Encyclopedia > Worshipful Company of Joiners and Ceilers
The Worshipful Company of Joiners and Ceilers is one of the Livery Companies in the City of London. The Guild of St James, the Company's predecessor, was formed in 1375. The organization of wood craftsmen, who were known at various times as Fusters, Carvers, and Joiners, received a Royal Charter of incorporation in 1571. The Company has traditionally been from the Carpenters' Company, for joiners attached wood using glue or other similar materials, while carpenters used nails. The Company, as is the case with most of the other Livery Companies, no longer maintains a close relationship with its original craft, though it supports wood-related educational institutions, as well as various charities.
The Company ranks forty-first in the order of precedence of the Livery Companies. Its motto is Join Loyalty With Liberty.
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.
The WorshipfulCompany of Barbers (Barbers, Surgeons, and Dentists)
The 106 Livery Companies are trade associations based in the City of London, each known as the WorshipfulCompany of the relevant trade or profession.
The Livery Companies originally developed as guilds and were responsible for the regulation of their trades, controlling, for instance, wages and labour conditions.
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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