The Worshipful Company of Bowyers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. Originally, the Bowyers (longbow makers) and Fletchers formed one organisation. However, in 1371, the Fletchers petitioned the Lord Mayor of London to divide into their own Company. The trade of the Bowyers, considering the development of guns, has disappeared entirely. The Company still remains, however, as a charitable institution, as do a majority of Livery Companies.
The Bowyers' Company ranks thirty-eighth in the order of precedence of Livery Companies, immediately above the Fletchers. Its motto is Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt, a reference to the Battle of Crecy, the Battle of Poitiers, and the Battle of Agincourt, all battles between England and France in the Hundred Years' War.
Livery Companies are governed by a Master (known in some Companies as the Prime Warden), a number of Wardens (who may be known as the Upper, Middle, Lower, or Renter Wardens), and a Court of Assistants, which elects the Master and Wardens.
One may become a freeman, or acquire the "Freedom of the Company", upon fulfilling the Company's criteria; traditionally, one may be admitted by "patrimony" if either parent was a liverymen of the company, by "servitude" if one has served as an apprentice in the trade for the requisite number of years, or by purchase.
Among the earliest companies known to have possessed halls were the Merchant Taylors and Goldsmiths in the 14th century, but neither theirs nor other companies' original halls remain; the few survivors of the Great Fire were destroyed, along with many reconstructed ones, during the Blitz.
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