Begun in October 2010, the ‘People, Property and Charity: the Clothworkers’ Company 1500-1750’ project, provides the first detailed history of the benefactors, property acquisitions and other bequests of the Clothworkers’ Company in the City of London during the late medieval and early modern periods. Focusing specifically on the properties that came to the company through the bequests of several benefactors, the project aims to trace the company’s management of these properties and associated charities using the Company’s court orders, account books, bequest records, lease records, and benefactor wills.

Specific research questions relate to the company’s acquisition of the properties; their continual surveys and viewings of their lands; reparations undertaken by the company on these properties; their lease agreements relating to the properties; their financial transactions; and the charitable giving by the company from the rental incomes of these properties. Research outputs from the project will engage with wider academic debates relating to benefaction, acquisition and the management of properties and charities in the early modern period.

Visit the website at: www.clothworkersproperty.org/

Sources of the Company's wealth and Early charitable giving - articles by the Company's Archivist, Jessica Collins, drawing on the project's research

Project details

Clothworkers' Company Fellow: Annaleigh Margey B.A., Ph.D
Director: Professor Matthew Davies M.A., D.Phil., FRHistS
Funded by: The Clothworkers' Company (1 October 2010-30 September 2011)