The Charter

The Company's Charter

The present Charter provides that a Master, three Wardens and 23 Assistants constitute the Court; that election day shall be 1st September each year; that the Company may purchase and hold lands, plead and be impleaded in law, possess a Clerk and a Beadle; that no person other than a freeman of the Company shall follow the trade; and that, after obtaining a Warrant from the Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and if accompanied by a Constable, the Master, Wardens and Assistants may enter “Shopps Cellars Sollars Stables Coachhouses and suspected places” and examine coaches and materials, find out defects, and prosecute offenders.

By the Charter no one could lawfully carry on the trade of a coachmaker or coach harness maker within London and Westminster and the country within 20 miles around without being a member of the Company and the area of search was divided into four ‘walks’, known as Middle Walk, the Piccadilly Walk, the Out Walk and the Lowland Walk. Some time after 1757 search was abandoned until the Court should think fit to order to the contrary.