The Woolmen
The date of the foundation of the Company was probably about 1300.
By the 27 Edward III. c. 23, the Company had the right of appointing licencemen to wind wools. The Company possesses a book of ordinances allowed and confirmed to the Company of Woolmen of the City of London by the Lord Chancellor of England and the two chief justices of either bench in the year 1587. Sixteen of the ordinances regulate the election of the governing body and the clerk, etc. The Company also possesses an order of the Court of Aldermen for granting a Livery to the Woolmen’s Company, and in the report made by the Committee of Privileges and subsequently approved and confirmed by the said court. The Company has existed under various names, such as Woolpackers, Woolwinders, and Woolmen; it was designated by all these titles in a proclamation of Charles II., but for the last three hundred years it has been known chiefly by the style of the Company of Woolmen.
The right of the Company to appoint and license duly qualified persons, having previously examined them, to wind wools has long ceased to exist; the last person licensed was in the year 1779. By proclamations in the reign of Charles II., woolcombers were obliged to be licensed by the Company.
The Master of the Woolmen’s Company has the right to nominate to the Court of Assistants of the Merchant Taylors Company two poor members of the Company as pensioners under Vernon’s Charity.
The Company lost its charter and most of its documents in the Fire of London, when the Company’s Hall was burnt down.
Their members number 20. Their Corporate Income is £376; they have no Trust Income, and no Hall. Considering that the staple trade of England for many centuries was that of wool, there can be little doubt of the extreme antiquity of this Company.