The Cordwainers’ BA Footwear Scholarship is a prestigious prize awarded each year to a talented student at the London College of Fashion to fund their final project. This prize was worth over £3,000 last year. At the University of Northampton, the Cordwainers offer scholarships to the top three Footwear Fashion students in all three years. Similarly, the Cordwainers give prizes to leatherwork students at Capel Manor College.
A new link was forged in 2008 with the footwear department at De Montfort University, further demonstrating the Cordwainers’ commitment to this sector.
Supporting Education
The Cordwainers provide scholarships and prizes to nurses at the Royal Free Hospital, and to medical students at the Royal Free & University College London Medical School. These include awards for the highest-achieving first year medical undergraduate and the best PhD thesis.
They also support the study of Music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The Cordwainers’ Scholarship is awarded to an exceptional music student and they award a similar prize at City University.
More recently the Company has supported the Hackney Free and Parochial Secondary School, a specialist sports school.
Social Housing
The Company owns almshouses in Chesham in Buckinghamshire and Shorne in Kent.
Cordwainers Court has been voted most preferred Hall of Residence at the University of the Arts, London for several years running. Students benefit from attractive rooms, a high standard of furnishings, internet access in each bedroom and a large common room.
Blind and Partially Sighted People
The Cordwainers have supported societies for the blind and partially sighted for centuries, strongly believing that visual impairment should not be a barrier to personal fulfilment.
They support the Royal London Society for the Blind (RLSB) School at Dorton House near Sevenoaks. The Company also backs specialist charities that help blind people with financial difficulties.
Territorial Army and Cadets
The Cordwainers have supported the ‘C’ Company of the Territorial Army of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers for over 50 years. They also support Cadets by providing funding for annual training camps, boots and minibuses. In 2008, they funded the setting up of the new Corps of Drums.
Contact Information
The Clerk of the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers is John Miller Esq:
The address is:
The Worshipful Company of Cordwainers ,Clothworkers’ Hall, Dunster Court, Mincing Lane, London EC3R 7AH
Phone: +44 207929 1121
Email:
office@cordwainers.org
Other Cordwainer Companies and Guilds
The UK
There are numerous references to the existence of other guilds and companies of Cordwainers in the UK: Oxford is the first reference although it may not have been the first guild as there are references to a London guild in some accounts as early as 1060 and there are records of similar guilds in many other towns and cities in England and Wales, notably Bath, Brecon, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Haverfordwest, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northampton, South Leith and York. Some of these are still actives. The York Guild was re-founded in 1977. The Arms of the York Company is not only almost identical to the Arms of the Worshipful Company in London (there is no motto), but includes the date 1669 but no explanation of this date has been found. The excavation of the site of the old Cordwainers Hall in York indicates that this was built in the late 13th or early 14th century.
Europe
Cordwainers were recognized throughout Europe. In particular, Ghent, being one of the major centres of shoemaking had a strong guild.
North America
The first English cordwainers landed in Jamestown as part of the City of London’s Merchant Adventurers plans to prepare for the building of permanent settlements in Virginia. By 1610, many tradesmen arrived in Jamestown including a number of Cordwainers and, by 1616, the secretary of Virginia recorded a flourishing shoe and leather community. Guilds of Cordwainers were formed in many North American cities but most have disappeared since. Others continue: Calafia (San Diego), Massachusetts and Philadelphia. Research has not uncovered any Cordwainers Guilds in Canada that remain active.
In the US, however, the Honourable Cordwainers’ Company was founded in 1984 in Virginia by a small group of shoe makers and historians. This was incorporated in 1987 as a tax-exempt non-profit educational organization. Dedicated to the study, practice, interpretation and preservation of historical and traditional shoemaking, the organization has grown substantially and now makes available an extensive collection of educational demonstrations, lecture, presentations and workshops in DVD format. It maintains a library and archive at the University of Tulsa. In the future, they intend to: establish a public museum and a public reference library; develop an educational training center; produce multimedia educational materials; and disseminate current research that will improve and change shoemaking.
Sources:
This article was assembled by Peter Leach, past Master of the Honourable Company, from information on the website of the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers (www.cordwainers.org), the website of the Honourable Cordwainers’ Company(www.thehcc.org), Sir Ernest Pooley’s book “The Guilds of the City of London” published by William Collins of London 1945, the website of the Freemen of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (www.freemenofnewcastle.org), the website of the National Archives (UK) at
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk, and searches on www.google.com.
Company Comment - February 2010
The Unique City
The City Livery Companies
Freedom of The City
The Constitution of Company