CityandLivery

The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson’s Bay The City of London merchant company that founded a modern nation Arms of the Hudson's Bay Company © Paul D Jagger Among the merchant adventurer companies that were formed in London to develop trade in the emerging empire only one survives to this day as a trading company. The once mighty East India Company closed shop in 1874 after the Indian subcontinent came under Imperial governance, the New Zealand Company and the Levant Company are long forgotten and the Muscovy Company exists only as a charitable foundation, but the Hudson’s Bay Company remains a household name in the nation which it did so much to build. Today no major town or city in Canada is without its branch of The Hudson’s Bay Company but the historic roots of this iconic Canadian retailer are deeply and firmly anchored in to the City of London where the Company’s headquarters were located for the first 300 years of its existe...

This article is the second in a two part series that provides Liverymen with the knowledge required to learn their heraldic ABC (Arms, Badge and Crest). It is not intended to explain the coat of arms of each and every Livery Company, there are two excellent books that do that far better than I can (details at the bottom of this article). This second part explains an Armorial Achievement and its component parts. If you haven't already done so you may wish to read the first part on debunking the myths of heraldry before going further. What's an Armorial Achievement? Early in 2017 my daughter joined the Brownies and quickly made a plan to obtain every badge by Christmas 2018. She is making rapid progress against that plan and my wife and I have already sewn nine badges on her sash. The sash is a visual record of my daughter's achievements and affiliations of which she is rightly proud to display. The badges are arranged in a particular order and only granted when she h...

Throughout this year I have been immensely honoured to attend as a guest of (and sometimes speaker to) a number of livery companies other than my own. This cooks' tour of companies has given me the opportunity to observe and interact with the different organisational cultures that exist among the livery at close quarters. The most recent of my outings was as guest of a Bowyer who shared with me his perspective on how these diverse cultures fit into a common framework that ensures commonality of purpose while allowing each company to follow its own path. My host drew a comparison with the Commonwealth of Nations, an organisation that embraces many different countries, cultures and ethnicities but does so with a common set of values and language under a single unifying authority. I found this comparison with the Commonwealth a particularly good model for explaining the similarities and differences among the Livery Companies, let me explain further: Common Objectives The Commo...