The Livery Newsletter and Gazette Issue 32 Spring 2020 | Page 14

Company Shield at Tallow Chandlers’ Hall
This story begins with dinner on a cold winter’s
night in January 2019 at The George & Vulture;
revered City hostelry off Lombard Street. A
favourite haunt of Charles Dickens, the place
was mentioned more than twenty times in The
Pickwick Papers and has since become the spiritual
home of The City Pickwick Club. On the night in
question, I was honoured to be the guest of Past
Master Charles Miller, a member of the Club,
at one of its meetings where dinner was served
in Pickwickian style with large helpings of fun
and bonhomie. The Club members were most
welcoming to all of the guests.
During dinner, Charles and I found ourselves sitting
with two Club members that were both Past Masters
of the Tallow Chandlers’ Company including David
Simmonds, an old school friend of our Past Master
Roger Merton. We all got to chat about our links
and connections including those of the respective
Companies. The Tallow Chandlers played host to
many of our Company’s meetings and events in the
early years following re-formation in 1954. Things
went so well that, by the end of the meal, David
Simmonds enquired of us whether the Tobacco
Pipe Makers might consider installing a glazed
panel bearing our Company’s heraldic shield in the
oriel window at Tallow Chandlers’ Hall. The oriel
window is a singular feature in the main Hall that
includes many panels with the shields of those Livery
Companies with whom the Tallow Chandlers are or
have been associated. The answer to the question
was a hearty ‘Yes!’.
In the weeks and months that followed, we worked
with the Tallow Chandlers to agree the basis on
which to proceed, the outcome being presented at
the Election Court along with costings. With the
Court’s approval, the project sprang to life with the
commission of the panel with vitreous artist, Mel
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