ABSTRACT

The concepf of brotherhood within the craft which lay a t the root of the gild system implied a duty to be 'loving, gentle and friendlie one to another' and to help brother-craftsmen who, although honest, sober men and competent a t their trade, had become Misfortune's unwilling guests or were aged, infirm and 'much decayed'. Within the scope of this duty the dependants-wives and children, widows and orphans 'in low circumstances'-were included; so, also, was the provision of seemly burial for deceased members if the expenses could not be otherwise met.l Before the seventeenth century the charity dispensed by the Weavers' Company seems to have taken the form of occasional gifts or doles to relieve particular cases as they came to the notice of the Court of Assistants. The money for this came mainly from the 'poor's box' which was placed on the table at every Court meeting ready to receive the voluntary bounty of the benevolent as well as the not-so-voluntary gifts of those whose excusable offences the Court was willing to overlook on condition that the offender agreed to put a specified sum in the box. We know that in 1600-1, the total so collected was £1. 6s., but for many years after that date there is little precise information: only the Commonalty's vague grumblings, in 1636, that 'more might have been distributed . . . and more Charitably employed' to relieve the necessities of the Company's poor."he yearly average of the poor's box collections for the last quarter of the seventeenth century was £26; and for the first quarter of the eighteenth century between £68 and £69. In 1662 the Court ordered that the poor's box money 'shall be given to the poor q~a r t e r ly ' ,~ and five years later it was resolved 'that particular care be taken that none be relieved out of ye Box but such as truly belong to ye C ~ m p a . ' ~

In the seventeenth century, especially in the second half, the old forms of charity, considerably increased in total amount, were supplemented by new, more systematic charitable gifts, such as regular

pensions in money or kind, and the provision of almshouses for aged poor weavers or their widows. The increasing prosperity of certain master weavers resulted, from time to time, in generous legacies or gifts inter vivos of money or property. Among the earliest of these was Ralph Hamer's gift which enabled the Company to pay regular quarterly pensions to five or six poor weavers. Two entries in the Court minutes for 161 8-19 read: 'Gabriel Grette is ordered to have the first pensioner's place for Mr. Hamer's gift that falleth', and 'Richard Ferries is appointed to have the next pensioner's place that happeneth out of the gift of Mr. Ralph Hamer.'5 These pensions continued to be paid for many years; as one pensioner died another was elected, and there was never any shortage of applicants! Thus, in October 1648 the Court of Assistants 'ordered that John Street, a freeman of this Company, being poor, shall immediately receive the pension of Mr. Ralph Hamer now void, viz., 10s. on the quarter of the yearLr'.= By this time another benefactor, Mrs Mary Paradine, was also providing pensions, so that Robert Elliott was able 'to receive Mrs. Mary Paradine's pension of 5s. p. ann. in place of Widow Preene, deceased'; and a month later (November 1648) two poor freemen were granted pensions-one to be paid from Mrs Paradine's fund and the other 'to be the Company's pensioner in the room of Hump. Hall late deceased'.' When Andrew Fordam, a Paradine pensioner, died in January 1649, his pension was 'continued unto his widow'. Moreover, by the early 1660s the Company was making very substantial pension payments from its own funds (see Table 12.1). And in the following year the Company paid no less than £42. 5s. to its pensioner^.^ Originally it was Mrs Paradine's intention that her pensions should number twenty-four, but after the deaths of five Paradine pensioners in 1664 the Company decided that in future 'there shall be 20 . . . to the end that every one may have the more'.Q

Table 12.1 Pension payments

Date Paid to s. d.