Leathersellers' Hall
| Leathersellers' Hall | |
|
Middlesex | |
|---|---|
 The entrance of Leatherseller's Hall | |
| Type: | Livery hall |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ33258077 |
| Location: | 51°30’37"N, 0°4’52"W |
| City: | London |
| History | |
| By: | Eric Parry |
| Livery hall | |
| Information | |
| Owned by: | The Worshipful Company of Leathersellers |
| Website: | www.leathersellers.co.uk |
Leathersellers' Hall is the livery hall of the Worshipful Company of Leathersellers, one of the livery companies of the City of London.
The Leathersellers' Company originates from the latter part of the fourteenth century and received its Royal Charter in 1444, and thereby is the senior leather industry-related City Livery Company. It ranks fifteenth in the order of precedence of the City's livery companies.
The Company has had previous six livery halls throughout its history, and is now in its seventh hall, which was officially opened by HRH the Earl of Wessex in May 2017.
The first Leathersellers' Hall was on London Wall. In 1543 though, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Company acquired the former Benedictine Convent of St Helen, off Bishopsgate, and the subsequent Halls have all been on that site, now St Helen's Place.
The fifth Hall was destroyed in May 1941 during the London Blitz.
The sixth Hall was officially opened in 1960 and was demolished in 2011, though the façade of the building has been saved.
The new, seventh Hall, has been designed by Eric Parry RA.[1].
The Company
The Company, which originally regulated leather merchants, continues to act as an advocate for the leather trade, together with its leather-associated livery partners: Cordwainers, Curriers, Girdlers, Glovers and Saddlers . Like all these other Companies, today it is primarily involved in philanthropic, charitable and educational activities.
The Company is very closely linked with the Leathersellers' Federation of Schools (formerly Prendergast School), now comprising Prendergast Hilly Fields College, Prendergast Ladywell Fields College and Prendergast Vale College, all located in or around Lewisham in Kent. Since the mid-seventeenth century the Company has also been closely associated with Colfe's School, today an independent co-educational school located at Lee, near Lewisham. In addition the Company supports and maintains its longstanding connection with the Institute for Creative Leather Technologies (now a part of the University of Northampton),[2] successor to the college which the Company founded at Bermondsey in Surrey in 1909 as Leathersellers' Technical College. The Company continues to support higher education through exhibitions (grants) to university students, a practice which began in 1603 when four 'poor scholars', two at Oxford and two at Cambridge, were awarded five pounds and five shillings each per annum. Today around 100 students receive exhibitions which enable them to study at various universities.
Outside links
References
- ↑ Eric Parry: Royal Academy
- ↑ Institute for Creative Leather Technologies
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