The Worshipful Company of Pewterers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. Its existed as early as 1348; it received a Royal Charter in 1474. The Charter allowed the Company to regulate pewter craftsmen; one of the regulations required pewterers to officially register a mark with the Company, and to place the same mark on all of his products, so that a faulty product's maker could be discerned. The tradition of maintaining an official mark continues to this day, but the Company's close association with the trade does not. The Company's duties have been taken over by a separate body; the Company continues to exist only as an educational and charitable institution.
The 107 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.
The WorshipfulCompany of Pewterers is one of the older Livery Companies in the City of London.
The PewterersCompany of the new Millennium is a far cry from the early days when, for example, a supply of armour was kept at Pewterers Hall and an armourer employed to keep it in top condition for the wars when Yeoman were fully equipped with both arms and clothing by the Company.
The PewterersCompany today remains in the forefront of the promotion of pewter and maintains connections with pewter trade associations throughout Europe via the European Pewter Union, of which it was a founder member.
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