BREAKFAST MEETING AT QUEEN MARY: 8 APRIL



I rather like this bird's eye view of the main campus.  It shows the huge amount of development that has taken place on the site over the last twenty years.   The original part of the site, shown as Queen's Building, is illustrated as the People's Palace at the foot of this blog. 

Friday morning started with the now traditional, I think it has been going in some form or other for fifteen years, breakfast with Queen Mary, University of London. In recent years it has taken place at Queen Mary's main campus on the Mile End Road.

The Company's links with the College go right back to its foundations.  In fact the core of the site is the original location of the Francis Bancroft school and almshouses founded in 1736.  The almshouses have long gone but the school still flourishes a bit further up the Central Line in Woodford.

The Drapers' team included the Master and Wardens and the two members of the Queen Mary Council that are nominated by the Company.  Liveryman Jocelin Harris is Vice-president of the Council and chairs the Finance and General Purposes Committee and Master Warden Anthony Walker is Chair of QMSU Services Ltd the trading business of the university.  Jocelin's father, Past Master Martin Harris, was a much respected President of Council for many years.

Professor Simon Gaskell and three vice principals, Professors Susan Dilly, Philip Ogden and Morag Shiach hosted us on behalf of Queen Mary.  Our links are even more intertwined these days as we are jointly sponsoring Drapers' Academy, Morag Shiach, Susan Dilly and myself are all governors.

We had a most useful review of issues of joint concern and then had an opportunity to visit the new history building - name has yet to be revealed - that now creates an impressive facade along the Mile End Road.


The original People's Palace. The Company donated a significant sum towards initial building costs of the technical wing of the Palace and contributed for many years towards the running costs of the institution.



ROYAL NORTHERN COLLEGE OF MUSIC, SHOWCASE RECITAL: 7 APRIL

On Thursday evening the Royal Northern College of Music put on a London Showcase concert with three of their star students performing Boccherini, Schubert, Ravel and Faure. 

The location was 22 Mansfield Street a charming and interesting location at in Fitzrovia.  The very large apartment is owned by Bob and Elisabeth Boas.  Its substantial rooms are the perfect place to display a very interesting range of modern British artists such as Royal Academicians Ruskin Spear and Ken Howard as well as to provide a comfortable setting for a chamber concert.

Sophie Rosa, violin, and the brother and sister, Mikhail Nemtsov, cello, and Elena Nemtsova, piano, were clearly performers of a high standard and gave great performances. 

Professor Jonty Stockdale Principal gave an informative overview of the College's activities and the inevitable need or funds to sustain the extraordinarily intensive training required to create top flight musicians.

The Company's links with music are, in the main, directed towards the London conservatoires but we are pleased to be linked with the College through the de Turckheim Vocal Scholarships scheme.

VISITATION TO QUEEN ELIZABETH COLLEGE, GREENWICH: 7 APRIL

Quen Elizabeth College looking from the north.  In the centre is the chapel and around it are the one bedroom cottages originally built in 1818 and subsequently extended some thirty five years ago.  The trees, largely cherry, are always in bloom at Visitation time.

On Thursday the Master and Wardens conducted their first almshouse visitation to Queen Elizabeth College (QEC) in Greenwich.  The Visitation is now an enirely ceremonial affair. But in the past it used to be the highpoint - or possibly high stress point for the staff - of the year when the efficiency and good management of the almshouse was thoroughly inspected by the Master and Wardens on behalf of their fellow trustees who then reported back their findings to the Court.

The Visitation of QEC also has a further feature.  When the endowment was established by William Lambarde in 1576 he asked the Master of the Rolls, one of England's most senior judges, to be the Visitor.  Lambarde had a particular friendship with Sir William Cordell who was Master of the Rolls at the time and 325 years later the tradition continues.  This year Baron Neuberger of Abbotsbury paid his second visit to the College.

The Visitation started with a short service in the chapel, that can seat about fifty.  Rev Chris Moody, Vicar of St Alfege and also a member of the Company's Sir William Boreman Foundation that helps students in of the London Boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham, officiated.  Towards the end of the service the Master of the Rolls gave a short address and as he left the chapel he was, as is traditional, presented with a pair of white kid gloves.  These are nowadays returned for use on following years.

We then moved on to the community centre where we met a large number of residents.  I have been Chairman of the Friends of Drapers' Almhouses (FODAH) for some years now and it was good to meet up with residents I have known for some time and also to meet new faces.  Also members of FODAH including Liverymen Felicity Conway and Jonathan Bush as well as Sir Nicholas Jackson Bt, who leads the QEC FODAH team, were present.  Any member of the Company is also invited to attend and it was good to see a recently joined Freeman, James Baily, present.

All in all a lovely day, the sun shone, the blossom looked lovely and with the Visitation completed spring has definitely arrived.

Later this month we are visiting Walter's Close in Southwark and Edmanson's at Bruce Grove, Tottenham but before that on Monday 11 April it is the residents' tea party at the Hall.  I shall post this next week.  

DRAPERS AND THE ANGLO-SAXONS: DISPLAY CLOSES MARCH

A bronze follis of Justinian II (527-565) minted at Constantinople (CON on the exergue of the reverse) in the twelfth year of his reign, i.e. 539/40.  The letter M on the reverse was the way the Greeks to indicated forty: the follis comprised 40 nummi.  This is a huge coin; 40mm across and weighing nearly 23 grammes, one of the largest ever struck for daily use. Justinian virtually recreated the Roman Mediterranean empire.  But it had nothing like the stability of its predecessor and to balance conquests in Italy and Spain he had to pay huge tributes to the Persians and Balkan tribes to avoid war on a number of fronts. This coin would probably have bought a number of loaves of bread or couple of dozen eggs.

Having been on display since September 2010 the exhibition of books and coins linking Drapers with the Anglo-Saxons was closed after the Livery Dinner on 23 March. 

I take the opportunity to illustrate two more coins from the display.

Most of those who saw the display were polite enough to express an interest in it.  The most common comment was to express surprise at the level of organisation and order in a period commonly known as the Dark Ages.

A penny of Edgar (959-975) minted by Heriger, a moneyer known to have been based in York, around 970.  Edgar is sometimes taken as the first King of England and he certainly had a successful and peaceful reign.  However it could argued that his grandfather, Edward the Elder (899-924) and uncle, Athelstan (924-839) had better claims to this title.  This coin comes from the Tetney hoard found in a potato field in Lincolnshire in 1947.  It comprised some 300 coins of the Northeastern type (i.e. minted in York, Lincoln, Stamford) of Edgar and his half brother Eadwig who briefly reigned from 955-959.    



DRAPERS' ACADEMY NEW-BUILD, THE BIG CRANE ARRIVES

The crane is huge though dwarfed by the new Academy site.  The buildings themselves will cover an area of about threequarters of a hectare (let's call it an acre and a half!)  In the foreground the foundation slab of the new building can be seen.  This picture was taken in mid-March. 

This is such a good picture that I have copied it from the Drapers' Academy website.  It is of the huge crane that is now erected on site and will start to put the framework of the new buildings together like a Meccano set. 

Kier are now making very rapid progress and the good weather is certainly helping them keep up to schedule.  I am sure there will be a lot of interesting developments over the next few weeks. Also I must put on record that I am most impressed with the way that Kier are managing the site in a way that is almost completely unobtrusive to its neighbours.

For more information on the new-build and Drapers' Academy go to the website http://www.drapersacademy.com/ 

FIFTH WARDEN DISAPPEARS FROM MANSION HOUSE



Another view of the now vanished 'Fifth Warden'

Regular readers of this blog will recall that in December (see post of 8 December) we donated a bear to the Lord Mayor's Bear Necessities Appeal to take up residence in the Mansion House, along with bears from all the other livery companies.  At the time we decided to dress him as a warden of the Drapers' Company and Penny Fussell our archivist made a most fetching miniature version of our livery robes.

We were therefore most upset to be recently informed by the Lord Mayor's secretary that our bear has disappeared.  We have no idea as to how this could have happened and if any reader of this blog knows of, or has any theories as to, the whereabouts of this artificially furry little creature I would be pleased to know.

Meanwhile a replacement has been made by the Lord Mayor's staff although the new bear is without special robes.

I hope I can eventually report the safe return of our original 'Fifth Warden.'

71 (CITY OF LONDON) SIGNALS YEOMANRY REGIMENT RETITLING DINNER: 28 MARCH

Regimental badge of 71 Signals Yeomanry Regiment

Regular readers of the blog will know that we have a close affiliation with 71 (City of London) Signals Yeomanry Regiment.  Recently the regiment has been re-titled to include a City of London designator.  In discussion with the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Allen, we decided to make the Hall available for a dinner to commemorate this auspicious change of title.

The regiment invited a wide range of supporters including the mayors of the boroughs and deputy lieutenants where the regiment has drill halls as well as those who support the Territorial army on a city wide basis such as Sir David Brewer the Lord Lieutenant of London.  In addition there were a large number of senior military personalities present to mark this event including General Officer Commanding London District, Major General William Cubitt CBE.

It was therefore quite an occasion.  It was also good to see that all ranks of the regiment had been invited to be present.  Many members of the regiment now have considerable operational experience which in turn brings a high level of self-confidence. 

It was one of Lieutenant Colonel Tim Allen's last events with the regiment in command as he handed over a few days later to move on to an assignment at the Joint Force Headquarters at Northwood.  He gave an excellent speech that commemorated the purpose of the evening most fittingly.  I think I can say that for Colonel Tim it was an excellent end to what has been a most successful tour and one where the links between the regiment and the Company have been further reinforced.