On 6 February 1633/4 the Company’s Court Minutes recorded that ‘Anthony Mondeys widd p’nted to this Court a Booke called The Surveigh of London beinge in folio and newlie printed.’ The widow in question was Gillian Munday, second wife of the prolific Anthony Munday (1553–1633), actor, spy, poet, translator, pamphleteer and writer of plays and […]
On this day in 1924 Sir John Tweedy F.R.C.S. Master of the Barbers’ Company 1908 and first Vicary Lecturer in 1919, died at his London home on Harley Street. Born in Stockton-on-Tees in 1849, he studied medicine at University College Hospital, qualifying in 1872. Frail health led him away from general surgery to decide upon […]
On this day in 1897 just before 1pm, a fire broke out in the premises of Messrs. Waller and Brown, mantle manufacturers. They were located on what was Hamsell Street, close to Barber-Surgeons’ Hall and where the City of London School for Girls now stands. The Great Fire of Cripplegate quickly spread to become what […]
On this day in 1894 the Annual General Meeting of the Ruskin Society of London was held at Barber-Surgeons’ Hall. Master of the Company Sidney Young (author of the Annals of the Barber Surgeons of London, published in 1890) addressed the meeting on the ‘History and Archaeology of the Company.’ The Ruskin Society (or Society […]
On this day is held the feast day of saints Cosmas and Damian, patron saints of the Worshipful Company of Barbers. It is celebrated in the Catholic Church calendar on 26 September (27 September in the traditional calendar). Cosmas and Damian were twin brothers born in Arabia, and martyred as Christians in the during the […]
On this day in 1562 diarist Henry Machyn recorded the following entry: “The x day of August was Barbur surgyons fest, and they capt ther communion at Sant Alphes at Crepull-gat, and master Recherdson dyd pryche, the skott ; ther was good syngyng ; and after to ther halle to dener, and after dener a […]
On this day in 1606, Christian IV of Denmark with his brother-in-law of James I of England (and VI of Scotland) entered London as part of a lengthy state visit and processed through the city to great pageantry. On the 21st, the Livery companies had received a precept from the Lord Mayor ordering them to […]
In July 1915 a letter was sent to Company members by the Clerk Frank Chorlton Lingard stating that: ‘The Court have decided to form a list or Roll of Honour of all freemen and liverymen of the Company serving in the present War and of their direct descendants who may not be actually members of […]
On this day in 1722 the Court Minutes recorded that ‘The Court takeing into their Consideration Whether they wou’d renew the Lease of their Bargehouse at Lambeth of the ArchBishop of Canterbury by Virtue of a Lease which will expire in Aprill next The Court in regard the Company have no barge And That the […]
On this day in 1600 it was recorded in the Court Minutes ‘…that George Langton apprentice to Mr. Ffrederick shall be committed to the compter for his irreverent behaviour towards his master’ Sidney Young’s Annals of the Barber-Surgeons notes that ‘apprentices always seem to have been a fruitful source of trouble both to their Masters […]