ABSTRACT
The lifetime of Alderman Samuel Wilson spans the period in which the hand-loom silk weavers 'were being crushed out with infinite misery'l and the London silk industry was slowly fading away, while, at the same time, the London Weavers' Company, after a chequered career through more than seven centuries, entered upon the last stage of transformation from an old-style craft gild to its modern form as a City livery company. The salient features of these changes must now be described.
