template perpetuating its remembrance by fome foundation or endowment, which fhall be permanently useful to the Freemen of the Grocers' Company, and to their defcendants."

The expectation held out in this paragraph has been realized by the arrangement concluded with the Governors of Chrift's Hofpital, which ftipulates that for a payment of ten thousand pounds, the Mafter, Wardens and Court of Affiftants of the Worshipful Company of Grocers shall have the presentation of fix scholarships to that Royal Foundation in perpetuity.

38

Pepperers.

THE COMPANY.

"Not a wind upon the failor's compass,
But from one part or other was their factor
To bring them in the beft commodities
Merchant e'er ventured for."

Beggar's Bufh, Act 1. Sc. 2.

HE Grocers' Hall and its contiguous offices having been deftroyed by the great fire of London in 1666, as before ftated, and, with them, all the property they contained, it is at once fortunate and extraordinary that the records of this venerable Company should have been preserved entire. Singular care must have been taken to place them in fafety, as the series of Ordinances and Remembrances is uninterrupted and complete from the commencement, and from them I have gathered a great portion of the matter embodied in the following narrative.

The original founders of the Worshipful Company of Grocers were known, at a very remote period of

"The word Grocer was a term diftinguishing merchants of this fociety, in oppofition to inferior retailers, for that they ufually fold in grofs quantities, by great weights. And in fome of our old books the word fignifies merchants that, in their merchandifing, dealt for the whole of any kind."-Ravenhill's Short Account of the Grocers.

"Grocers, in libro ftatutorum noftrorum fignificat mercatores, qui aliquod mercium genus totum coemunt."-Skinner Etymologicon Lingua Anglicana.

English history, under the name of Pepperers* and, although they bore this distinctive appellation, they were recognised as general traders, who bought and fold, or, according to the legal acceptation of the word, engrossed all kinds of merchandise. At the early dawn of Commerce in this Country, they established the first mercantile affociation on record, and, no doubt, suggested, at an after period, the first idea of the EaftIndia and Levant Companies.

"It is well known," fays Ravenhill,+" this Company hath bred the most eminent merchants in this city, and this society hath been so prolific that many other focieties have been branched out from hence, as will be owned by the most worthy of them. The merchants trading to the Levant feas, and other focieties, have originally been the offspring of this fociety, as appears by ancient records of indentures of apprentices to members of this Company."

The most authentic proof of the existence of the Fraternity of Pepperers at an early period, is that of the name of Andrew Bokerel, Pepperer, who, for seven consecutive years, namely from 1231 to 1237, ferved the office of Mayor of London.

* That the Gild or Fraternity of Pepperers was of a very ancient date is evident from the entries on the early Pipe Rolls previously to legal memory, and was probably a Corporate body by prescription, which prefumes a grant, that may be now loft.

Upon the pipe Roll of the 26. Henry 2a is a return of the adulterine Gilds in the city of London viz! those set up without warrant from the King and which are therein amerced, amongst which is found as follows,

Gilda Piperarorum unde Elwardus eft Aldermannus debet xvi Marcas, quia conftituta fuit fine waranto.

† A Short Account of the Company of Grocers. 1689.

1315.

1345. First Incorpora

Grocers.

In the reign of Edward the Second, anno 1315, the Fraternity came to be governed by rules and ordinances, which are extant in one of the books of the chamber of London, under this title," Ordinatio Piperorum de Soper-Lane," and written in Norman French, beginning thus: "Ces fount les pointz que les bons genz de Sopere-lane del meftier des peverers, &c. By the affent of Sir Stephen de Abyndone, Mayor of London, John de Gifors, Nicolas de Farindone, John de Wengrave, Robert de Kelsby, William de Leyre and others, made for the common benefit of the whole people of the land."*

The first charter of incorporation of the Grocers was granted by King Edward the Third, in the twentieth tion of the year of his reign, Anno Domini 1345; at least so says the usually accurate Stowe, but I have been unable to find any trace of it in the records of the Fraternity; indeed there is no mention of a Charter before that of Henry VI. in 1429. The foundation of the Company took place in that year, when twenty-two perfons, carrying on the business of Pepperers in Soper's Lane, Cheapfide, agreed to meet together to a dinner at the town mansion of the Abbot of Bury, in St. Mary Axe, now Bevis Marks, on the 12th of June 1345, and committed the particulars of their formation

* Strype's Stowe.

+ See page 60 and the Charter itself, both in Latin and English in the Appendix.

"The hotel, or inn of the Abbots of Bury; a great house, large of rooms, fair courts and garden plots, fometime pertaining to the Baffets, but fince to the Abbots of Bury in Suffolk and therefore called Buries Marks, vulgariter Bevis Marks. Since the diffolution, the property of Sir Thomas Heneage, fon of Thomas Heneage."-Strype's Stowe.