SKINNERS' LUNCH: 11 JANUARY

Arms of the Skinners' Company

On Tuesday it was the Skinners turn to host the Great XII Masters and Clerks.  This is traditionally a lunch party.  A tradition I was informed went back to the Blitz when it was decided to continue with Company functions but to move them to daylight hours to save electricity and avoid the risks of night bombing. Quite plausible as traditions go and if you read this post further you will find another link with the London Blitz of 1940/1.

Roberts leading his column from Kabul to Kandahar in 1880.  The artist has imagined a very neat and tidy Afghanistan with no dust - Roberts' horse looks as though it is on Rotten Row - and not a fly in sight.

As lunch concluded Hugh Carson, the Master Skinner, set us a a collective conundrum by first asking us to link Alexander the Great, British India and the London Livery Companies.  None of us could answer.  He then offered a further clue that the person was one of only two commoners to be granted a lying-in-state in the twentieth century.  At this point someone recognised it was Lord Roberts, or 'Bobs', the archetypal imperial hero of late Victorian Britain. 

Hugh also went on to mention that, along with a plethora of other honours, Bobs was a member of the Fishmongers and Merchant Taylors, thereby creating the London link.  The reference to Alexander the Great was a link to Roberts' march from Kabul to Kandahar in Afghanistan in 1880 where he followed, in part, the great Macedonian's route of 2,210 years earlier.  Kandahar is also a corruption of the Alexander's name. 

Finally to sustain perfect symmetry the day of the lunch was the exact centenary of the first competition for the Roberts of Kandahar Cup.  This has become the blue riband of Swiss downhill race and first took place in Crans-Montana in 1911,

Even today Alexander's march from Kabul to Kandahar starting in September 330BC and lasting through the winter seems almost unbelievable.  Particularly as he is reported to have led 32,000 men through this most inhospitable country with relatively few casualties.

Lord Roberts won a VC during the Indian Mutiny in 1858.  But he came to national prominence as the leader of the column that marched from Kabul to relieve the garrison at Kandahar in 1880 in the Second Afghan War.  An action was fought before this at Maiwand where a British column was severely mauled and had to retreat to Kandahar.  Heroic withdrawals have always been a mainstay of British miltary art and Richard Caton Woodville's well-known painting Saving the Guns at Maiwand is part of this canon (no pun really intended).  I only include this picture as I can remember many years ago being in a unit that received this image from a neighbouring gunner unit as their Christmas card.  Without, as far as I could discern, any trace of irony this scene of mayhem was accompanied by a wish that the recipient should enjoy a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. 




We may have concerns about advertising ethics these days but it would hard to beat the chutzpah of Wilson's Beer!  Or is it a sly comment making an intellectual or some other comparison between a bottle of beer and a general?

Hugh also showed one of the treasures of the Company, the George Cross posthumously awarded to Leonard Miles GC for the great gallantry he showed at Ilford, Essex on 21 September 1940. Like many other Londoners at that time he was a part time air raid warden in the street where he lived with his family.  On that evening there was an unexploded bomb in the street.  On hearing about this he left the safety of his shelter to warn others about this.  He was fatally wounded when the device exploded. Leonard worked for the Skinners' Company and his family presented the medal to the Company.


The George Cross was instituted in 1940.  Leonard Miles GC received one of the earliest awards.  Only 161 GCs have been awarded in the last 71 `years.

It was a stimulating lunch.

MERCHANT TAYLORS' DOCTORS' DINNER 16 DECEMBER

I thought I would head this up with the coat of arms of the Merchant Taylors' Company.  At Merchant Taylors we wore it on our blazers in the summer.  I think I still have mine in a draw somewhere.

This post is nearly a month out of sequence.  This is because I mislaid the dinner card containing so much useful information that I had to have it by me before embarking on describing an excellent evening at Merchant Taylors' Hall shortly before Christmas.   I have now tracked it down so on with the blog.

An aerial view of the Merchant Taylors' School buildings looking roughly north.  Perhaps unconsciously the design around quadrangles had an influence on the building plan for Drapers' Academy (see Drapers' Academy: We Get Through 6 August post).  Photograph thanks to moorpark1958.co.uk 

Those who have read my biographical details will have noted that I attended Merchant Taylors' school in the early sixties.  My time there was not successfully spent and it ended when I gave up on the sixth form and enlisted in the Army.   However I made some lifelong friends at the school and recollect that I was taught by some extremely intelligent masters who, on mature reflection, had very interesting things to say.  Nevertheless I am not a particularly enthusiastic old boy and have not had much to do with the school for the last forty-five years.

This was rectified at the Merchant Taylors' Company Doctors' Dinner which, as our Education Dinner in March of each year, is a coming together of all the educational establishments linked with the Company.  Two of the Court members, Christopher Keville and Peter Watkins, are my exact contemporaries at school.  We all arrived on the same day and I am certain that we were in the same form to begin with.

Mr Stephen King, Headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School.  Photograph courtesy of isbi.com

I found myself seated between Christopher and the current Headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School, Stephen Wright.  He was most kind to me as the returning prodigal and did not enquire too deeply about my lack of academic success. 

The Master Merchant Taylor, Dr Julian Oram, gave a very good speech.  It included a review of outstanding headmasters of Merchant Taylors' School over the last four centuries.  I was convinced that the somewhat austere headmaster of my time at the school, Hugh Elder, would not be mentioned.  He was but only as the victim of an elaborate practical joke that involved toilet rolls unrolling from apertures in the Great Hall ceiling in the middle of a major school ceremony.  A great deal of ingenuity had been involved in setting this up.  My only regret is that this was a year or so before I arrived so I only knew of it by repute.

A lovely evening and one where I met a lot of people I knew directly or by reputation.

REV PETER MULLEN 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF ORDINATION CELEBRATION

The Company has been Patrons of St Michael, Cornhill for just over half a millenium.  The present incumbent, since 1998, is Rev Peter Mullen.  For further details see http://www.st-michaels.org.uk/

We recently discovered that his fortieth anniversary of ordination occurred this autumn.  It was decided to celebrate this auspicious event by holding a celebratory church service followed by a reception at Drapers' Hall.  The other livery companies associated with St Michael's, Cornhill - Merchant Taylors, Cutlers, Woolmen, Air Pilots and Navigators, Chartered Secretaries, Fuellers, and Water Conservators - also asked to be involved in, and generously contributed to, the evening's celebrations.

The first part of the evening was a splendid mass, which featured some of Peter's particular Mozartian favourites, beautifully sung.  At the conclusion of the service we then moved to Drapers' Hall.  There was a wide attendance of the livery companies involved and the congregation of St Michael's.

In a short speech during the reception with I took the liberty of  comparing Peter to Blessed John Henry Newman, of whom he is a great admirer.  I know he would be far too modest to want to do this in any way but I felt it was only right to point out that both are men determined faith.  It is also a certainty that determined faith will often result in uncomfortable situations and it is certainly a difficult personal path to follow.  But, and looking round those who had come to the service and the reception, it was clear to be such a protagonist in life’s spiritual struggle wins great admiration, respect and friendship.

An evening that was both spritual and enjoyable and brought the wider City community together.