THE HISTORY OF THE COMPANY

Several references are made in documents of the late sixteenth century to the Loriners’ coat of arms - the earliest in 1588. There is no record of them at the College of Arms, and the Company has no motto, nor does it display helm or mantling. The coat is “Azure on a chevron argent, between three manage bits or, as many bosses sable” and is supported asymmetrically by a single horse, between foliage of palm and of juniper.

In 1696 the “Wardens, Assistants and Freemen of the Company of Lorinors” joined in a solemn declaration and oath to support and defend King William as rightful and lawful King of this realm.

Some years previously there had been the first reference to Loriners’ Hall, in Pepys’ diary on 15th May 1668. It stood on the east corner of Aldermanbury Postern and London Wall, facing Basinghall Street, and was a “pretty, neat building”. The Company leased it, the originals of twenty one year leases dated 18th December 1716 and 15th March 1736 being held at Guildhall.

Somewhat earlier, in 1706, the Company had granted an underlease to the Glaziers’ company. The last mention of the Hall occurs in the Court minutes of 3rd October 1759, which record that the Court met there. Less than three weeks later, on the 22nd October, the minutes state that the Court met at the George Tavern in Ironmonger Lane. We may assume that the lease expired and was not renewed, but the failure of either set of minutes to mention the fact reveals a casualness which a modern-day Clerk would not have permitted himself. The building was finally pulled down in late Victorian times.

The Company’s claim to “have had a Hall time out of mind” was made in 1711, in the preamble to the Royal Charter, by which, in the reign of Queen Anne and after more than four and a half centuries of corporate existence, the Company achieved incorporation in the style of “The Master, Wardens, Assistants and Commonalty of Loriners, London”. The Civic Livery was granted to the Company, the 57th in the City’s order of precedence, by an Order of the Court of Aldermen on 15th July 1712.

New Ordinances were obtained in 1714 and in 1741, the latter set being those by which the Company is governed to this day.

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