Introduction
The freedom of the City of London is a very ancient tradition. It is not an award or honour unless conferred as the rarely-granted Honorary freedom.

Honorary freedoms apart, a British or British Commonwealth citizen of good character above the age of 21 may apply to the Corporation of London, Guildhall, for the freedom. There are no place of birth or residential qualifications and naturalised British and British Commonwealth citizens are equally eligible.

Medieval Origins
The origins of the freedom date back to medieval times when craftsmen and women organised themselves into trade guilds. Later these guilds were known as livery companies.

The Corporation of London then, as now, regulated the livery companies and demanded that all Liverymen be Freemen of the City as a prerequisite to trade, in exchange for certain valuable trading rights and privileges not available to non-freemen. With the expanding population from 1800 onwards, control of trade by traditional methods became unworkable and, following reforming legislation in the 19th century, all trade and franchise restrictions were eventually abolished, and the ancient rights and privileges ceased to be relevant. However, the Corporation of London retained the obligatory admission to the freedom of the City for liverymen and, since 1835, encouraged non-liverymen with an interest in the City to apply as well.

Interest in the Freedom and the Livery companies suffered a steady decline until the end of the 19th century. Interest revived in the 20th century and today the Chamberlain’s Court at Guildhall (the office which administers the freedom for the Chamberlain of London) is as busy as it was in the 17th century, with over 1,800 freedom admissions each year.

Half the applications for the freedom are ‘presented’ by a City of London Livery company. The candidate is first admitted to the freedom of that company and then applies for the freedom of the City. Only then may full liveryman status be achieved. Those who seek the freedom without the intervention of a livery company may do so ‘by nomination’, so-called because they are nominated by two people who are either aldermen, common councilmen or liverymen of the City of London.

Freedom and Freeman
The term ‘freeman’, meaning someone who enjoys particular privileges, is of very ancient origin. In Saxon and early mediaevel times the population of England consisted of nobility, free-men and serfs, with the country divided into estates or manors held under the crown by a lord of the manor, or by an abbey or priory. It was from income from the manors that the nobility and the church derived much of their wealth.

The villages and hamlets on a manor were inhabited by persons known variously as serfs, bondsmen, villeins, thralls or peasants. Although slavery was prohibited, if the manor changed hands the serfs went with it. The burden of serfdom could be benign or tyrannical, and varied considerably according to local custom and the lord, but in principle a serf owned nothing, could do nothing and go nowhere except with the consent of his feudal lord.

Burdens of Feudal Law
Serf-tenant families supported themselves by growing food and crops on strips of manorial land and by keeping such livestock as they could, in return for which they worked the land or employed their skills for the lord, as required and without wages. In addition, there was a series of complicated customs and laws entitling the lord to exact what he could from his serfs by way of taxation, usually in the form of crops or livestock. However, when a serf died the lord was entitled to the deceased’s best animal and a fine was paid by a serf on the marriage of his daughter. Some taxes were unfixed and could be demanded at will, these being the most hated of all the many oppressions suffered by un-free tenants. If enough money could be saved a serf might be able to buy his freedom and rent or buy a few acres of land. As a free man he worked for money, had certain rights and privileges and was no longer the property of the feudal lord.

Protection by Charter
Freedom from the servile state could also be achieved by running away from the feudal manor, usually to a town or city where the situation was more favourable. Some lords realised early on that it would be to their own advantage to turn their manors into ‘free’ towns and boroughs. The development of such a town, with its fairs, markets, tolls and so on, would more than compensate them for the loss of serf-service and could be less troublesome to administer. As a consequence, town dwellers were often free and although they may still have been subject to overlords and taxation they were usually protected by its charters. If a runaway serf made it to a chartered town or city and stayed within its walls for a year and a day he could not be recaptured by his lord. Whether he was considered a free-man depended upon local customs and charters.

In London it was comparatively easy to obtain a personal freedom but it gave no right of entry to the guilds or protection within the City. By the 14th century serf origins were strongly discriminated against and it was laid down that no person born outside the City should be bound as an apprentice unless he swore first that he was the son of a free man. If a serf became a free man, children born after this would be eligible for membership of a guild, but those born earlier were serfs and so excluded.

Methods of Qualification
REDEMPTION – The majority of admissions to the freedom of the City of London today are by redemption, either by nomination or though a livery company. Although the word implies freedom by payment, this is misleading as freedom by patrimony and servitude are also paid for. An old meaning of the word ‘redeem’ is to ‘free oneself from, or to free by payment’ and this may relate to the mediaeval serfs buying their freedom from their feudal lords. Those who apply for the freedom in this way are called ‘redemptioners’. The real difference is that redemptioners do not have the right to the freedom as do patrimonies and servitudes. Their admittance is entirely at the discretion of the Courts of Common Council and Aldermen.

If the redemptioner is in a livery company the copy of freedom is written with the full names of the freeman and the livery company, with R.Co.Ald. (meaning Redemption by order of the Court of Aldermen) in the top left-hand corner. If the redemptioner has been nominated the copy of freedom includes the freeman’s full names, address and occupation, with R.Co.Co. (Redemption, by an order of the Court of Common Council) in the top left-hand corner.

NOMINATION – Those who wish to obtain the freedom of the City by redemption but who are not freemen of any City livery company require two nominators (sometimes called proposers or sponsors). Both nominators are required to enter certain personal details on the nomination forms and to ‘certify that [the applicant] is known personally to us and is, in our opinion, a fit and proper person for admission to the freedom’.

PATRIMONY – In feudal times, children born to serfs were also considered to be serfs, and not eligible for the freedom of the livery companies or of the City because they were the lawful property of the feudal lord on whose manor they or their fathers had been born. Even if the father subsequently became a free man, any children born before he obtained free status were still serfs, whereas those born afterwards were eligible for the freedom. From this evolved the custom of patrimonial admission to the freedom of livery companies and of the City.

Children of freemen may claim the freedom of the City of London in this way providing the parent was admitted to the freedom before the birth of the child. It may only be claimed by natural, not adopted, sons and daughters directly through mother or father; it cannot be claimed through grandparents or other relatives and ancestors.

If the parent was in a livery company at the time of the child’s birth, the child should first be admitted to the freedom of that company before being admitted to the freedom of the City. One visit to the Chamberlain’s Court at Guildhall is required, with the freedom of the company certificate, a parent’s copy of freedom and a full birth certificate together with the appropriate fee.

SERVITUDE – By the Custom of London, apprentices of freemen of the City of London are entitled, having completed a term as apprentice, to be admitted to the freedom. An apprentice must be between the ages of 14 and 21 years when bound and must serve a term of not less than 4 and not more than 8 years. The binding must be voluntary and a minor must have parental consent to be bound apprentice. The indentures (that is, the documents of agreement between apprentice and master) must be in the form according to the Custom of London, and the binding and signing of indentures must be entered into at the livery company’s hall or office.

Instructing the young in crafts and trades is a very natural arrangement. In the days when schools and training colleges were not widely available, apprenticeship was considered the practical way of providing young people with the means of making a living. Further, it ensured that knowledge of vital skills and crafts were properly handed on to the next generation. Girls as well as boys were apprentices, just as masters were women and men.

It was quite usual for an apprentice to live in the master’s household and to be provided with food, clothing and other necessities of life. These were known as ‘indoor bindings’. Teenagers, then as now, could be unruly and rebellious and not the most co-operative house guests; masters could be difficult to please, penny-pinching and cruel, so very early on codes of conduct for both apprentices and masters were drawn up and incorporated in the indentures.

Indentures come in pairs. Traditionally, one is signed by the apprentice and kept by the master, the other signed by the master and kept by the apprentice. Both parts of the indenture were sometimes written on one continuous piece of parchment or paper and torn or cut in half along a zig zag line, that is ‘indented’. At the end of the term of apprenticeship the two halves would jig-saw together, thus providing, if necessary, the validity of the documents.

The Livery

Development of the Livery
Trade and craft associations, known as guilds or livery companies, flourished all over Europe for centuries, but the City of London companies, now collectively known as the Livery, are unique in their survival, number and diversity. Today’s livery companies are living institutions, whose activities have been commended by successive Royal Commissions and whose liverymen assemble in Common Hall to carry out important functions in the elections of the City’s government and certain of its officers.

The word ‘guild’ derives from the Saxon word for payment, since membership of these fraternities was (and is) paid for. The word ‘livery’ refers to uniform clothing as means of identification. Today, new companies in their formative years are usually referred to as guilds.

From mediaeval times until the middle of the 19th century the freedom of the City of London and the livery went hand-in-hand, although not always harmoniously. Liverymen had to be freemen of the City, and in this way the Corporation of London managed to exercise a degree of control over the livery companies.

Mediaeval Trading Standards
The early companies protected customers, employers and employees alike by checking standards of work, quality of goods, weights and measures, and imposed severe penalties on those who broke the rules. They controlled imports and immigrant labour, and set wages and working conditions. They trained the young and looked after members in sickness and old age. At a burial of a member (attended by every member of the company) the coffin would be covered with the company’s own coffin-cloth; vigils were kept and prayers offered for the soul of the deceased.

Livery Halls
As the companies grew and prospered in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, so they acquired halls as permanent meeting places. These halls were the places to settle trade disputes, bind apprentices, elect masters and wardens, discuss business and to socialise. The few mediaeval halls that survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 eventually succumbed to Victorian re-building or the bombs of World War II, although of the 38 halls in existence today, several were rebuilt on original mediaeval sites.

In mediaeval time religion played a very important part in guild life and each company had its own patron saint and adherence to a particular church. The original titles of some of the older livery companies are a reminder of this, for example, the Society of St Simon and St Jude (Shipwrights); the Fraternity of Corpus Christi (Salters); the Brotherhood of St Clement (Founders).

After many years of fierce dispute, an order of precedence for livery companies was finally settled in 1515, starting with Mercers and number 1 and so on down to number 48. Merchant Taylors and Skinners, however, continued to be numbers 6 and 7 in alternate years, following a compromise reached some 30 years earlier. (Hence the term to be at sixes and sevens.) Numbers 1 to 12 inclusive are known as the Great Twelve. Through choice, the companies of Parish Clerks and Watermen & Lightermen remain City guilds without grant of livery.

The number of companies has fluctuated through the centuries, with the formation of new ones and the demise and amalgamation of others. At times the City livery companies were a power in the land, organising trade and commerce; supplying cash to finance wars, the monarchy, colonisation and merchant ventures; founding schools, almshouses and hospitals. Logically, the Industrial Revolution, the explosion of population, the expansion of overseas trade and the Reform Act should have sounded the death-knell for the livery companies and, indeed, several disappeared around this time. However, in 1992 the Company of Information Technology was granted its charter and letters patent and became the 100th City of London Livery company.

Application for membership of livery companies is purely a domestic matter for each individual company. Some only accept trade or trade-associated members, others embrace a wider membership. It is not uncommon for a person to be a member of more than one livery company, but the first one joined, or the company through which the freedom of the City was obtained, is the ‘mother’ company. Freedom by right of patrimony, the taking on of apprentices and voting rights may be effected only in the mother company.



In certain companies the officers are known by different titles, for example, the Fishmongers have a prime warden instead of a master, and the number of wardens may vary between two and four according to the size of the company. A small company might have about 100 members in the livery; a large company might have 400 plus.

Progress through the company remains much the same as it has for centuries. The initial stage is freedom of the company followed by the obligatory freedom of the City before full livery status is attained. A liveryman may expect to be elected to the court of assistants and ultimately to be master, but the likelihood of this happening and the number of years it might take depends upon the ordinances (written rules and regulations) of each company and its own traditions and customs.

The ordinances of companies vary greatly in number and detail. Typically, ordinances might govern the numbers of livery members permitted, the ration of members directly involved with a company’s trade/profession, the election and duties of officers, benevolent obligations and financial matters. Any proposed changes in ordinances have to be petitioned to the Court of Aldermen.