The plaque, that
fairs slightly better than the adjacent stonework, reads:
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The Corporation
of
On or near
this
site
stood the second
Turners' Hall
1736 - 66
the City of
London
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|
The Turners'
Company website tells us:
"The Guild of
Turners:
The Company is the successor of the Guild of Turners whose exact
origins are unknown. Unlike the products of the potter, wooden objects are
perishable, so the earliest date of turning is not known exactly. However,
turned wooden bowls excavated from peat bogs at prehistoric levels show that the
craft is certainly many thousands of years old.
In the Pipe
Roll of 1179-80, there is an isolated reference to “the Guild of Strangers of
which Warner le Turner is elderman”. Interesting though this is, it cannot be
regarded as evidence of the existence of a Guild of Turners. In 1310, however,
turners were in a position of some authority in their own craft: “Henry the
turner, dwelling in Wood Street, Richard the turner, John the turner in St.
Swithin’s Lane, Robert the turner, dwelling at Fleet, William the turner,
without the gate of Bishopsgate and Richard le Corveiser, dwelling in Wood
Street” were sworn before the Mayor and Aldermen not to make any other measures
than gallons, “potells” (two quarts) and quarts, to make no false measures such
as “chopyns” (about a pint) and “gylles” (half a pint), and to bring to
Guildhall any false measures wherever found.
In those days,
drinking vessels and measures for holding liquids, as well as dry measures for
goods such as corn, were mostly made of wood and were essentially the work of
the turner. Fifteen years earlier, a similar ruling by the Court of Aldermen
regarding the making and checking of measures had made no mention of the
Turners. Perhaps, therefore, the first beginnings of the Guild of Turners can be
assigned to a date between 1295 and 1310.
Early Days:
Growing Importance:
In 1347, there is evidence that the Guild was growing in
importance. Turners were summoned before the Mayor and Aldermen and instructed
that their measures must conform with the standard of the Alderman of the Ward
in which they were used. Each turner was to have a mark of his own, to be placed
on the bottom of his measures when they had been examined and found to reach the
standard. He was also to register his mark in Guildhall. Further, the turners of
the City were given a virtual monopoly of the sale of measures, which
undoubtedly advanced the position of the Guild in London where, throughout the
Middle Ages, most of the trade of the country was carried on. Wood Street was
for centuries the centre of turning in the City.
The products
of the turner's craft were wooden measures and a great variety of small objects
used in the home, on the farm and in industry. The turner has always played an
important part in furniture-making, providing table and chair legs, rails, chair
spindles and much embellishment. For centuries, he has turned the balusters of
staircases, landings, and balconies for buildings and for the poops and sterns
of' sailing ships, as well as pulleys and many other wooden components used on
sailing vessels.
By 1435, the
Guild of Turners was firmly established. In that year, John White and John
Hendon, described as “Wardens of the craft of Turners” laid a complaint before
the Court of Aldermen that “foreigners” were making and selling within the City
certain measures which were false and deceitful, and asked that the Wardens be
granted “the search and oversight” of all such measures brought into the City
before being put on sale. The petition was granted and officials of the Guild
were authorised to examine all wooden measures which were to be offered for sale
in the City. The minutes of later Court meetings show that this right of search
and oversight of turned goods in the City was exercised for at least 300 years -
well into the 18th century.
In 1479, the
Mayor and Aldermen approved a full set of ordinances submitted by the Turners.
They are typical of the regulations of a craft guild of the period whose
purposes, besides supervision and protection of the members' trade, were
brotherhood, mutual help, charity and religious observance.
Hall and Royal
Charter:
philpot-laneThe close of the 16th century saw three notable
developments in the Turners' history. First, in about 1590, the governing body
of the Guild decided that the dignity of a Common Hall was both desirable and
justified. A substantial mansion in Philpot Lane, off Eastcheap, was leased in
1591 and occupied as the first Turners' Hall for a period of 146 years, broken
only by rebuilding.
Second, with
the year 1593 the Guild's own records begin and continue until the present time;
and third, in 1604 King James I granted the Turners their first Royal Charter.
This is still in the Company's possession, as is their second Charter granted by
James II in 1685.
The Turners
made good use of their Hall for their own business and social activities. It was
freely made available to other Livery Companies and was also let out for other
purposes such as preaching, dancing, weddings and funerals.
Sadly, this
was brought to an end by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble which, in 1726,
bankrupted first the landlord of the Hall and then the legal representative of
his estate. After expensive legal proceedings stretching over ten years, with no
successful end in sight, the Company reluctantly decided to abandon the Philpot
Lane Hall. So the second and last Turners' Hall, a merchant's house in College
Hill, off Cannon Street, was purchased in 1736.
Decline:
The new Hall was in fact never used by the
Company for its dinners or other big functions, as its “Great Room” was no more
than a large Court Room. In 1756 it was let and, in 1766, finally
sold.
Within a few
years of occupying the new Hall, the Company's financial situation had become
straitened. There may well be a connection between the Company's declining
fortunes at this time and the changes in English furniture styles. The early
walnut period (1660-90) was the heyday of furniture turners, but every style of
the 18th century, from Queen Anne onwards, was against them, and they suffered
financially.
At the same
time the Livery Companies generally were tending to decline as an economic and
political force. This was an inevitable result of the expansion of trade and the
influx of population, which finally burst the bonds with which the medieval
craft guilds had sought to control their respective trades. Another reason was
the change in the complexion of the Companies' membership. Even though employers
still constituted the Livery, the proportion of actual artificers among them
decreased, and these became outnumbered by journeymen and other manual workers
in the craft.
The affairs of
the Turners' Company show a continuing decline throughout the second half of the
18th and the first half of the 19th century. Freemen became more and more
unwilling to join the Livery. Lack of interest spread through the Livery to the
Court itself', with Assistants electing to pay a fine to be excused from the
office of Warden and even that of Master. Through obsolescence and
artificiality, the Company was almost dying on its feet.
Revival:
1845 onwards saw a new spirit of revival,
reform and usefulness appropriate to a new age. New men joined the Court of
Assistants, many of them destined to make positive and striking contributions to
the Company. Prominent among them were T.J. Foord, G.W.K. Potter, W.H. Sadgrove
and, above all, the colourful John Jones; indeed, during the 24 years from 1846,
each of these men served as Master three times.
They brought
in a number of additional members, new blood which greatly added to the strength
and calibre of the Livery. In 1863, the Livery numbered 22 members but by 1874,
this number had recovered to 130. In 1876, Gladstone was admitted to the
Livery.
This
resurgence brought about a revival of interest in the ancient craft of turning
and the Company instituted competitions and exhibitions open to any workman or
apprentice in England for turnery, at first in wood, later also in metal and
other materials, such as ivory. From 1870 to 1890, these were held annually at
the Mansion House and drew large crowds of visitors, the prizes usually being
presented by the Lord Mayor and the winners receiving the Freedom of the
Company. They continued, with occasional breaks and varying emphasis until the
Second World War.
The honorary
Freedom of the Company was presented to a series of distinguished men and women
of public repute, including Baroness Burdett Coutts and H.M. Stanley who later
became a Turner, and Lloyd George. Baroness Burdett Coutts proved to be a very
generous friend, without whose aid the Court would not have been able to carry
through some of the laudable projects undertaken in the last three decades of
the century.
Between 1870
and 1914, medals for proficiency in mechanical drawing were awarded annually to
schools in the London area and, towards the end of this period, a large number
of lathes were presented to industrial, reformatory and other schools and
children's homes throughout the country.
By policies
such as these, within a generation a handful of enthusiastic men pulled the
Turners out of obscurity into comparative prominence among the Livery Companies,
with the classic distinction in 1887 of a suggestion in Punch that Dr Turtle
Piggott, then Master, should be made "perpetual Lord Mayor".
No fewer than
eight Turners served the office of Lord Mayor in the 75 years from 1874 to 1949,
a remarkable achievement for a minor company of no wealth - its total investment
income in 1900 was £74 - and little influence in civic affairs.
The gulf and
break with the past created by the 1914-18 War were widened and underlined by
the Second World War twenty years later. With the Turners, as with all the
institutions in and around London, things were never quite the same again.
Nonetheless, it has fully maintained, and even enhanced, its sense of purpose
and usefulness to its craft. In this it has been greatly assisted by two men,
Richard Gardner Williams and Sir Stanley Woodwark.
Richard
Gardner Williams:
When Richard Gardner Williams, a modest and unassuming
member of the Livery, died in 1931, he willed his £43,000 estate, after life
interests to his widow and sister (who died in 1945 and 1948), one tenth to
Great Barrow Church, near Chester, for the maintenance of his family memorials
and the church and graveyard generally, and nine tenths to the Turners' Company
“ absolutely, but with a request that they will apply the same in the first
place to provide the cost of an Annual Dinner and Banquet to all the Members of
the said Company… on the 24th day of February in each year,” his birthday.
Having no other dependants, he left his money to two bodies corporate, each of
which had already survived for 600 years and could, he evidently felt, be relied
upon to make good use of it.
He had been a
Liveryman of the Company only since 1913 but was very interested in its work and
especially impressed with the action of some members who had given money to
provide schools with lathes. His generous bequest, which multiplied the
Company’s corporate funds by ten, provides the annual commemoration dinner and a
contribution to the cost of the Turners' other functions and
activities.
Apothecaries'
Hall:
When Sir Stanley Woodwark, CMG, CBE, served as Master of the Company in
1943-44, he was also simultaneously Master of the Worshipful Society of
Apothecaries and of the Worshipful Society of Barber Surgeons - a unique
achievement. As Master of the Apothecaries, he invited the Turners to use their
Hall for Court meetings and social functions and this happy arrangement
continues to this day.
The Company's
Books and Records:
The Company possesses, enviably, complete records of its
history and development from its incorporation in 1604 up to the present
day.
These historic
books and documents are of great antiquarian interest, including as they do the
original Charter of James I (1604) and the Second Charter of James II (1685),
the original Ordinances of James I (1608) and the subsequent Ordinances of 1698
and 1823, Wardens' Accounts dating from 1593 and a host of other
papers.
In 1987 a remarkable discovery was made in the crypt of St. Botolph's,
Bishopsgate. During the clearance of asbestos lagging two wooden chests containing thousands
of Turners' Company documents were found, including the files of successive Clerks between
1751 and 1874.
"