THE WHEELWRIGHTS
The Company was founded by a charter granted by King Charles II., February 3, 1670, in compliance with a petition presented by divers wheelwrights, in and near the City of London, praying that, as “certain foreigners undertake the profession and trade of a wheelwright, notwithstanding they are ignorant and unskilful therein, and altogether incapable of making the works used in and about the said city, whereby much mischief happeneth to persons in the streets, by falling of carts and coaches, and great damage to merchants and others in their goods, as also loss and danger to gentlemen occasioned by the ignorance and ill work of the said foreigners, that never served to the said profession, and other great inconveniences and misdemeanours used and practised in the said art and trade,” they might, for the prevention thereof, be incorporated into a body politic.
At present they have a Livery of 120; a Corporate Income of £300; no Trust Income, and no Hall.
THE WOOLMEN
The date of the foundation of the Company was probably about 1300.
By the 27 Edward III. c. 23, the Company had the right of appointing licencemen to wind wools. The Company possesses a book of ordinances allowed and confirmed to the Company of Woolmen of the City of London by the Lord Chancellor of England and the two chief justices of either bench in the year 1587. Sixteen of the ordinances regulate the election of the governing body and the clerk, etc. The Company also possesses an order of the Court of Aldermen for granting a Livery to the Woolmen’s Company, and in the report made by the Committee of Privileges and subsequently approved and confirmed by the said court. The Company has existed under various names, such as Woolpackers, Woolwinders, and Woolmen; it was designated by all these titles in a proclamation of Charles II., but for the last three hundred years it has been known chiefly by the style of the Company of Woolmen.
The right of the Company to appoint and license duly qualified persons, having previously examined them, to wind wools has long ceased to exist; the last person licensed was in the year 1779. By proclamations in the reign of Charles II., woolcombers were obliged to be licensed by the Company.
The Master of the Woolmen’s Company has the right to nominate to the Court of Assistants of the Merchant Taylors Company two poor members of the Company as pensioners under Vernon’s Charity.
The Company lost its charter and most of its documents in the Fire of London, when the Company’s Hall was burnt down.
Their members number 20. Their Corporate Income is £376; they have no Trust Income, and no Hall. Considering that the staple trade of England for many centuries was that of wool, there can be little doubt of the extreme antiquity of this Company.