Page:The History of Trade Unionism - Sidney and Beatrice Webb (1920).djvu/29

 funds of the two companies were kept distinct, but frequent donations were made from one to the other, and not only from the inferior to the superior (ibid. vol. i. pp. 67–9). That the Bachelors' Company was by no means confined to journeymen is clear. Sir Leonard Halliday, for instance, became a freeman in April 1564 on completing his apprenticeship, and at once set up in business for himself, obtaining a charitable loan for the purpose. Yet, although he prospered in business, "in 1572 we find him assessed as in the Bachelors' Company," and he was not elected to the superior company until 1594 (ibid. vol. ii. p. 237). And in the Ordinance of 1507, "for all those persons that shall be abled by the maister and Wardeins to holde hous or shop open," it is provided that the person desiring to set up shop shall not only pay a licence fee, but also "for his incomyng to the bachelers' Company and to be broder with theym iijs iiid" (Clode, Memorials of the Merchant Taylors' Company, p. 209). Nor do the instances of its action imply that it had at heart the interest of the wage-earners, as distinguished from that of the employers. The hostility to foreigners, the desire to secure government clothing contracts, and the preference for a limitation of apprentices to two for each employer are all consistent with the theory that the Bachelors' Company was, like its superior, composed of masters, probably less opulent than the governing clique, and perhaps occupied in tailoring rather than in the business of a clothier or merchant. It is not until 1675 and 1682 that can be traced in the MS. records of the Clothworkers' Company the existence of distinctively journeymen's combinations (Industrial Organisation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, by George Unwin, 1904, p. 199). The other instances of identification of "Bachelors' Companies" or "Yeomen" organisation with journeymen's societies are no more convincing than that of the Merchant Taylors. That the "valets," serving-men, or journeymen in many trades possessed some kind of "almsbox," or charitable funds of their own is indeed clear, but that this was ever used in trade disputes, or was independent of the masters' control, must at present be regarded as highly improbable. The strongest instance of independence is that of the Oxford cordwainers (Selections from the Records of the City of Oxford, by William H. Turner, Oxford, 1880). See, on the whole subject, the chapter on "Mediæval Journeymen's Clubs," in Sir William Ashley's Surveys: Historic and Economic, 1900; Industrial Organisation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, by Professor George Unwin, 1904; and an article on "The Origin of Trade Unionism," by Mr. W. A. S. Hewins, in the Economic Review, April 1895 (vol. v.). a continuous existence. But in all these cases, so far as we have been able to investigate them, the "Bachelors' Company," presumed to be a journeymen's fraternity, formed a subordinate department of the masters' gild, by the rulers of which it was governed. It will be obvious that associations in which the employers dispensed the funds and appointed the officers can bear no analogy to modern Trade Unions. Moreover, these "yeoman" organisations or