The Arts Society Kennet & Swindon Lecture – City Livery Companies: the Origins of the Great Twelve

The society is still operating very robustly  but on zoom for the immediate  future.  We welcome all existing members and would be delighted to have guests for whom we make a charge of £5.

The February meeting of the Society will take place on zoom promptly at 11.00 on Monday February 15th. The site will be open from 10 00. 

City Livery Companies: the Origins of the Great Twelve – Timothy Schroder – Monday 15 February 2021

The livery companies of the City of London are best known today as charitable organisations. But in their early days their focus was on their trades, acting as a cross between modern trade unions and regulators. The companies were (and still are today) jealously mindful of their place within the order of precedence, from the Mercers’ Company at number one to the recently founded Art Scholars at number 110. Within this hierarchy the top dozen, known as ‘the Great XII’ have always had a special prestige. This lecture is told from the inside, as it were. Given by a former Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company (number five), it explores the mystery of the origins of this order of precedence.’

Should you wish to join this zoomed lecture please contact Christopher Rogers  (cjrogers43@gmail.com) or 01672861374 and he will give you details of payment and the link to the lecture.