Origins of Livery Companies

The origins and traditions of the City’s livery companies can be traced to the 12th century and the medieval ‘misteries’ or trade guilds. Members of these craft or trade associations – which also flourished other towns and cities – often congregated in specific areas. In London this is reflected in street names like Ironmonger Row, Coopers Passage and Apothecary Street.

The guilds developed into livery companies, becoming corporations by royal charter. Over the centuries they have influenced national life, industry and language. From their guild halls they set standards for their respective trades and regulated labour conditions and wages. They also settled disputes and punished those who broke the rules.

Phrases such as ‘to be on tenterhooks’ and ‘hallmarked’ have passed into everyday language. Tenterhooks were the hooks that held cloth stretched over frames called tenters while hallmarked literally means the mark of the hall. While the City Livery likes to think it coined ‘at sixes and sevens’, Geoffrey Chaucer used the phrase a century earlier.

Livery companies also developed religious ties, often worshipping at a local church, and each adopted a patron saint. A particular privilege for a liveryman was the right to use his company’s pall or coffin cloth.

The term livery evolved from the allowance of food and clothing made to members of the wealthier merchant guilds to describing the distinctive clothes worn by members of a particular company. Gradually, this livery became the privilege of liverymen only and today is part of the ceremony of admitting freemen to the livery.