THE DEGENERACY OF THE COMPANIES.

The competition of “interlopers” ruined the Welsh trade of Shrewsbury. It was not, as we have seen, from any lack of vigilance on the part of the companies. Stimulated by their new compositions they became extremely active. As early as 1622 the actions against “foreigners” begin. Soon afterwards they become of frequent occurrence until at length the books of the companies are almost mere records of a daily struggle for existence.

This was of course inevitable under the altered conditions of trade. But the companies exhibited in themselves all the radical defects which must pertain to such a system when it has outgrown its necessity. We have seen how free the earlier companies were from friction with the municipal authorities. In the 17th century this is changed. The propriety of setting up a May-pole had formerly been almost the only ground of conflict between the bailiffs and the craftsmen. But in 1639 we find that the Tanners were thought to be overstepping their powers; the corporation appointed a committee to examine their composition. Some seventeen years later, extreme measures had to be taken with regard to the same company. It was the custom for the charters to be inspected by the corporation periodically. In 1656 the Tanners refused to comply with the request to produce their composition for the mayor’s perusal, with the result that the company was prosecuted by the corporation[159].

The town had been willing to support the Drapers in their measures to draw the Welsh trade to Shrewsbury, but it did not approve of the line of action they tried subsequently to take, namely, to limit all the trade to their own members. In 1653 regulations were framed to prevent the company “forestalling or engrossing the Welsh Flannels, Cloaths etc.[160]” A more serious abuse transpired in connection with the Feltmakers’ company in 1667. They refused to make one who had been lawfully apprenticed to the trade in Shrewsbury free of their company. On this occasion the mayor and aldermen exercised their right of supervision by ordering the Wardens to admit the man, “and the Mayor is desired to give him the oath of a Freeman of the said Company[161].” The importance of the mayor being thus empowered by the municipal authorities to administer the oath of admittance to one of the Gilds is very great, and shows how real was the subordination of the latter to the town when the corporation chose to exert its rights.An order of the corporation[162] directing that burgesses only are to be elected Wardens of the companies points to another abuse, the existence of which is proved by other evidence, viz., the admittance of non-residents in the town to membership in the companies on payment of a sufficiently large entrance fee. Yet the extent to which corruption could go was seen forty years later when the corporation stultified itself by passing an order[163] allowing the Haberdashers to elect persons, though they might not be burgesses, as Wardens of their company.

The general impression which such transactions leave is that extreme laxity prevailed in all departments. The town woke up for a moment in 1702 when the prospect perhaps of a harvest of unpaid fines induced them to make an effort to recover all such[164]. It is to be regretted that nothing remains to show to what extent the abuse had prevailed, nor how far the present effort was successful. The annual fine of the Bakers’ company was £3. 6s. 8d. which they appear to have generally paid with considerable reluctance[165]. The supply of provision to the town seems to have given much trouble in the early years of the eighteenth century. Permission was given, in 1730, to the country butchers to sell in the town unless the town butchers could furnish meat in sufficient quantity. Similar permission was accorded to the country bakers, if the Bakers’ company in the town would not pay their yearly fine. This they were unwilling, or unable, to do, and the country bakers were in consequence called in[166].

The picture given by such incidents is not more significant of the degeneracy of the Gilds than is that which the friction of the companies one with another presents. The Mercers and the Drapers had frequently made mutual complaints of intrusion: the Mercers and the Glovers also appear as great rivals in later years. In 1679 and at several subsequent dates there were actions at law between the two companies. In 1727 the records of the Glovers show that similar actions were again in process. In 1721 the company unanimously agreed to withstand the Tailors in the matter of widow Steen, whom they pledge themselves to support; “and that shee may goe on with makeing Brichess peruided shee dos not line them with flonen or Buckrom or cennet onlye Lether.”

Nor is the evidence of intestine friction within the Gilds themselves less significant of decay. So early as 1636 the Mercers were fain to confess that the spirit of mutual assistance had disappeared, in the order which they passed to the effect that any combrother refusing to pay his assessment was to be distrained upon by authority of the Wardens. There are several records of such distraints. In 1700 they find it necessary to pass an ordinance against freemen taking the sons of intruders as apprentices. The records of the other companies are, similarly, full of like evidences of demoralisation. The companies are declared to be impoverished by the taking of inordinate numbers of apprentices. The same sort of abuse is found in a complaint which appears in the Glovers’ books in 1656: “the company is much impoverished by the taking in of foreigners freemen such as have not served” their due apprenticeship. “The disorderly manner of electing Wardens” about which the Glovers have to “take account” in 1668 points to a great deterioration in the manner of holding Gild meetings from that which has been sketched in a previous chapter[167]. Worse than all is the confession that the Gild brothers have sunk so low as to connive at intruders “for fraudulent lucre and gain[168].” The Saddlers have the same sort of complaint in 1740. Some brethren are infringing on the trades of others: resolutions are passed against such conduct. Their books show that the resolutions were soon forgotten[169]. The other Gilds experienced similar difficulties. In 1745 the Barbers levied a fine of ten shillings on brethren who should so far forget themselves as to instruct “men or women servants to dress hair.”

The problem of regulating trade would have been difficult enough under the most favourable circumstances. With the Gilds in the condition which we have been considering it was an impossibility. There was indeed a feature in the modern companies which at the outset deprived the attempt to utilise them beneficially for trade-purposes of all chance of success.

The old Gilds, which had lived through the shocks of the Reformation, and the Elizabethan changes, had quite altered their character. The new ones which had arisen differed widely from the old fraternities. Instead of being brotherhoods of craftsmen desirous of advancing the public weal, they were now mere societies of capitalists, intent only on private and personal advantage. As a writer of 1680 observes “most of our ancient Corporations and Guilds [have] become oppressive Oligarchies[170].” There is a constant endeavour to restrict the companies to favoured individuals. Every “foreigner” is subjected to a heavy fine, which grows larger in amount as the companies feel the trade slipping from their hands in spite of their desperate endeavours to restrict it. The new compositions continually point to this abuse by bringing back the fines to their original sum, or rather reducing them to an amount less inordinate than that which they have irregularly reached. The admission stamp of the Saddlers was 4/- in 1784. It reached 8/2 in 1799. In 1831 it was 20/2. The Mercers’ fine was fixed at £40. 6s. 8d. in 1789, “besides fees.” In 1823 it had sunk to £20. The Mercers were of course one of the richest of the companies, yet the sum was a large one to pay for the privilege of opening a shop in a provincial town.

Other means to restrict themselves were also attempted. Increase in the number of apprentices was viewed with disfavour. There are frequent complaints of the “impoverishment” of the companies through the indiscriminate admittance of “foreigners.” All the evidence shows how entirely they have degenerated into mere societies of capitalists. Their records almost decline into bald columns of pounds, shillings and pence. For it was to this completeness of degradation that the social body had sunk. The merest selfishness was lauded as a patriotic virtue. Private gain was recommended as a public benefit. Social disintegration and industrial anarchy ruled supreme, and when commercial success had come to be looked upon as the one avenue to honour and advancement, it was not to be expected that the companies would escape the general infection. They formed simply one among many means by which the individual was enabled to fill his own pockets at the cost of a suffering and squalid populace.

This change in their character, which became more marked as time went by, naturally was not unattended by a change in their government. All authority became engrossed by the richer members. The Four Assistants with the Wardens and Stewards formed a close aristocratic board. Brentano, speaking it would appear more particularly of the London companies, says[171] the king nominated the first members of this court and afterwards as vacancies occurred they were filled by co-optation. This was not exactly the case with the Shrewsbury companies. There the annual meeting[172] retained a considerable power in the election of officers to the last. In some cases the Assistants or Four Men were elected freely by the assembled combrethren, in others two only were thus elected, the two retiring Wardens completing the number. The Tailors’ composition of 1563 provided that the two Wardens should be elected by the whole Gild: the Four Assistants were then nominated by these Wardens “for advising them in the Government of the Gild.” The Wardens and Assistants then proceeded to nominate the two Stewards.

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. They became the chief or the sole medium for the acquisition of municipal freedom, and were distinct town organs for the regulation of trade and industry.

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].”

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 was the 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.

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.

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 the Salopian Journal of 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—

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