London,” a proceeding which could not possibly have been accomplished without something in the nature of a Royal grant. It would seem that owing to the very great antiquity of the Horners’ Company it held certain prescriptive privileges originally obtained by it or its “Guardianus” in exchange for certain goods from time to time supplied to the Royal household, and on this point further light may still be thrown. One such instance has come to light. Either the Company or the Guardianus in his official capacity as Horner to the King, would provide the Horn Comb used at the Coronation of every Sovereign until the time of Charles II. We have evidence that amongst the Coronation relics connected with Charles I which were sold, was a “Horn Comb.” This, in accordance with the practice even now in vogue at the Consecration of Roman Catholic Bishops, was used ceremonially after anointing the King’s head with oil.

As a culminating proof that the Caroline Charter was not the first and only Royal grant held by the Horners’ Company, we have but to turn to the Correspondence recently found in the British Museum, and it will at once become evident that the Horners were possessed of a Charter long before 1638. Mr. Carmarthen, writing to Lord Burghley in 1597, says:

“The question resteth upon one word cheefly in thyr Charter,” etc., or, again, “By the king’s grant in theyre Charter,” etc. This may allude to a Charter granted by Edward IV, or, as seems probable, that in reality the “Cornuarii” were well established as a legalized Gild certainly not later than Richard II, and, in all probability, owned Charters of a much earlier date, which would be in the nature of special grants to the Guardian of the Gild, held by him, and would therefore at a later period not necessarily be in the possession of the Company. Moreover, on 30th of March, 1815, the Clerk of the Company stated, as appears by an entry in the Minute Book, that he had opened and examined the chest containing the documents relating to the Company, and he found that it contained ... “also the original Charters granted for establishing the Company,” etc. Had there been but one, it is improbable that the word would have been used in the plural.

Thus it will be seen that the Charter of 1638 is but an instrument reiterating and once more legalizing the acts which had been in vogue amongst the Horners for a very considerable time.

The Charter of Charles I provides that the Horners, Freemen of the City of London and Westminster and liberties and suburbs of the same, are incorporated by the name of “Master, Wardens, Assistants, and Fellowship of the Mistery of Horners of the City of London,” with power to purchase and hold freehold and leasehold estates of every kind and all manner of goods and chattels, and to grant, alien and dispose of the same, and by the same name to plead and be impleaded, and to have a Common Seal.

One of the said Fellowship is to be chosen the Master, two to be chosen Wardens, and ten or more of the Fellowship, Assistants. The Master, Wardens and Assistants, or the greater part of them, whereof the Master and one of the Wardens are always to be two, have power to make and alter, amend or make new, “reasonable laws and constitutions touching the Trade, Art, or Mistery, and for punishment and reformation of abuses, wrongful practices and misdemeaners, and for defraying the charges of maintaining and continuing the Corporation, and after what order they shall demean themselves in their office mistery and work.” And to impose such fines, amerciaments, or other lawful punishments upon all offenders as shall seem necessary; such fines, etc., to be raised for their own uses.

Robert Baker was appointed the first Master to continue in office until the 2nd February, 1638, and until another person was elected in his place. Christopher Peele and Thomas White were appointed first Wardens under the new rules and Charter. Ten brethren were appointed the first Assistants during their lives or good behaviour, and the Master and Wardens were upon retirement from their offices, to be assistants in the same manner. The Master and Wardens were to take oaths before the Master in Chancery to “well and truly execute their offices” before entering upon the same.

Power is given to the Master, Wardens, Assistants, and Fellowship to meet in their Common Hall or other convenient place upon the 2nd of February, if it be not Sunday, and if it be Sunday, then upon the next day after, to elect a Master and Two Wardens for the ensuing year; and they are to take their oaths of office before the late Master and Wardens, or two of them; and like power of election is given until the next 2nd of February in case of the death or removal for misbehaviour of any Master or Warden during his term of office, and also in like manner to elect an Assistant on the death or removal of any of the Assistants appointed by the Charter.

Power is given of oversight, rule and search of all persons occupying, importing, exporting, or using the art or mistery of Horners within the cities of London and Westminster, and the liberties and precincts thereof, and of all manner of wares thereunto appertaining, to the intent that all delinquents may be discovered and punished. They may purchase for ever one house for a Hall not exceeding the yearly value of £40.

They are to elect one honest and discreet person as Clerk, and also appoint a Beadle.

The control continuously exercised by the Company over the trade, and finally secured to them in the Charter just mentioned, has never been abandoned, though at any rate for the present it is not exercised. In the first year of William III (1689) the Horners’ Company successfully prosecuted a Comb maker for pressing horns, he not being a “Horner.” Maitland, who published his work in 1739, tells us that the Company “had of late appointed diverse of their members to attend the market of Leadenhall & those of the neighbouring counties for the buying of horns” to be sent to their common warehouse in Wentworth Street, Spitalfields, where they were made up into lots and divided amongst the several members, not omitting the widows and orphans, who also received their several shares.

The last occasion on which the Court exercised its rights against persons infringing its monopoly was in the year 1745. Having ascertained that certain persons not free of the Company had bought rough horns and pressed them into lantern leaves, and were disposing of them within the City of London and twenty-four miles distant, proceedings were ordered to be taken against them, and, as a result, the Company successfully established its right to the monopoly in the manufacture of horn work in the City of London and twenty-four miles round. From that time forward the trade in horn declined, and during the second half of the eighteenth century, the Company finally ceased to be a trading community. Thus ended the operative existence of a Craft Gild which from “time out of mind” until the present moment has had a useful and honourable career. The Horners’ Company has been practically contemporaneous with the history of England, and is, it may be believed, still destined to serve many a useful purpose.

In spite of legal incorporation the property of the Company has, from time to time, been vested in certain trustees, the last trust deed being dated 1756.

The earliest Minute Book in the possession of the Company covers the period 1731 to 1796, and is extremely interesting as showing the care taken in the apprenticing of novices to the trade, in the appointment of its officers, and, perhaps most of all, in the unbroken continuity of the annual dinner held generally at some place outside the City, which though, at the time, partaken of only by the members of the Court, represented the annual feast of the mediæval Gilds, and finds its successor to-day in the Livery Dinner, which has become almost a matter of civic importance.

This ancient practice has long been associated with Trade Gilds, certainly as far back as 700 B.C. We may believe that the deipnon or feast of the hetairoi, or Greek Trade Gilds, must have had a long history before the time when such distinguished members as Lysymachus, son of Milesias, and the son of Thucydides, joined in them.

During the eighteenth and first part of the nineteenth century the favourite inns selected for the annual dinner seem to have been the “Crown and Sceptre” at Greenwich, the “Plough,” or “Folly House,” Blackwall, the “Star and Garter,” Richmond, and, in much later days, the “North and South American Coffee House,” which latter, however, was probably used more for the ordinary meetings of the Company than for the annual dinner.

It is a little difficult to define the area in which the Horners of London were originally located, but it may be somewhat vaguely described as the district of Aldgate. Many were the streets and alleys to which Horners have given a name, and one well-known Horn Alley was, until a comparatively late date, to be found on the East side of Bishopsgate Street, and in Korneman’s book on “Old Street Signs and Tablets” is an allusion to one with the following inscription:—“This is Horn Alley, 1670.” In Stow’s “Survey of London,” 1633, the following passage occurs:—“I read in the 26th of Henry VI (1447), that in the parish of St. Dunstan’s in the East a tenement called Horners Key was granted to William Harrington, Esq.” Doubtless this alludes to a building used by the Horners for the purposes of their trade, at a time when all was couleur de rose with them, and it is extremely likely that upon further investigation this William Harrington will be found to be the Guardianus or Alderman of the Gild.

Time, however, brought its changes, and when, in 1603-4, the Horners’ Act was repealed, it would seem likely that they found it either impossible to continue to pay the rent, or, realising that disaster awaited them, may have sold the property, if it were theirs to sell. It is, however, certain that in 1604 the Company leased a house with storehouses and sheds in Wentworth Street, Whitechapel, for the term of 1,000 years at a ground rent of £4. When, in 1789, these premises were no longer required for the use of the trade, which had declined, they were let for £30 a year, and in 1879 were sold to the Metropolitan Board of Works and the money invested on behalf of the Horners’ Company.

It has been stated that the Horners’ Company never had a Hall. It is difficult to see quite why this statement has been made, for there is much to make the student of Gild lore think otherwise. The Charter of 1638 expressly provides for one, and, as in every other respect, it simply imposes the absolute conditions then existing, there would seem no reason to doubt that the sum of £40 per annum therein mentioned was the exact value of the property then held. The Bottlemakers would not have joined the Horners had the latter Company not had a hall or meeting place.

As with other Craft Gilds, the Fire of London probably proved very disastrous to the Company, and, no doubt, very little was saved.

The fact that there are hardly any deeds of importance anterior to 1666, that the Old Book of the Company, which has recently been recovered, after wandering so long, ceases to have an entry after 1636, together with the fact that the two or three early deeds which ante-date the Fire of London are in a deplorable condition, as well as the fact that the Company owned a considerable amount of silver plate, which was sold in 1789, makes it not improbable that the Horners, like every other City Gild, had its regular Hall or meeting place.

The coat of arms of the Company is Ar. on a Chevron sa., three bugles of the first between three leather bottles of the second.

In 1835 the Municipal Corporations Act gave the coup de grâce to any remnants of monopoly exercised by the extant City Gilds. That Act gave liberty to all either to buy or sell, and, by so doing, compelled most of the City Companies, nolens volens, to seek for a sphere of usefulness in other directions.

Though, as a trading Gild, the Horners’ Company declined, it has steadily risen in reputation as one of the ancient mysteries of the City of London, and, in 1837, the Commissioners on Municipal Corporations classed it as fifty-fourth out of eighty-nine Companies there enumerated. In 1846 the Company petitioned the Court of Aldermen for a livery which was granted them, the number of liverymen being limited to sixty.

In 1882 the Court of the Horners’ Company organized an exhibition of Hornwork, both ancient and modern, which was held by the kindness of the then Lord Mayor, Sir Henry Knight, at the Mansion House. By a strange coincidence, and without any premeditation on the part either of the Lord Mayor or the Company, it was held on October the 18th, St. Luke’s Day, which was the day on which the annual Horn Fair at Charlton took place. The exhibition of Horns and Hornwork far exceeded, both as regards quantity and quality, the most sanguine expectations of the promoters. So great was the interest shown by the public that it became necessary to keep it open for an extra day, and, during the four days of the exhibition, it was visited by no fewer than 7,000 persons. Amongst the exhibitors was Her Most Gracious Majesty the late Queen Victoria, who sent some interesting specimens from her treasures at Windsor Castle. In acknowledgment, of Her Majesty’s kind consideration, and by her gracious permission, the Company presented to Her Majesty a print of the descriptive catalogue and the account of the Company mentioned in the preface, bound in horn leaves, ornamented with a beautiful design from the South Kensington School of Art, selected after competition by the scholars. It is now in the King’s private suite of rooms at Windsor Castle.

In the course of the year 1900, at the instance of Mr. A. W. Timbrell, C.C., it was decided to present Queen Victoria with a horn casket in order to fittingly commemorate the new century. On being approached upon the subject, Her Majesty graciously accepted the offer. Before, however, the presentation could be made, her lamented death occurred. It was then decided to present the casket to King Edward, and on March 28th, 1901, the late King’s Secretary wrote to the Clerk of the Company expressing His Majesty’s pleasure in accepting the proposed gift.

The casket was made of selected specimens of the finest British bullock horn, mounted with massive silver and gilt straps, and ornaments of the Early English style of chasing. It is supported upon four pierced feet, the whole resting upon an ebony plinth, upon which is a silver plate bearing the names of the Master, the Wardens, and the Clerk. The whole enclosed in a handsome morocco case, forms one of the finest specimens of the Horner’s art. Sir Francis Knollys, in acknowledging the presentation, stated that he was commanded by the King to renew the expressions of His Majesty’s thanks to the Worshipful Company of Horners for the casket which they had presented to him, and that His Majesty admired it greatly and considered that it would form a great addition to the Horn Room at Osborne.

A similar casket, slightly different in design, was presented to His Majesty King George V on the occasion of his Coronation, and this, like the one presented to his revered father, has been designed and carried out by Mr. Deputy Millar Wilkinson, of Cornhill, the present Father of the Court.