On Tuesday 25th March, The Master together with Members of The Court, family and friends enjoyed a hearty meal of sausages and mash generously sponsored by Liveryman Miles Rudham of Cherryfield (Croydon) Ltd and supplied by Chris Parker before parading through The City streets lead by the Epping Forest Pipe Band to the Mansion House. Watched by hundreds of members of the general public and office workers, many recording the spectacle on their mobile phones!
On arrival, our Master John Allton Jones presented the 696th Lord Mayor Alderman Alistair John Naisbitt King with the traditional Boar’s Head and WCB gifts. This year the event was very well attended, with a number of longstanding Liveryman participating for the first time and very much enjoying taking part.
When the WCB parade, four Liveryman carry the large papier-mâché boars head on a litter, but at the Mansion House the actual Boars Head awaits, expertly prepared by members of our affiliated military unit the Catering Training Wing (Army) at Worthy Down. From the unit this year we were joined this year by Maj Ben Millan – Officer Commanding for Training Delivery, Darren Duplock – Craft Director, Executive Warrant Officer Michelle Thomas and Chief Petty Officer Garry Renner – Wing Coordinator.
The Boar’s Head ceremony is one of the oldest ceremonies in The City of London, and it is when The Worshipful Company of Butchers parade through The City to Mansion House to present the Lord Mayor of The City of London with a ‘boar’s head’! Apparently, this can trace its origins back to 1343, when John Hammond (a grocer) was The City's Lord Mayor.
The butchers in the parish of St. Nicholas at the Shambles had got ourselves into a spot of bother in that we had managed to offend the sensibilities of the monks at the Greyfriars Monastery by discarding our "offal and ordure" on the public highway, to the great inconvenience and annoyance of the pious friars who, as a result, were finding it difficult to pass along the streets unhindered.
The monks, deciding that enough was enough, and made an official complaint to the City authorities who, on the 12th March 1343, granted the butchers a parcel of land in Secollane adjoining the Flete (the Fleet River), for the purposes of cleansing the entrails of beasts in the said water and, having done so, we could dispose of the offal in the Flete Ditch, which was described as being "the vilest of all abominations which London then contained."
For this, the butchers had to repair and maintain a certain wharf, by them and their successors, for ever, rendering yearly to the Mayor of London, a boar's head. The cost had to be met from the funds of the Butchers Guild. It was reported that at one time this amounted to £1.4.0d.
Despite the fact it has been many years since we have actually washed any beast entrails, or have for that matter, disposed of any offal in the abominable waters of the River Fleet, a contract is a contract - and so we adhere to the "for ever" clause in that 1343 agreement, and continue to pay up every year, despite the passage of almost 700 years. How is that for continuity!
Liveryman Julien Pursglove – Military Liasion
