The companies and the close corporations.
They were thus as exclusive and aristocratic as the town corporations had become. The degeneracy of the latter had been largely intensified by the degeneracy of the former. For the principal members of the companies were the principal members of the town corporation, which had silently, since the fourteenth century, been usurping the ancient powers of the general body of the burgesses. It was the companies which mainly profited by it. They profited indirectly, by the influence which they exercised through individual members on the town council, which had obtained part of the functions of the Leet. They profited directly as they themselves acquired definitely other of the powers of the Court Leet. Theybecame the chief or the sole medium for the acquisition of municipal freedom, and were distinct town organs for the regulation of trade and industry.
The journeymen no longer in the companies.
It is by reason of the widely-reaching influence of their degeneracy that their later history is of importance. For as regards the poorer members of society their history is useless. The workman disappears from their books. That he no longer was looked upon as the brother member of the masters is quite evident.
“Our workmen do work hard, but we live at ease,We go when we will, and we come when we please[173].”
They begin to form benefit societies, animated by much of the old Gild-spirit.
The most general means which the poor adopted to help themselves was the formation of Friendly Societies. These arose in great numbers during the 18th century. The companies were not slow in helping to swell public subscriptions and in assisting to pauperise the labouring class. To the necessity of rendering real help to their unfortunate workmen they were however entirely oblivious. This side of the work performed by the old Gilds had been almost wholly overlooked by the post-reformation companies, though it had been one of the most important of their predecessors’ functions. It was found that society could not get along without something of the kind, and as the higher companies would not perform the work, the lower craftsmen found it necessary to do it themselves. Here was a distinct severance of interest between employers and workmen, yet it does not seem unlikely that it wasthe old Gilds themselves which formed the models for the new societies. At any rate the analogies between the Gilds and the Benefit Societies, in the earlier phases of the latter, and looking at the social and religious side of the former, are very striking[174]. The simple rules of trade association show as much concern for the morals of members as did the charters of the Gilds: they had their annual feast, provided by subscription: they usually went in their procession to the parish church on the day of the feast. They were perhaps the earliest signs of that necessary return to something like the old Gild system which the later Trades Unions have done so much to bring about. The companies watched them grow up without a twinge of conscience, though it was their own neglect of duty which made such associations an absolute necessity. Being the only forms of combination which were left unmolested by the government they were extensively formed, and this was well, for the need of them was very great.
Difficulties of reform; members would not, state would not, the town authorities would not.
In spite of unmistakeable signs of inevitable changes the companies refused to take warning. Their reform was indeed difficult, and, as it proved, impossible. The workmen as we have seen could not, the masters would not, take steps in this direction. The state derived too good an income from them to be anxious for a change. The admission stamps, constantly increasing in amount, were a profitable source of revenue. The notices of “cessments for renewing the composition” are frequent.There were also continual contributions of men and money for the “exigencies of the State[175].” In 1798 the Mercers voted £100 annually to the government “during the continuance of the war.” The town also seemed to profit by them. They were obliged, some of them at all events, to exhibit their compositions annually or periodically to the mayor and pay a customary fine on doing so. They continued to be of some service to the community in the inefficient condition of the public police. Their social utility to the town was also in their favour. In 1608 the corporation provided materials in case of fire, when each of the companies was required to maintain its proper proportion of hooks and buckets. Entries relating to the “spout or water engine” are frequent in their records. In aid of procuring public benefits the companies were not backward. Their chests were readily opened to assist towards improvements in the town, such as widening of streets, erection of bridges and the like.
To the last also they preserved something of their charitable character, though its exercise was as open to criticism as other forms of poor relief during the eighteenth century. Nevertheless if the membership lists of the Drapers and the Mercers could be made public they would be found to contain the majority of the public benefactors of Shrewsbury during this period. Public charities, such as the Infirmary and the Lancaster School received annual subscriptions until the companies came to an end.The necessity of continuing the annuities to the inmates of S. Chad’s almshouses formed a chief argument against the dissolution of the Mercers’ company. “The Worshipful Company of Drapers” still subscribes to schools and charities year by year.
Contemporaneous opinion of the companies.
In these circumstances we cannot wonder that the old companies found many champions. The following letter is valuable as affording a view of the contemporaneous opinion held of the Gilds by a man of ordinary common sense and average education. It appeared in theSalopian Journalof August 27, 1823. It was evoked by a decision of the Judges of Assize in favour of the Mercers’ company in an important case to which reference will be made in a later page. It was addressed to the editor of the newspaper and commenced—
“Sir,As the Company commonly called ‘the United Company of Mercers, Grocers, Ironmongers, and Goldsmiths’ in this town have established the validity of their ancient customs by a suit at law of which there is no account of their having done so since the time when the King’s Court for the Marches of Wales was held at Ludlow; at which time and place the Council then, who held the pleas, determined also a like suit in their favour: and as there is much argument for and against the existence and usage of this incorporate body; permit me to lay before the public an outline of both, that the subject at least might be better understood than we often hear it repeated. It is contended against, as exercising an arbitrary monopoly of trade, to the detrimentand oppression of the subjects of the realm; and which is moreover injurious to the town itself, by depriving the Trade thereof of that competition which brings down the Articles of manufacture to a fair marketable value for the supply of its inhabitants. These are the charges against them, which if indeed they could be substantiated would be sufficient to show that their existence was an evil. But let us look at the facts on the other side of the question, and see whether there is any reality in these serious charges. In the first place the Companies hold it requisite, in order to be free of their body, that all but the sons of Freemen shall serve a regular apprenticeship to one of the Corporation. Now in this they have been sanctioned and dictated to by the ancient law of the land ... that youths might be properly taught their respective arts, and that the community might not be imposed upon by pretenders to that which they were not properly acquainted with.On Foreigners or such as have not served a regular apprenticeship they impose a fine of £20, before they will admit them as freemen, and certainly in doing this they do not over-rate a seven years’ servitude, when the one is made equivalent to the other.Let us now see to the application of the money. A fund is made of it, somewhat similar to ‘Benefit Societies.’ No part of it is applied to private purposes; for even the Company’s annual feast, about which there is so much said, is not always at the expense of the fund, but [is] borne individually; and the utility of such a feast to promote harmony and goodwill, is acknowledged by all Societies[176]. But further, these funds are confinedto the relief of decayed and deserving members of the Companies[177], and to every charitable and public emergency wherein the general interest or welfare of the town is concerned; and their annual disbursements, for centuries past, have been regularly serviceable to the community at large as well as to individual cases of distress. This the account of their expenditure will show. Now, then this monopoly, as it is called, extends no further than to exact an apprenticeship of seven years, or to a fine of £20; the former sanctioned by law and the latter a sum of no comparative amount to a respectable person, desirous of establishing a respectable trade, especially if there be any truth in the argument, that goods are sold by this corporate body for more money than they would be, if no such corporation existed. Neither can the fine be called excessive, because it is added to a stock which he from whom it is exacted directs in common to be applied to the common good; and which he may himself, as many others have done in cases of distress, receive back again with large additions.But the increased population of Birmingham and Manchester is brought forward as a proof of towns flourishing where trade is what is calledfree. Let us look a little into this argument. Are not the wares vended in these places proverbiallybad? Do not all manner of imposters from these places deluge the country with their spurious goods, and impose them upon the unwary part of the public? Are these towns to be compared with London, Liverpool, Bristol, for respectability of their trade, for the goodness and cheapness of their articles, when the quality is taken into account?Yet the trade of these latter towns is regulated by corporations.I contend therefore that the Corporation in question isbeneficialto this town and county, inasmuch as it tends to protect it from the inundations of empirics and imposters, while it holds out no hindrance to the fair and honest dealer who has a mind to compete with its respectable tradesmen and settle amongst them. I am not in trade myself; but hope I shall always see my native town preserved from that sort of population which it has never yet been disgraced with.I have the honour to be, Mr Editor,In technical language,A Combrother of the Guild.Shrewsbury, Aug. 22, 1823.”
“Sir,
As the Company commonly called ‘the United Company of Mercers, Grocers, Ironmongers, and Goldsmiths’ in this town have established the validity of their ancient customs by a suit at law of which there is no account of their having done so since the time when the King’s Court for the Marches of Wales was held at Ludlow; at which time and place the Council then, who held the pleas, determined also a like suit in their favour: and as there is much argument for and against the existence and usage of this incorporate body; permit me to lay before the public an outline of both, that the subject at least might be better understood than we often hear it repeated. It is contended against, as exercising an arbitrary monopoly of trade, to the detrimentand oppression of the subjects of the realm; and which is moreover injurious to the town itself, by depriving the Trade thereof of that competition which brings down the Articles of manufacture to a fair marketable value for the supply of its inhabitants. These are the charges against them, which if indeed they could be substantiated would be sufficient to show that their existence was an evil. But let us look at the facts on the other side of the question, and see whether there is any reality in these serious charges. In the first place the Companies hold it requisite, in order to be free of their body, that all but the sons of Freemen shall serve a regular apprenticeship to one of the Corporation. Now in this they have been sanctioned and dictated to by the ancient law of the land ... that youths might be properly taught their respective arts, and that the community might not be imposed upon by pretenders to that which they were not properly acquainted with.
On Foreigners or such as have not served a regular apprenticeship they impose a fine of £20, before they will admit them as freemen, and certainly in doing this they do not over-rate a seven years’ servitude, when the one is made equivalent to the other.
Let us now see to the application of the money. A fund is made of it, somewhat similar to ‘Benefit Societies.’ No part of it is applied to private purposes; for even the Company’s annual feast, about which there is so much said, is not always at the expense of the fund, but [is] borne individually; and the utility of such a feast to promote harmony and goodwill, is acknowledged by all Societies[176]. But further, these funds are confinedto the relief of decayed and deserving members of the Companies[177], and to every charitable and public emergency wherein the general interest or welfare of the town is concerned; and their annual disbursements, for centuries past, have been regularly serviceable to the community at large as well as to individual cases of distress. This the account of their expenditure will show. Now, then this monopoly, as it is called, extends no further than to exact an apprenticeship of seven years, or to a fine of £20; the former sanctioned by law and the latter a sum of no comparative amount to a respectable person, desirous of establishing a respectable trade, especially if there be any truth in the argument, that goods are sold by this corporate body for more money than they would be, if no such corporation existed. Neither can the fine be called excessive, because it is added to a stock which he from whom it is exacted directs in common to be applied to the common good; and which he may himself, as many others have done in cases of distress, receive back again with large additions.
But the increased population of Birmingham and Manchester is brought forward as a proof of towns flourishing where trade is what is calledfree. Let us look a little into this argument. Are not the wares vended in these places proverbiallybad? Do not all manner of imposters from these places deluge the country with their spurious goods, and impose them upon the unwary part of the public? Are these towns to be compared with London, Liverpool, Bristol, for respectability of their trade, for the goodness and cheapness of their articles, when the quality is taken into account?Yet the trade of these latter towns is regulated by corporations.
I contend therefore that the Corporation in question isbeneficialto this town and county, inasmuch as it tends to protect it from the inundations of empirics and imposters, while it holds out no hindrance to the fair and honest dealer who has a mind to compete with its respectable tradesmen and settle amongst them. I am not in trade myself; but hope I shall always see my native town preserved from that sort of population which it has never yet been disgraced with.
I have the honour to be, Mr Editor,In technical language,A Combrother of the Guild.
Shrewsbury, Aug. 22, 1823.”
SHREWSBURY SHOW.
Characteristic features of the Middle Ages.
A strange glamour hangs around the Middle Ages. We know so little of man’s actual life in those years,—and what little we do know seems to partake so largely of the mysterious and the picturesque—all, his modes of life and manners of thought are so far removed from our own,—that mediæval history would easily resolve itself into an enchanting pageant bright with its colour and bewildering with its contradictions. It is perhaps in the strange contrasts which are presented to us that its chief wonder is found. In those years we find lust and rapine, and sacrilege and tyranny, side by side with the fairest forms of chivalry[178], the most devoted readiness to champion the cause of religion, the firmest attachment to the forms of law[179]. We see only the prominent lights and the great shadows of the picture, but all that should go to make it human and comprehensible to us is hidden under the dust of centuries.
We have noticed the existence of something of this contradictory spirit in the view we have had of the early Gilds[180]. The elevated ideal which they set before their members must of course have been far above the level which was ever actually reached. We may smile at their vain attempts after the impossible, yet we cannot but allow that their perseverance betokens the widespread acceptance of a nobler conception of human life than is common in our own too merely practical age. To the men of those days there seemed no great incongruity in the lofty ideals of the Gild-compositions and the lower standard which the brethren actually attained. It added but another to the many striking contrasts which environed their daily life.
Fondness for pageantry.Its social importance.
That life was one passed largely in dulness and perhaps comparative squalor. But the occasions of colour and merriment were not few. Each season had its festivities, social and religious, when rich and poor met on something like equal ground in the rude merry-making. This feature in ordinary life was not without its social importance, and if only for this reason no account of the Gilds would be complete which failed to take notice of their processions and, in so doing, of the general life and habits of the brethren at the different epochs of Gild history. We have now nothing to take the place of those occasions of mutual enjoyment and mirth, when “ceremony doff’d his pride” without censure, when the bashful apprentice might perhaps tread a measure with his master’s daughter, andwhen the condescending mistress of the house might even allow herself to be led out for a dance by one or other of her goodman’s journeymen.
“A Christmas gambol oft would cheerA poor man’s heart through half the year[181].”
The Corpus Christi procession.
We have already seen how important an influence religious feelings had in the actions of the Gilds. Among the yearly festivals the feast of Corpus Christi soon became one of the most splendid for pomp and pageantry, and to it the Gilds were naturally attracted. Some indeed existed with the primary object of ensuring the glory of this particular feast. Most important of these was the Corpus Christi Gild at York[182]. The Gild of the Holy Trinity, also at York, concerned itself with the annual production of a religious play illustrating the Lord’s Prayer. The Gilds of S. Helen (which represented the Invention of the Cross), of S. Mary, and of Corpus Christi, at Beverley[183], were other famous fraternities with similar objects. At Stamford was one which maintained a secular play[184]. In most towns in England it became the custom for the Gilds, each with its banners and insignia, to accompany the Corpus Christi procession: in some places the event seems to have become especially picturesque. At Coventry[185]and also at Shrewsbury, theprocession has lasted in some sort down to our own day[186]. At the former city Lady Godiva has even lately ridden, though at fitful and uncertain intervals: at the latter town, although the procession has now become a thing of the past, it is little more than a decade since “Shrewsbury Show” was to be seen annually, on the Monday following the feast of Corpus Christi, passing along under the eaves of the timbered houses of the old border town.
The pageants of the Gilds.
The prominence which the charters of the Shrewsbury Gilds gave to the procession has been sufficiently pointed out already. Every care was taken to secure its fitting glory and splendour. Among the goods of the companies which the inventories name are “Baners,” “Baners for ye Mynstrellys werying,” “skukions for my’strells,” “torches,” “coots of sense,” “stondarts of mayle,” “other pec’s of mayle,” besides many swords and halberts, and the like. These various properties decked out the pageant which each Gild contributed to the common procession. It was exhibited by means of a wooden scaffold on wheels, differing probably but little in appearance from the drays or trollies which were utilised in later years. Dugdale in hisAntiquities of Warwickshirerelates that “before the suppression of the Monasteries this city[187]was very famous for the pageants that were played therein upon Corpus Christi Day; which, occasioning very greatconfluence of people thither from far and near, was of no small benefit thereto: which pageants being acted with mighty state and reverence by the friars of this house had theaters for the several scenes, very large and high, placed upon wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the city for the better advantage of the spectators.”
At Shrewsbury there appears never to have been an elaborate miracle play presented by the crafts[188]. Most likely the Show early took that form which it exhibited in the later times of which we have more definite record. The Gilds of the town walked in the procession, each member bearing, in mediæval days, a light “in honour of the Blessed Sacrament,” the officers wearing their liveries and carrying the banners and other insignia, and thus escorting a tableau more or less appropriate to the craft. No small expense and even taste appears to have been expended on these representations, though their precise suitability it is in some cases difficult to appreciate. Before Reformation times the tableaux were generally of a biblical or ecclesiastical nature: after the 16th century they were usually mythological or historical. Thus the Tailors were presided over by Adam and Eve “the first of their craft,” or by Queen Elizabeth in ruffles of right royal magnitude. The Shearmen or Clothworkers had a personation of bishop Blasius, with a black mitre of wool and doubtless also the wool-comb with which he had been tortured at his martyrdom. The place of thesaint was subsequently usurped by the king—Edward IV., who was remembered as having especially cultivated the good offices of the wool-merchants. The Skinners and Glovers were ruled by the king of Morocco, whose “Cote” was an expensive item in their accounts; they had also an elaborate mechanical stag accompanied by huntsmen sounding bugle blasts. The Smiths were appropriately represented by Vulcan, or a knight in black armour “supported by two attendants who occasionally fired off blunderbusses.” The Painters were accustomed to find their best representative of later years in a cheery-looking Rubens brandishing palette and brush, while the Bricklayers, for some occult reason, considered themselves adequately represented by bluff king Hal. The twin saints Crispin and Crispianus patronised the Shoemakers, and S. Katharine (at a spinning wheel) the Barbers. Venus and Ceres presided over the Bakers.
The Reformation.Mary.
At the Reformation the Corpus Christi procession became shorn of its splendour even before it altogether ceased under Edward VI. With Mary’s attempt to revive the old order efforts were made to restore the Show in its pristine grandeur, though Edward VI.’s pillaging of the Gilds had rendered the furnishing of the lights and vestments a matter of serious difficulty. At Shrewsbury the municipal authorities endeavoured to keep up the mystery plays by means of contributions from the various companies.
Elizabeth.
The accession of Elizabeth was not likely to do any harm to the plays and pageants, though theoutward reason for their performance might be changed. Elizabeth fully perceived the political and social usefulness of such festivities: her provincial progresses were a succession of brilliant shows and interludes which served a useful purpose in diverting the nation’s attention from the graver dangers which threatened England during the queen’s eventful reign. Elizabeth was also naturally fond of gaiety and wit, and the tone of the people from the highest to the lowest was dramatic. The Court had its “master of the revels,” the Universities and Inns of Court had their regular plays. Interludes were provided for the queen’s entertainment as she moved from town to town both at the houses of the higher gentry and by the common people. They were indeed the ordinary means by which honour was paid to any very distinguished visitor.
The Shrewsbury playwright was Thomas Ashton the first master of the grammar school. His theatre was the open ground without the walls, the Quarrell or Quarry. The season of the year at which these performances of Thomas Ashton took place was Whitsuntide, at which time Chester was also engaged in its more famous productions. It is to be regretted that no records[189]remain of these Shrewsbury plays, or a valuable addition might be made to the scanty collections of such antiquities which have been madepublic. These academic entertainments did not supplant the old annual procession (the date of which was transferred to the Monday following the feast of Corpus Christi) which continued apparently until the power of the Puritans became too strong to admit of its longer existence. Already that influence was at work, and Elizabeth had many detractors among those of the stricter persuasion. The character of their sternness, as well as the nature of their dissatisfaction at the gaiety which Elizabeth fostered, is well exemplified at Shrewsbury in the incident of the Shearmen’s tree. The event is also noteworthy as being the only occasion until later days on which anything like friction occurred between the companies and the municipal corporation[190].
The Shearmen’s tree.
The woollen trade, as we have seen[191], gave occupation to a very large number of Shearmen. These belonged to the more unskilled class of labourers, the work they performed being simply that of preparing the wool for the later stages of manufacture. They were precisely the class to fail to appreciate the religious changes, and such as would be likely to resort to the physical force argument on any occasion. It was also to such men that the revelry of Christmastide, Maytime, and the like were most precious. Their life was a hard and colourless one, and they would for this reason cling desperately to the old occasions of merriment. The festival which appears to havebeen particularly odious to the Puritans was that of May Day, when, Stow[192]tells us, it was the custom for the citizens “of all estates” to have their “Mayings,” and to “fetch in Maypoles, with divers warlike shows, with good archers, morris dancers, and other devices for pastime all the day long; and toward the evening they had stage plays, and bonfires in the streets.” To the youth of the town it was a sufficiently harmless summer holiday. To the precise it was plainly and purely a heathen survival. At Shrewsbury they were early in active antagonism to it. In 1583 there occurred “soom contrav’sie about the settinge upp of maye poales and bonfyers mackinge and erection of treese before the sherman’s haule and other places[193],” though apparently without immediate effect, for two years later appears another entry “Pd. for cutting down the tree, and the journeymen to spend xvd.[194]”
But it was not long before the Puritans prevailed. The May Day merry-making was stopped and even the Gild festival prohibited. “This yeare [1590-1] and the 6 day of June beinge Soondaye and the festivall day of the Coyof the Shearmen of Salop aboute the settinge upp of a greene tree by serte yonge men of the saide Coybefore their hall doore as of many years before have been acostomid but preachid against by the publicke precher there and commawndid by the baylyffs that non sutche shoulde be usid, and for the disobedience therein theye were put in prison and a privey sessions called and there also indicted and still remayne untill the next townesessions for further triall[195].” The letter of the law however was in their favour. At the sessions the judges decided that the tree should be erected and “usyd as heretofore have be’ so it be don syvely and in lovynge order wthout contencion[196].” But the soreness remained and the Shearmen were very turbulent for a long period. A curious entry in 1596 betokens a continuance of the friction: “Pdoure fyne for not rerynge of Cappes to Mr Bayliffe 3/4[197].” For Puritan influence had waxed stronger, and at length it was “agreed that there shall not be hereafter any interludes or playes within this town or liberties uppon anye Soundays or in the night tyme. Neyther shall there be any playinge at footballe, or at hiltes or wastrells, or beare baytinge, within the walles of this towne[198].”
Commonwealth.The Restoration.
During the civil wars and under the rule of the Commonwealth the inhabitants of the town were too heavily burdened with taxes for the maintenance of soldiers and for the repairs of the walls (for which the companies were severally assessed) to have much wealth to expend on revelry and merry-making, even had Puritan sourness admitted any such. But the reaction consequent on the Restoration brought back the glory to Shrewsbury. The agriculture of the district had now quite recovered from the long-distant Welsh ravages: the internal trade of the town was also very considerable. Shrewsbury was therefore a place of no small importance. It played the part of a local metropolis in which the fashionsof the capital were mimicked by the wealthy tradesfolk, their wives and daughters, and the country gentry and their families. For neither class could often go to London. Travelling was a serious affair not lightly to be undertaken. Consequently, just as the country gentleman now spends a portion of the year in London, so his ancestor in the seventeenth century made the adjacent county town his residence at certain seasons. Besides “he was often attracted thither by business and pleasure, by assizes, quarter sessions, elections, musters of militia, festivals and races.... There were the markets at which the corn, the cattle, the wool, and the hops of the surrounding country were exposed for sale.... There were the shops at which the best families of the neighbourhood bought grocery and millinery[199].” In Shrewsbury did the provincial beaux and belles promenade by the side of the Severn and in the abbey gardens. These latter were especially attractive. They were laid out “with gravell walks set full of all sorts of greens—orange and Lemmon trees.... Out of this went another garden much larger with severall fine grass walks kept exactly cut and roled for company to walk in: every Wednesday most of yetown yeLadies and Gentlemen walk there as in St James’s Parke, and there are abundance of people of quality lives in Shrewsbury[200].”
Farquahar in his sprightly comedyThe Recruiting Officerdescribes the lively doings of the same“people of quality,” and also of the more stolid burghers. “I have drawn,” he says, “the Justice and the Clown in theirPuris Naturalibus; the one an apprehensive, sturdy, brave blockhead; and the other a worthy, honest, generous gentleman, hearty in his country’s cause and of as good an understanding as I could give him, which I must confess is far short of his own.” Farquahar seems to have obtained a particularly good impression of the worthy Salopians. He dedicates his comedy to “All Friends round the Wrekin.” “I was stranger to everything in Salop but its Character of Loyalty, the Number of its Inhabitants, the Alacrity of the Gentry in Recruiting the Army, with their generous and hospitable Reception of Strangers. This Character I found so amply verify’d in every Particular that you made Recruiting, which is the greatest Fatigue upon Earth to other, to be the greatest Pleasure in the World to me[201].” Shrewsbury was one of the gayest of those many provincial capitals “out of which the great wen of London has sucked all the life[202].”
Shrewsbury Show in 17th century.
Farquhar may have seen the old Show, which the Restoration had naturally brought back, wend its noisy way to Kingsland. The procession itself was easily rehabilitated, but the arbours on Kingsland, where the day was spent in merrymaking, called for much attention. Great activity was evinced in their repair, for they had fallen into sad decay during the hard rule of the Puritans. Someof the companies adorned their arbours with gateways, arms and mottoes, “dyalls,” and the like. Most of the gateways were of wood, but in 1679 the Shoemakers company erected a handsome stone portal, which a few years subsequently they adorned with figures of their patron saints, Crispin and Crispianus. As though the events of a century previous were still fresh in men’s minds, the legend was painted underneath,
“We are but images of stonneDo us no harme—we can do nonne.”
About this time it is evident the Show was in a very prosperous condition. Puritanism had not taken any real hold on the country, and the Church was restored, and old ways of thinking and acting brought back, without any disturbance or opposition[203]. Even in the companies the religious element which was so strong in the earlier Gilds was not entirely wanting: the day’s proceedings included a sermon in the Church[204]. In the morning the Wardens and members met in the open space before the castle, whence they passed in a merry procession through the gaily decked streets to Kingsland. There each Gild had its arbour surrounded by trees and supplied with tables and benches. The mayor and corporation used to attend, and were accustomed to visit each arbour in succession. The remainder of the day passed in festivity and merriment, and the craftsmen with their friends returned home in the evening“much invigorated with the essence of barley-corn,” as a writer of fifty years ago expresses it.
Degeneracy.
But the degeneracy of the revived Show was very apparent. The dropping off of the sermons deprived the companies of the last trace of that strong religious element which had characterised their mediæval ancestors. A private letter of 1811 says, “Shrewsbury Show was on the 19th [of June] but I did not go to it. That, like other things, is getting much worse.” The Drapers and Mercers had never gone to Kingsland, and gradually the other companies began to withdraw from the Show. The formal procession became confined practically to apprentices[205], while the masters contented themselves with a dinner at one of the inns of the town[206]. Everything was significant of the approaching end of the pageant.
Reform agitation tends to check degeneracy, but Reform Acts fatal to the Show.
When the Reform agitation threatened to deprive the companies of their trading privileges at no distant period, and later, when it had succeeded in doing so, attempts seem to have been made to bring into prominence their social aspect[207], and the procession was again reinvigorated. The pomp which signalised George the Fourth’s coronation may also have given a stimulus to pageantry. The arbours were repaired and rebuilt, and the year 1849witnessed a grand revival of the procession. Attempts in this direction were now not infrequent, but were necessarily spasmodic. Yet the time-honoured Show was found to be possessed of wonderful vitality. When the Municipal Corporations Act destroyed the exclusive privileges of trading which the companies possessed they clung to their annual feast and to the yearly procession, for which they retained the arbours at some expense and self-denial. Gradually however as the successive freemen died the arbours reverted one by one to the corporation of the town; the other Gild property, which was not already divided, was shared among surviving members, or fell through debt or similar causes into other hands. Kingsland itself was to revert to the town at the decease of the last of the members of the companies, according to an arrangement concluded in 1862.
Even still the old Show was hard to kill. In spite of much that was saddening, and much degradation, the procession lingered on till some twelve or fourteen years ago, when it died a natural death. So another link with the past was broken, and another spot of colour wiped away from these duller days of uniformity and routine.
THE END OF THE COMPANIES.
Failure of efforts to restrict trade.
The system of elaborate organisation by which men had regulated trade in the past had given way to an equally complete system of individualism. Confused philosophical reasoning, combined with the decay of old means of regulation, had produced this anti-social state of things. Individual competition, in uncontrolled energy, reigned supreme amid almost incredible suffering and squalor. Everything which might tend to check the progress of the devastation was looked upon with suspicion and swept swiftly out of the way. All the old restraints were wanting, and self-interest alone formed the mainspring of action. To this fetish everything was sacrificed—men’s bodies and men’s principles. Commercial dealings took the most questionable forms: adulteration of products went on unchecked by any qualms of honesty. The companies had long ago ceased to make any attempts in the direction of industrial regulation. The whole efforts of their members were concentrated on the vain endeavour to restrict trade to the chartered towns.
Yet even the apologist for the companies, quoted at the end of the sixth chapter, was obliged to allow that in this they had failed. The result of the action of the “oppressive oligarchies” was the “excluding or discouraging the English Subjects from Trading in our greatest and best situated towns, where the markets are[208].” Shrewsbury saw the free towns around growing up to importance and outstripping her in the race for prosperity. Birmingham, not far distant, was already famous. Another free town which rose rapidly was Manchester, where most of the new industries did not come under the Apprenticeship Act, and were consequently free and unshackled. Such formidable rivals drew away trade from the old privileged boroughs. The companies were quite unable to retain their monopolies.
But more than this. Even the measure of commercial prosperity which Shrewsbury possessed—it was not small—cannot be in any appreciable degree ascribed to the companies. A writer of 1825[209]who considers the trade of the town at that date by no means “inconsiderable[210]” attributes the fact to anything rather than the “Chartered Companies[211].” “Here are two very large linen factories, besides several manufactories for starch, soap, flannels, cotton goods, an extensive iron and brass foundry,two ale and porter breweries, a spirit distillery, etc.[212]” “Its fabrication of threads, linen cloths etc. etc. stands unrivalled; whilst the more common articles of domestic life are executed in a stile of neatness, certainly equal, if not superior, to those of any other place of similar size[213].” The various causes which he looks upon as conducing to this prosperity he sets forth with considerable detail: “its contiguity to the Principality, the facility which it possesses for the importation and exportation of goods, by means of its noble river and canals, and its situation as the capital of an extensive and populous county, combine to give it many advantages over a variety of places equally insular[214].” That the companies had any hand in ministering to this prosperity, or even served any useful purpose, seems never to have so much as occurred to him.
Struggle against intruders
Yet they were putting their charters to the utmost use. They used every means in their power to hold the trade. They obtained the assistance of the municipal officers in seeking out and expelling intruders, even hawkers and pedlars. Actions at law became rapidly more frequent, until at last the life of the companies becomes one long effort to compel intruders to take up their freedom by paying the necessary fines. The Barbers even went so far as to prosecute men and women-servants for presuming to dress their masters’ and mistresses’ hair.
Though these measures were unsuccessful inattaining their object they were not without most important results.
impoverishes the companies, and calls down public odium on them.
In the first place the companies saw their stock become rapidly impoverished, and themselves on the verge of bankruptcy. So early as 1692 the Mercers were obliged to raise £50 by means of mortgage, and in the next year they were twice forced to sell some of their property. The Grocers had, half a century previously[215], noted with sorrow how “the Stock of the Company yearly decreaseth.” The Barbers so early as 1744 resolve to spend no more money at Show time “except the third part of the Weavers’ Bill.” The Saddlers’ stock in the three per cents. has to be sold to defray the charges of actions against intruders in 1810, and about the same time the Bakers’ arbour was seized “on account of sustained charges against the company in an action for supposed infringement of their rights.” Even the wealthy company of the Drapers had been compelled to relinquish their annual holiday, at which open house was kept for town and neighbourhood, in 1781.
But worse perhaps than this was the public odium they brought upon themselves. That this was so was acknowledged in formal meeting at the close of their public life, yet it had existed long before and grew daily stronger.
Other signs of decay.Internal disorder.Accounts carelessly kept.Trade leaves them.General demoralisation.
These two causes would have been alone sufficient to bring about the downfall of the companies. But there were other signs of decay in plenty. Internaldisorder was adding to the degradation into which the once honourable associations were falling. Even in 1668 the Glovers are compelled to take into account “the disorderly manner of making wardens.” So late as 1832 the Saddlers inflict a fine on their steward for attending meetings in a state of intoxication. The books are much less carefully kept. The Glovers’ company came to an untimely end in 1810 through maladministration and carelessness in dealing with the yearly balance sheet[216]. In 1822 so great a company as the Mercers’ is found appointing a committee to search for the charter, which is ultimately found in the hands of a private individual whose magnanimity in surrendering what did not belong to him is highly praised by a formal resolution[217]. We have seen already how trade had fallen off. In 1770 a member of the Saddlers’ company paid five guineas “to be for ever excused from serving the office of Steward or Warden.” Private interest alone formed the motive of action in commercial dealings. The individual knew nothing of obligations due to society.
Society was indeed in a state of rottenness. Outwardly there was plentiful decorum; really there was sufficient sham with its usual concomitant, laxity of morals, in a very marked degree[218]. Itcould hardly be expected that this should be otherwise in the general disregard which prevailed of all finer instincts: questionable commercial dealings and adulteration of products, on the one hand, were naturally accompanied by brutality and squalor on the other. Commercial success was the only criterion, and as the companies could not stand the test of this touchstone of merit they were doomed.