Page:An Historical Essay on the Livery Companies of London.djvu/54

 On the 2nd of March last, Henry Seebohm, Esq. (a well-known Steel Manufacturer of Sheffield) read a Paper on the "Uses of Steel."

It is intended to make arrangements for other Papers to be read in due course.

The Company invited the attendance and the cordial co-operation of manufacturers of Cutlery, and through them that of their workmen and apprentices in this movement; and it is gratifying to the Company to recognise from the large attendance of masters, artisans, and apprentices, and the attention paid by them during the reading of the papers, the great interest felt by them in the various technical matters connected with their trade brought under their notice by the talented and scientific gentlemen to whom allusion has been made. It may be added that a copy of each of the Papers read is presented to every person attending the Lectures.

The Hall of the Cutlers' Company is situate in Cloak Lane, Dowgate Hill. The site was purchased by the Company in the year 1451, and the first Hall erected there shortly afterwards. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, in 1666, when

"A key of Fire ran all along the Shore,

And frightened all the River with a blaze.—Dryden."

It was remodelled and improved in the year 1853.

Maitland in his History of London (1750), in describing the Vintry Ward, refers to the Cutlers' Hall as one of the remarkable places of interest in the Ward.

.—In Horse Bridge Street is the Cutlers' Hall. Richard de Wilchale in 1295 confirmed to Paul Butelar this house and other edifices, which some time Lawrence Gisors and his son Peter Gisors did possess, and afterwards Hugo de Hingham, and lieth between the tenement of the said Richard towards the South, and the Lane called Horse Shoe Bridge towards the North, and