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The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths L. B. Hunt Johnson Matthey & Co., Limited, London One of the oldest and greatest of the Livery Companies of London, the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths has a long and continuous history of devotion to the goldsmiths' craft. It still binds apprentices as in the Middle Ages to ensure high standards of workmanship, administers the hall-marking laws and safeguards the quality of the national coinage, while in modern times it takes an active part in bringing the science of metallurgy to bear upon the work of the industry it so nobly represents. By the beginning of the twelfth century voluntary marks on the score of their having been formed associations or fraternities of master craftsmen, band- without the permission of the Crown (1). Despite this ed together for mutual protection, had become apparent royal disapprobation, the leading master- established in many towns and cities of Western göldsmiths of the time were then — and for centuries Europe. A rapid growth in population, a general ex- to come — without doubt of vital importance both to pansion in trade and the development of villages into the Crown and to the governance of London. towns — often with the workers in a particular craft The fineness of the coinage was closely interwoven living in the same street — all tended to encourage with that of the wares made by the practising this kind of organisation, which combined a goldsmiths, if only to prevent the melting down of charitable and often a religious element with a system coin, and to keep the two firmly in line the skills and of apprenticeship to ensure that only those qualified knowledge of the organised goldsmiths were essential to practice their craft were allowed to do so. Over the centuries many of these fraternities or gilds have disappeared, but in England quite an astonishing number survive as the Livery Companies of the City of London. Almost the oldest of these is the Worshipful Com- pany of Goldsmiths, and it is one of the very few such successors to the original gilds that can show a record of continuous activity in the protection and welfare of its craft. No written records exist to establish the date of for- mation of the Goldsmiths, but that they constituted a fairly wealthy organisation of some importance and long standing well before 1180 is certain from an en- try in the Pipe Rolls of Henry II. In that year the Gild of Goldsmiths was fined the considerable sum of 45 The coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths shows in the first and fourth quarters a leopard's head — the first hall-mark instituted in 1300 by Edward I — and in the second and third quarters a covered cup with two round buckles or brooches to represent the workers in large pieces of plate and in smaller items of jewellery respectively. The Company had displayed arms certainly as long back as 1470, but this is the earliest representation in their possession, taken from their Book of Ordinances of 1513 94 to the Exchequer and to the mints, of which there was Mint. At this time there was no gold coinage in still quite a number up and down the country until England, but in 1257 Henry III introduced a `penny' the end of the twelfth century. The fire assaying of in fine gold; this was speedily withdrawn, however, the coinage probably goes back to the time of the Nor- after protestations from the citizens of London and man Conquest, but the first record we have of this the reappearance of gold coinage was delayed for long established procedure comes just before Henry many years. II — the great architect of a stable and prosperous A more public trial of the money took place in England following the anarchy and misrule of the 1279, when Edward I commanded the barons of the previous twenty years — initiated a complete re- Exchequer to take with them Gregory de Rokesle — a coinage of the silver pence in 1180. A year or two Goldsmith for many years Mayor of London and earlier his Treasurer, Richard Fitz Nigel, compiled a from 1279 to 1291 both Warden of the Mint in the practical treatise, Dialogus de Scaccario — Discourse Tower of London and Keeper of the Exchange — and on the Exchequer — which included an account of the `to make the assay in such manner as the King's assay: Council were wont to do' (5). The assay was again carried out in the presence of the King and his Coun- `The pence are then again counted in the presence of the Melter and of the persons sent by the Barons, and are handed cil, and this formal trial was now made a regular to the Melter. He takes them, counts them with his own hands, obligation, sample coins to be set aside in the Pyx and arranges them in an ash cupel in the furnace. He then, chest. The word `Pyx' is of Roman origin, stemming following the rules of his art, melts them into an ingot, fusing and refining the silver.' (2) from the Greek 'Puxis' — a box — and the Pyx chests containing the sample coins for assay were kept in the This `trial' of the coinage was to develop gradually in- Pyx Chapel of Westminster Abbey along with the to a much more elaborate and dignified procedure in standard trial plates of coin fineness until well into which the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths came the nineteenth century. to play the principal role, but in the meantime their Control of Coinage and of the leading members, many of them already aldermen, the Goldsmiths Craft were acquiring positions of great authority in Lon- don. When Richard I, before he left for the Second In 1299 Edward I completed a further re-coinage, Crusade at the end of 1189 after only four months and a year later promulgated a set of regulations in his realm, instituted the office of Mayor of Lon- covering the work of the goldsmiths. They were not don, together with two sheriffs, it was a Goldsmith, to use any gold which was `worse than the touch of Henry Fitzailwin, who first held this high office (3) Paris' (19 1/5 carat; reference to a foreign standard and continued to hold it until his death in 1212. From was necessary because there were then no English then onwards many Goldsmiths have held office as gold coins) and the wardens of the Goldsmiths Com- Mayor (the title of Lord Mayor did not come into use pany were to until the 16th century) and as sheriffs, and it was men 'go from shop to shop amongst the workers, assaying that their of this calibre who were not only prominent in their gold be exactly like the aforesaid touch, and if they find any trade and in its regulation but were in close associa- piece worse than the touch, that piece shall be forfeit to the King.' tion with the court and the Exchequer as well as with the Mint, which by 1300 was virtually confined to Silver articles, which were to be of the sterling stan- London. dard of finess, were similarly not to leave the maker's By 1247, in the reign of Henry III, it had become shop before they had been assayed by the wardens necessary to undertake a complete re-coinage of the and marked with the leopard's head. This was the silver penny which had survived for some sixty seven first hall-mark, known initially as the King's mark, years and four reigns and had suffered intolerably and it was used alone until 1363, later when other from the practice of clipping. In the following year, assay offices were established, becoming the mark for before this massive operation was complete, the wares assayed in London where it is of course still in mayor and citizens of London were commanded to use. choose Thus the practices of the trade of the goldsmith were placed firmly and legally under the control of `twelve of the more discreet and lawful men of our city of Lon- don and join them with twelve good goldsmiths of the same the wardens, but unfortunately the succession of Ed- city.. to examine upon oath both the old and the new money ward II on his father's death in 1307 opened a period of our land, and make provision how it may be bettered; and of uncertainty, with much clipping of coins, the im- that it is made of good silver, and that it is lawful and for the good of the realm' (4). portation of inferior foreign coins and an insufficient supply of money from the Mint. For some years the The assay was carried out in the presence of the Goldsmiths suffered a degree of uneasiness, but when King, the King's Council and the Warden of the their opportunity came they acted with great alacrity. 95 Goldsmiths' Row in Cheapside, then the most splendid street in London, and often known simp- ly as 'The Street' as depicted in 1547, with part of the coronation procession of Edward VI. In his 'Survey of London', published in 1598, John Stow described the building of `the most beautiful frame of fair houses and shops within the walls of London or elsewhere', built by Thomas Wood, goldsmith and one of the sheriffs of London, in the year 1491. Reporting home to his senate in 1497, the Venetian am- bassador wrote: 'In one single thoroughfare, named The Street, leading to St.
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