Série A - Constitutional records

7 subseries

Records relating to the establishment, constitution, privileges and internal regulation of the Stationers' Company.

Constitutional records have been arranged into 7 subseries:

TSC/A/01: Royal charters and related documents

TSC/A/02: Ordinances and related documents

TSC/A/03: Records relating to heraldic grants

TSC/A/04: Royal licences and related documents

TSC/A/05: Memorandum book: Liber A

TSC/A/06: Membership oaths

TSC/A/07: Other constitutional records

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Microfilm copies are on reel 71, 'Records of the Stationers' Company 1554-1920: 115 Reels of Microfilm with Printed Guide', published by Chadwyck-Healy Ltd (1989)

G Pollard, 'The Early Constitution of the Stationers' Company', The Library, 4: xviii (1937), pp. 235-260.

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In 1403 the Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London approved the formation of a fraternity or Guild of Stationers. This Guild was incorporated as the Stationers' Company by Royal Charter in 1557, and was granted the right to have a livery in 1561. Since then it has had full status as a Livery Company of the City of London, numbered 47 in precedence. The original Royal Charter was lost during the Civil War and was replaced by a new Charter in 1684. In 1937 a letters patent changed the Company's name to the Stationers' and Newspaper Makers' Company. This followed an influx of members of the Company of Newspaper Makers (incorporated 1933) into the Stationers' Company and their relinquishment of their own Royal Charter in 1935.

The Royal Charter of 1557 gave the Company powers to make ordinances for its governance, and accordingly ordinances were approved by the Lord Treasurer and Chief Justices in 1562. These ordinances were added to occasionally, but were lost during the Civil War. New ordinances were issued in 1678, with a supplement approved in 1681 and an additional ordinance in 1683. Further ordinances were issued in 1694. The Company's ordinances, or by-laws, have been revised periodically in modern times.

The Stationers' Company was granted its coat of arms in 1557, but this is thought to have been destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The Company's crest and supporters had been adopted and used without authority from at least the 18th century, but were not regularised until formally granted to the Stationers' and Newspaper Makers' Company in 1951. The history and use of the motto, 'Verbum Domini manet in aeternum', are unknown, but the motto is included in the heraldic achievement depicted in the grant of crest and supporters, 1951.