CityandLivery

It has been said that the City throws away nothing it finds to be useful, and this is true of many of its ancient customs and traditions handed down through the centuries. While the City is a place of tradition and heritage it also at the vanguard of modernity; a centre of excellence for innovation in business; finance; technology; law; and a champion of diversity and inclusion in the commercial; civic, and livery realms.  Nowhere is this more apparent the way the Livery Companies and the City's civic institutions have evolved to encourage greater diversity among their membership. Many companies have signed up to the Diversity Charter , others have codified their own principles of inclusion. At a practical level all Livery Companies now admit women; the Lady Past Masters Association has grown to nearly 200 members since the first female Master, Sylvia Tutt (1983-84) and the first female Lord Mayor, Mary Donaldson (1983-84). Somewhere between a third and a half of the Livery Company...

There's a new Sheriff in Town (well two actually) Any good cowboy and western film will feature that square jawed character who stands for law and order - the City Sheriff. In the wild west the Sheriff relied on his badge, his revolver, his horse, and a good dose of common sense to keep the peace. His office was usually next to the courthouse, and there were invariably cells for holding wayward townsfolk. This familiar trope of the spaghetti western finds it origins in the City of London where there are many parallels to be draw, but as ever the City of London likes to be different from other towns and elects two new Sheriffs to hold office every year, a right it has held since time immemorial. Who were the first Sheriffs in London? The office of Sheriff is undoubtedly the oldest in the City's vast treasure chest of ancient offices, it predates that of the Lord Mayor (1189), and the Aldermen (earliest record 1111). Its origins reach back before the Norman Conquest to Anglo-Saxo...