THE HISTORY OF THE COMPANY

The Loriners and their allies said that the battle had been started by the Saddlers, who owed various members of the crafts almost £300 and who wanted to compel the craftsmen to deal exclusively with them. The Saddlers complained that the allied crafts had come to a joint agreement to stop work simultaneously if any member of one of them had a dispute with the Saddlers (an early example of secondary picketing), and went on to accuse the Loriners of having made an ordinance “out of their own heads” not to receive any outside workman until he had taken an oath to conceal their misdeeds. The Mayor appointed six Aldermen to decide who was in the right. The first hearing was adjourned in some confusion, so many members of all the crafts having turned up. The next day the Aldermen decided the matter in favour of the Loriners and their allies, the Saddlers being obliged to promise to conspire no more against the three crafts, or else pay ten tuns of wine to the Commonalty of London.

The history of the City of London in the 14th century is marked by the growth of the smaller craft organisations - whereas in 1328 there were only 25 “misteries” authorised to elect officers for their own “governance and instruction”, by 1377 at least 35 others had obtained ordinances and achieved separate recognition. In that year 51 misteries took part in the election of Common Council (elected at that time by crafts, not by wards) and in 1382 we find two Loriners, John Mymmes and Nicholas Petit, among those so elected. The success of the Loriners and their allies in the dispute with the Saddlers was thus an early episode in a process which, while no doubt unwelcome to the established crafts, was historically inevitable.

From the earliest times the Loriners had been linked with the fraternity of St Eloy, whose feast day is 1st December.

In 1393 new Ordinances were made by the Loriners, approved by the Mayor and Aldermen, and enacted. These laid down inter alia that no lorinery should be forged at night, that two good men of the mystery should be chosen to survey all work and that no work should be done on the eve of feasts, except varnishing, burnishing and embossing. Other rules stipulated the arrangements to be made in the event of the death of “any brother or sister”, and made provision for the relief of any member overtaken by poverty. Anyone using high and “owterageous” language at meetings was to forfeit a pound of wax.

In 1446 Loriners and similar craftsmen were exempted from the rules against wooden chimneys (so long as they were kept in proper repair).

In 1489 a set of new Ordinances was granted, one of more than a dozen sets granted towards the end of the fifteenth century to the lesser crafts.

Mention has already been made of the complaint in 1511 about the importation of French bits in great quantity “whereby great hurt and destruction groweth”. Similar complaint was made in 1570 against foreign makers of bits and other wares (and more recently, in 1976, the Company complained to the Board of Trade about imports of poor quality from the Far East).

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