Plans for our 350th anniversary celebrations begin

The inaugural meeting of the 350th anniversary committee, chaired by Renter Warden Bettine Evans, was held on 4th September 2021 and was followed by a second meeting on 16th November.

The two principal aims are to raise sufficient funds to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the signing of the Coachmakers’ Royal Charter in 1677 and, more importantly, to enable the Livery to support at least 350 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue worthwhile careers.

The challenge for us all as Coachmakers is to support the Company to achieve this goal. Therefore, in the New Year we will be contacting Liverymen asking them to get involved in an exciting new campaign to drive our ambitions to mark the 350th anniversary. The campaign will raise funds to enable us to put our plan to support young people achieve their aspirations, into action. Look out for January’s Coachlines where you will find details of how you can get involved.

Underpinning the campaign is our desire to make a real difference in our 350th year and beyond, as a legacy for the future. Please, we will need all Liverymen to join this philanthropic endeavour.

We will ask 35 former apprentices or graduate engineers from the Court, and Livery as a whole, to speak to groups of 10 young people for about five minutes, to inspire and explain what they had gained from their training and how it had affected their subsequent lives in a positive way. The young people will be drawn from the Smallpiece Trust, the Saturday Engineering Club at Kingston, Outreach at Imperial, Centrepoint and other organisations with which we are involved.

We wish for this initiative to be a continuing, sustainable activity that will form part of the Coachmakers’ legacy from the 350th anniversary. We have other plans for the 350th year: to re-endorse the Charter; a Coachmaker focused Banquet with, hopefully, a member of the royal family in attendance; a parade of coaches in the Lord Mayor’s Show plus we shall upgrade all our usual events for your pleasure; watch this space and please, get involved.