Series C - Membership records

7 subseries

Records relating to the different tiers of membership of the Stationers' Company, including livery lists, registers of apprentices and freemen, master and apprentice calendars, apprentice memorandum books and records of quarterage.

Membership records have been arranged into 7 subseries:

TSC/C/01: Livery records

TSC/C/02: Company officers records

TSC/C/03: Masters of apprentices records

TSC/C/04: Freedom records

TSC/C/05: Apprenticeship records

TSC/C/06: Quarterage and general membership records

TSC/C/07: Masters of the Stationers' Company

TO BE DECIDED

• English

• Latin

Bodleian Library, 'London Book Trades Index' http://lbt.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page (accessed 29/07/2013).

H R Plomer, H G Aldis, G H Bushnell and others, 'Dictionaries of the Printers and Booksellers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland, 1557-1775' single volume reprint (Bibliographical Society, 1977).

Microfilm copies of the majority of membership records to 1920 are on reels 29-44, 'Records of the Stationers' Company 1554-1920: 115 Reels of Microfilm with Printed Guide', published by Chadwyck-Healy Ltd (1989)

The elections of Masters, wardens and assistants and bindings, freedoms and cloathings are recorded in the Court books [TSC/B/01] and rough Court minutes [TSC/B/02]. Some details of membership prior to 1605 are found in Register A [TSC/D/02/01] and Liber B [TSC/F/05/01]. Further biographical information about members can be found in the records of the English Stock [TSC/E/21], including dividend lists, stock assignments and extracts of wills, and in charity records such as pension lists and petitions that give information about recipients of Company charity.

M Berlin and R Myers, 'From Masters to Managing Directors: The Impact of Technology on the Membership of the Stationers' Company', in R Myers (ed.), 'The Stationers' Company: A History of the Later Years 1800-2000' (Phillimore Book Publishing, 2015), pp.21-49 M Turner, 'Stationers' Company Personnel, 1800-1830: Work in Progress', in R Myers and M Harris (eds.), Economics of the Booktrade 1605-1939 (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healy, 1985), pp. 78-102

Catalogued

Partially closed

Individual membership of The Stationers' Company can currently be obtained in six ways:

1. Servitude: Freedom by apprenticeship to a Company member. Historically a contract between a master and apprentice was established on the apprentice's fourteenth birthday, and the apprentice would serve a term of seven years, gaining freedom of the Company at the age of twenty-one. If a master died, retired or changed occupations during an apprentice's time of servitude, or if he and his master could not agree, the apprentice was turned over to another master. A premium, or training fee, was generally paid at the time of binding, except in the case of an apprentice bound to his/her father or other close relation. The premium for poor apprentices, foundlings and orphans was remitted except when the sum was paid by a charity. Servitude was the most common way to join the Company until the early 20th century.

2. Patrimony: Freedom by inheritance. The son or daughter of a man or woman free of the Company at the time of the child's birth can join the Company without working in a trade of the guild.

3. Redemption: Freedom by purchase, open to members of a trade of the guild who have not served an apprenticeship in the Company.

4. Family redemption: Freedom by inheritance, extended in 1986 to sons or daughters under the age of thirty of liverymen of more than ten year's standing.

5. Old Stationer: Freedom by virtue of being an Old Stationer, a former pupil of the Stationers' Company School (in existence 1858-1984).

6. Bursary/major award: Freedom by receipt of a bursary awarded by the Company.

Historically there was an additional method of joining the Company:

1. Translation: Freedom by transferral from another livery company. This entry method was relatively common when full trading rights in the City of London were only accorded to those belonging to the livery company of that trade. Freedom by translation became obsolete in 1858, when it became possible for a person to belong to multiple livery companies.

The freedom, or yeomanry, of the Company is the basic level of membership. For many years freemen were often journeymen, workers who had served their terms of apprenticeship but who had not subsequently set up as masters of apprentices. Historically the freedom of the Company gave members the right to become free of the City and to trade within its boundaries, and today the freedom is still a requirement for those seeking to be cloathed, ie. to be admitted to the livery, the second level of Company membership. Admission to the livery confers full membership and all rights and privileges of the Company, including eligibility for office, the right to vote at Company and City elections and attendance at Common Hall. Until 1762, when journeymen were formally debarred from it, the livery was open to any freeman who could afford the cost of a gown and the admission fees. The first and highest level of Company membership is Assistantship, consisting of those elected to be an Assistant in the Company's governing body the Court of Assistants.