Gold And Silver Wyre Drawers' apprenticeships

The records of this company are deposited at the Guildhall Library. The Company obtained its charter in 1693. This craft refers to the production of gold and silver braid for uniforms.

A single apprenticeship register (Guildhall Library Ms 2455) covers all the apprenticeships from 1693 to 1837. This index covers all these records.

Almost all the early entries in the register contain a 'turn over' from an official of the Company. These have been ignored in the text, and only the 'real' master has been noted where the 'turn over' is simultaneous with the original binding. However, these early masters are almost universally members of another livery company, presumably because there were few people free of this company, so recently founded. The normal 'conventional' master from 1693 to 1700 was Richard Brady, from 1700 to 1721 George Meakins, from 1722 to 1734 John Leech, from 1734 to 1740 Richard Drury, after a gap from 1746 to 1760 by Robert Wrathall and after another gap by James Dennis from 1769 to 1788. The last such entry is the apprenticeship of William Lewis (11 Sep 1788). These masters' names have been omitted from the text of the abstracts. After the 1740s there are few of these entries, as almost all apprentices were apprenticed immediately to their real intended master. The masters not of the Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers' were chiefly of the Blacksmiths', Goldsmiths', Grocers', Longbowstringmakers', Merchant Taylors' or Weavers' Companies.

Perhaps because of this small size, some masters are annotated in the form 'one of this company, citizen and vintner'; for an example, see the apprenticeship of Thomas Eades in 1728.

Until 1726 (and for three entries in 1820) the register is annotated 'F' or 'dead' in the margin of many entries. 'F', of course, signifies that the apprentice later took the freedom of the Company. In the abstracts "‹free›" and "‹dead› " (after the date) have been used to denote these sorts of entries.

The records of 1,261 Gold & Silver Wyre Drawers' apprenticeships have been abstracted.