Skinners’ Company History Group

The History Group serves as a forum for members of the Company interested in exploring the Skinners’ long and remarkable history. It was set up at the end of 2007 following the successful lecture on Sir Thomas Smythe given at the Hall by Dr Ian Archer of Keble College, Oxford. ‘Membership’ consists in nothing more than asking for your name to be put on the circulation list.

The Group’s Committee aims to arrange a series of events throughout the year, ranging from lectures or talks from people, both inside and outside the Company who have expertise in a particular field, to presentations or local tours. The events are primarily for Skinners, but there will generally be scope to welcome guests, as many topics will be of interest beyond the Company. The Group is self-funding, so a small charge to attend events may be made.

If you would like to be on the circulation list of the Group or if you have any suggestions and ideas for future activities, do please get in touch with the Committee’s secretary, Georgina Brown at:
aclerk@skinners.org.uk

or the Committee Chairman, Professor Colin Seymour-Ure at:
C.K.Seymour-Ure@kent.ac.uk.  

Events currently being planned are listed below. Further details will be added as soon as they are confirmed.  

• Monday 29 September, 5.30pm – talk on a family in the fur trade
  A session is planned at which a member of the Livery will talk about aspects of the fur trade and his family’s involvement with it until comparatively recent times. Guests will be welcome.

• Monday 1 December, 5.30pm – lecture on Sir Frank Brangwyn and the Skinners’ Hall panels
  This will be in a similar format to last year’s lecture on Sir Thomas Smythe: a Monday evening, with drinks before and after, guests welcome, and all over by about 8.00pm. It is hoped that this lecture will make an attractive subsequent publication.

• The Company’s Halls
  Dr Anthony Holmes-Walker has agreed to give a talk, on a date to be arranged, entitled ‘Skinners’ Halls – Seven Hundred Years of History’.

• Sir William Cockayne, Jr.
  We are exploring the possibility of a joint event with the Clothworkers. Cockayne was Master in 1609, 1611 and 1625, and Lord Mayor in 1619. He was involved with the City Companies’ plantation of Ulster and he backed the explorer William Baffin. For Skinners, of course, his family's tangible memorial is the Cups. But to the Clothworkers he is of less happy interest. He devised a scheme to increase the export of finished (as opposed to unfinished) cloth. This proved so disastrous that the trade never fully recovered. The event should conclude (should it not?) with a toast drunk from the cups.

• Historical Meal
  This is still very tentative. We have an introduction to Ivan Day, an applied food historian based in Cumbria. (See his website at www.historicfood.com). We also have contact with an historian at Lincoln College, Oxford, Dr Perry Gauci, who is an expert on food history. There is therefore a range of possibilities, such as an historical meal preceded by a lecture, or one without the other, or some other variation. It would be helpful to have expressions of interest, however tentative.

• Visit to Guildhall Archives
  We plan to take a party to the Guildhall Archives, where visitors are regularly welcomed. If you might be interested in coming, subject to details, please let us know (as above).

• Outings
  At present the Committee are regarding these as only a possibility. For example Ian Archer’s account of Sir Thomas Smythe’s memorial in the church at Sutton-at-Hone (in countryside in the angle of the M25, M2 and A2) might make a suitable focus for a visit.  

• Other subjects of interest
  Interests drawn to our attention by members of the Company include the Company’s pictures and plate; its connections with the East India Company; the formation of the Livery; trade with Muscovy and America; the Restoration period; and the scope for an oral history programme.

• Part-time archivist?
  The Skinners are one of only two of the Great Twelve that do not employ an archivist (generally part-time). We hope to find out more about what the others’ archivists do and to see if there are lessons for us.

 

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