Reeks B - Governance records

14 sections

Records of the Stationers' Company Court of Assistants (governing body); records of the Master and Wardens Committee and the Livery Committee; general or undifferentiated records of committees of the Court.

Governance records have been arranged into 14 subseries:

TSC/B/01: Court minute books

TSC/B/02-04: Rough Court minutes

TSC/B/05: Court minute extracts

TSC/B/06: Court minute indices and abstracts

TSC/B/07: Court attendance lists and other records

TSC/B/08: Appendices to the Court orders

TSC/B/09: Reports to the Court

TSC/B/10: Summary of business transacted

TSC/B/11: Summonses

TSC/B/12: Master and Wardens Committee minutes

TSC/B/13: Livery Committee papers

TSC/B/14: Assorted committee minutes

TO BE AGREED

• Engels

• Latijn

Microfilm copies of the majority of Court records to 1920 are on reels 45-70 and 100, 'Records of the Stationers' Company 1554-1920: 115 Reels of Microfilm with Printed Guide', published by Chadwyck-Healy Ltd (1989)

The earliest extant records of the Court, 1576-1602, are contained in Liber B [TSC/F/02/01].

Catalogued

Partially closed

The Court of Assistants is the Company's governing body. It is headed by the Master, the highest office of the Company and one dating from its incorporation in 1557. Excepting the period 1936-1941 when Masters served for six months, the Master has been elected annually since 1751; until that date masters could serve for two or more years. The Master is assisted by two wardens, the Upper Warden and Lower Warden, who have served annually from the mid-eighteenth century onwards. Today a person generally serves as Under Warden for one year, is then elected Upper Warden for the succeeding year, and then chosen Master for his or her third year of office. The Court Assistants are elected to the position from the livery and vary in number. Membership of the Court is completed by the Treasurer, formerly the manager of the English Stock but since 1899 a senior honorary Court member and manager of the Company's finances, and since 1926 two Livery Representatives (now one), who sits ex officio for a period of two years before reverting to previous seniority.

The Court meets to decide and ratify policy, carry out ceremonial and charitable obligations, bind and free apprentices, admit applicants to the livery, elect the Master, Wardens and Court Assistants and appoint the Company's servants. In addition, historically there were other, special courts for particular business, and quarterly pension courts at which Company and English Stock pensioners and other charity recipients received alms. Traditionally Court Day is the first Tuesday of the month, although in the 17th and 18th centuries the Court sat on other days too.

The Master and Wardens' Committee was formed in 1959. It consists of the Master, Wardens, Treasurer and one Past Master, and its purpose is to initiate policy to be ratified by the Court. In addition it has admitted freemen since 1986. Membership of the Livery Committee, founded in 1920 to provide a link between the Court and the livery, is considered a stepping-stone to Company office. It is primarily involved in fundraising, arranging social functions and so forth.