A carved plaque, ‘Charity’, by Samuel Kelsey, inset above the doorway to the Court Luncheon Room, is a rare yet fitting survival from the Victorian Hall.
Court Corridor
The 1905 King’s Colour by
The Court Corridor connects the business and ceremonial rooms of
the south window is that
the Hall. At its centre, a display of the Thwaytes china, the Company’s
of the Scots Guards, with
distinctive maroon and gold Spode-Copeland dinner service, faces
whom the Company has an
the visitor, resplendent in a bespoke Brazilian mahogany cabinet.
affiliation. It was presented
The service is named after the benefactor to the Company, William
to the Company in 2011,
Thwaytes, a grocer by trade whose firm is understood to have
after extensive restoration.
supplied the tea that was tipped into the Harbour at Boston in 1773. The spur nearest the Entrance Hall is home to a new display of facsimiles of the Company’s Charters and Grants of Arms. For preservation reasons, the originals are kept in darkness in our vaults. Below stands a twentieth-century model of the Company’s barge. Any resemblance to the original vessel is probably accidental, in the absence of any surviving drawings; however, the Company did for almost two hundred years own a barge which was moored at Vauxhall, used principally for mayoral processions to Westminster. On one such occasion in 1803, the Company’s magnificent
TOP: Model of the Company’s barge, 1958
The Colour records the major battle honours of
ABOVE: ‘Charity’ mural by Samuel Kelsey, fl.1840-1877
the 1st Battalion including
LEFT: The Beadle’s mace, by Samuel Courtauld, 1755
Egypt – hence the addition
BELOW: The King’s Colour, 1905
Waterloo, Sevastopol and of the Sphinx at the bottom. The Lion Rampant of Scotland is the ancient badge of the Colonel of the Regiment, and the motto ‘en ferus hostis’ translates as ‘behold a fierce enemy’.
rococo style Beadle’s mace by Samuel Courtauld was dropped into the River. Account books in the archives record that the princely sum of £2 3s was paid to the poor soul who ventured into the filthy waters to retrieve it. 26
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