Wardens Accounts & Court Minutes

The Goldsmiths’ Company has some of the earliest records of the City livery companies.  Commencing in 1334, they are written in Norman French until 1444, when English takes over. The minute books continue up to the present day with just one missing volume – from 1579-1592.  They are handwritten until 1943 when typewriters were introduced and today they are written on computers.

The Court minutes cover meetings of the Court of Assistants and the Court of Wardens and are the main narrative for the Company’s activities.  All of them can be consulted by interested parties at the discretion of library staff with the exception of the minutes after the Second World War which require the permission of the Clerk.

Content

As time moves on the records become fuller - in the 14th and 15th centuries for example they are mostly annual records of payments in and out of the Company’s coffers summarised in a few pages per year, but in the 16th and 17th centuries there are much fuller descriptive entries which include the minutes of meetings which run over many pages per year.

In the 18th century the entries begin to decrease in size and description and the (Standing) Committee minutes begin to take over financial and property dealings.  By the latter half of the century and into the 19th century the meetings of the Court of Assistants, although recorded, are very brief - apart from charitable grants which are listed and the recipients noted.  Occasionally there are longer and more detailed entries but they are the exception rather than the rule.

In the 20th century and today the minutes are precisely informative and, in the current style, denote what decisions were taken but with very little narrative of the process.

How can I find information in the minutes?

The indexing of the minutes is contemporary where they exist and although variable in quality and content are helpful to access the contents of the individual volumes.  Research slips from the late T.F.Reddaway and from Gerald Taylor are housed in the Library and cover the period from the 14th century to the late 17th century.  Library staff can search them for researchers.

Several publications will also give guidance through content and footnotes:

A Clerk of the Company, Sir Walter Sherbourne Prideaux, extracted interesting historical facts (‘gleanings’) from the minutes from 1327- 1815 and the concluding chapter, if somewhat brief, took the Company’s history to the 1890s (Memorials of the Goldsmiths' Company being gleanings from their records between the years 1335 and 1815. London, Eyre and Spottiswoode for the Goldsmiths’ Company, 2v. 1896)

Dr Lisa Jefferson has published a transcription of the early records in Norman French (1334-1444) with a modern English translation (Wardens' Accounts and Court Minute Books of the Goldsmiths' Mistery of London 1334-1446. Woodbridge, Boydell & Brewer, 2003)

The Company’s early history, from 1327-1509 was also the subject of a book by T.F. Reddaway and Lorna M. Walker (The early history of the Goldsmiths Company 1327-1509: the book of ordinances 1478-83. London, Edward Arnold & Co., 1975)

John Forbes, the former Deputy Wardens wrote a history of the London Assay Office which used a tremendous amount of material from the minutes (Hallmark: a history of the London Assay Office. London, Goldsmiths' Company in assoc. with Unicorn Press, 1999)

Peter Jenkins, a former Clerk, wrote a history of the Company in the 20th century (Unravelling the mystery: the story of the Goldsmiths' Company in the 20th century.  Lingfield, Third Millennium Publishing, 2v., 2000)