The Spectacle Makers' Company (SMC) Today

General

The Company gave up its role as an examining and qualifying body for ophthalmic opticians (nowadays termed optometrists) when it combined with the British Optical Association and the Scottish Association of Optometrists in 1980 to found what is now the College of Optometrists.

Six years later, it divested itself of its responsibility for examining and qualifying Dispensing Opticians when it helped to establish the Association of British Dispensing Opticians. Nevertheless, the SMC remains widely involved in contemporary optics, and does all that it can to promote help to the visually impaired. Liverymen contribute to the work of the:

• Association of British Dispensing Opticians
• Association of Contact Lens Manufacturers
• Association of Optometrists
• British Contact Lens Association
• College of Optometrists
• Federation of Ophthalmic and Dispensing Opticians
• Federation of Manufacturing Opticians
• General Optical Council
• Institute of Optometry

Members of the Company also play a significant part as administrators and/or trustees in the work of some of the more prominent vision-oriented charities such as Fight for Sight, Vision Aid Overseas and Action for Blind People, and the Company itself is an affiliated member of Vision 20/20(UK), part of an international initiative to half the rate of preventable blindness throughout the world by 2020.

The Company's membership also includes Fellows of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and lecturers from the various university departments of vision sciences and applied optics. It is therefore well placed to act as a friendly apolitical forum where all those working to help the visually impaired to see better can meet to discuss matters of common interest in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. The substantial "lay" element within the membership, having no professional involvement in optics whatsoever, encourages even wider discussion, and brings other much needed skills to the SMC's work today.

Training Optical Technicians

To provide a more tangible contribution to contemporary optics, however, the SMC has returned to its original preoccupation by focusing on the training and professional development of those who actually make spectacles and contact lenses. The Company has been involved with the training of optical technicians for some time, having established a day release course at what is now City and Islington College in 1962. The course is run to a syllabus devised by the Company, which initially merely awarded certificates of attendance, competence and merit. However, an examination slowly evolved, and this was given fresh impetus as the Company sought greater liaison with the optical industry and the prescription houses. The day release course soon became oversubscribed, so to cater for the demand a correspondence course was added in 1990, and steps were taken to open the training up to overseas technicians. From 1982 onwards, those who successfully complete what is now a two-year course have been awarded the qualification SMC(Tech), a qualification which was given statutory recognition under Schedule 2(a) of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992.

In 2001, the recently established Qualifications and Curriculum Authority accredited the Company as an Awarding Body. Its certificate for optical technicians then became accredited to the National Qualifications Framework created under sections 96 and 97 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000, initially at Level 3. In 2007, it was upgraded to Level 4, by which time the Company had introduced a Level 2 Certificate in Optical Production Processes. A Level 3 Certificate in Optical Production Processes followed shortly after.

The Company's demonstrable success in running technician training had long since prompted the Ophthalmic Manufacturers' Association and the Ophthalmic Prescription Houses Organization (both of which are affiliated to the Federation of Manufacturing Opticians) to invite it to take over their modular courses programme, which was designed to provide instruction and practical experience that technicians cannot obtain in the workplace. In more recent years, demand for these tailed away, but the Company has also been well to the fore in the creation and promotion of optical manufacturing national vocational qualifications (NVQ) and optical manufacturing modern apprenticeships.

...And Optical Practice Support Staff

Apart from organizing the training and examination of optical technicians, the Awards Committee is also charged with advising the Court on other ways in which the Company might further encourage and develop training and education within the industry and the profession. Consequently, the SMC is now involved in the training & qualification of optical practice support staff. City and Islington College had been running evening classes for them for some time, but in 1998/99 the Company stepped in to act as the Awarding Body, and introduce a year-long Level 2 correspondence course administered from the Company's office in Apothecaries' Hall. In 2002, it took on the role of setting the examination for those who had successfully completed the correspondence course and, in early 2003, it succeeded in getting this qualification accredited to the National Qualifications Framework as well. A Level 3 qualification was accredited in 2005, and the first examination for it held in 2007.

The Qualifications & Credits Framework

In late 2009, the Company was reaccredited as an awarding body by OFQUAL, the successor to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, and it is hoped that very soon all five of its qualifications that are still accredited to the National Qualifications Framework will be reaccredited to the new Qualifications & Credit Framework. A sixth qualification, a Level 2 Certificate in Optical Customer Service (Spectacles) will be added, and further additions will follow as and when employers signify the need for them.

Support For Optical Research

The SMC's support for optical research is overseen by a small group of prominent academics who, besides being members of the Company, hold (or held) chairs in vision sciences at various universities and colleges.

Since receiving its Charter in 1629, the Company has been to the fore in encouraging research into ways and means of enhancing the quality of life for the visually impaired, and of allowing the fully fit to see better. In spite of wars, revolutions, plagues and other disturbances, its members have played a prominent role in most of the innovations and improvements in the field of vision sciences that we now take for granted. Many of them acquired international reputations and high scientific honours.

Amongst those may be mentioned Richard Reeves, the first official scientific instrument maker to the newly founded Royal Society, who adapted Kepler's Triple Convex lens system for use in the compound microscope. He also took part in the design and construction of the improved "double" microscope which was described and illustrated by Robert Hooke, the Royal Society's Curator of Experiments, in his famous Micrographia in 1665. John Marshal was another: he invented the modern method of working a number of lenses simultaneously by the same tool, a procedure which the distinguished German optical historian Von Rohr described as "giving the London optician a great advantage over his foreign brethren". James Ayscough (Master 1752) invented folding side-pieces for spectacles and introduced important innovations in microscope construction. John Dollond and his son Peter also did important and original work in this field, and there is evidence that the latter was making bifocal spectacles before Benjamin Franklin is reputed to have invented them.

The list could be much extended but, despite such an impressive record of involvement in research, it is only recently that the Company has sought to bestow its own marks of recognition. Twenty years ago, it presented the first of eight gold medals awarded to date in recognition of a lifetime of "outstanding contributions to the understanding or improvement of vision". This medal, which is awarded without distinction of age, is named after Lord Crook, a former politician who was chairman of the inter-departmental Committee on the Statutory Registration of Opticians which led to the establishment of the General Optical Council. He also served as Master of the SMC from 1963 to 1965.

The Silver Medal, introduced some twelve years later as a commemoration of the contribution to ophthalmic optics of the Fincham brothers, honours exceptional work by those aged 40 and under. In 2001, the Company added a bronze medal, plus a monetary award, to encourage those within three years of obtaining their first degree, diploma or other acceptable qualification to make their first published contribution to the advancement of basic, clinical or technical ophthalmic science.

During the 1990s, the Company spurred the optical industry on to encouraging design students to focus on eyewear by holding its own Spectacle Frames Design Competition for seven years. Some ten years later, it launched a competition to promote innovations that will enhance the provision of ophthalmic services to the public, and that is another initiative that is now being developed and carried forward by the optical industry, in association with the optical press.

The Company sponsors a series of lectures which are delivered, both within and without London, to audiences drawn from all optical professions and trades. It also takes its turn to arrange the annual "Four Liveries Lecture" which is addressed to a combined audience of Spectacle Makers, Clockmakers, Scientific Instrument Makers and Lightmongers.

Encouragement Of Learning

Apart from awarding prizes to the most successful students in its own examinations, the Company is always ready to consider invitations to recognize success in those held by the professional qualifying bodies, although the scope for this is currently restricted to the annual diploma ceremony of the Association of British Dispensing Opticians.

Membership

GENERAL

As mentioned earlier, on 27th December 1759 the Court decided to open membership of the Company up to whomsoever they could recruit. Such a policy might easily have lead to disaster and, coupled with the Company's failure to react to changing economic and social circumstances which was already loosening its control of the craft, it was no doubt a factor in undermining the SMC's standing within the optical fraternity. However, it might also be viewed as the reason why, less than 100 years later, the Company was able to begin "production" of its remarkable number of Sheriffs, Aldermen and Lord Mayors. It also allowed a fascinating collection of other notable men to become "Spectacle Makers of London", even though one would not normally associate them with either London or spectacle making. Among these men were JOSIAH SPODE II, son of the founder of the famous pottery business established in Stoke-on-Trent in 1770, the two CHRISTIES, father and son who set up and established the famous London Auction House, Charles CHUBB, the famous locksmith, SAMUEL SMILES, the Scottish political reformer and author, HENRY CHARLES "Inky" STEPHENS, the son of Dr Henry Stephens, the inventor of the famous ink, and FREDERICK JOHN HORNIMAN, one of the great names in the tea trade.

Whilst the Company's credibility as a supporter of its "craft" in general, and as a trainer and examiner of optical technicians and optical practice support staff in particular, is dependent on the majority of today's members having, or having had some involvement in optics in one form or another, it remains the Court's policy to allocate up to 25% of the available places to those with no connection with "the Craft" whatsoever. Not only does this make for a more colourful and interesting fellowship, but it exposes the concerns of the optical world to a wider, and potentially influential audience, besides offering the Company a pool of skills needed to manage and administer a corporate body.

LADIES

The Spectacle Makers long ago overcame any scruples that they may have had over admitting ladies to their fellowship.

The Company's first lady Freeman was Lucretia Clark(e), daughter of John Clark(e), Spectacle Maker, who was admitted through patrimony on 30th March 1699. She was followed on 11th January 1721 by Esther Burbridge, daughter of Isaac Burbridge (Master 1717), who was admitted through servitude, having been apprenticed to her father. Next came Esther Sarrazin (1st October 1729) and Susannah Passavant 8th January 1735), both of whom had been apprenticed to George Wildey (Master 1722-1732)¹ .

(George Wildey ran a shop called The Great Toy, Spectacle, Chinaware & Print Shop next the Dog Tavern, corner of Ludgate Street, near St Paul's. His trade is shown as Map Seller, toy Shop and Optical Instrument Maker and, perhaps because of this, 8 of his 15 apprentices were women. All were indentured as Spectacle Makers, but only Sarrazin, Passavant and an Elizabeth Dupuy, who obtained her Freedom by Servitude on 26th March 1741, appear to have completed their apprenticeships.)

The first lady Liveryman was Dame Laura Rebecca Marshall, wife of the then Master (and former Lord Mayor), who was admitted on 25th September 1919. The first Lady to be admitted to the Livery by right after achieving the Company's professional qualification for ophthalmic opticians (FSMC) was Elizabeth Maud Weston, who joined on 1st December 1921. Then came Henrietta Sebag-Montefiore (5th May 1939), sister of a later Lord Mayor, Waley-Cohen). The second lady FSMC to be admitted was Joan Partridge (29th June 1954).

Anne Christine Silk FBDO, FRSM became the first lady Master of the Company in 1990.

Governance

A tightly packed congregation in St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe.

DIRECTION

The Royal Charter of 16th May 1629 established a corporate body known as "The Master, Wardens and Fellowship of Spectacle Makers of London", and gave "full powers and authority... to make ordain constitute and set down reasonable laws statutes decrees ordinances and constitutions ... for the good rule and government" of that corporate body to its Master, Wardens and Assistants "for the time being". The Master and Wardens are elected every year at the Court's meeting in June, but do not assume office until "The first Wednesday after the Feast of St Michael the Archangel next" [i.e. the first Wednesday in October].

Unfortunately, the Company cannot be precise as to the number of individuals who have held office as Master Spectacle Maker. Because the records from its first 37 years were lost in the flames in 1666, it is not known how many holders there were between Edward Gregorie in 1629 and John Turlington in 1665; nor is it totally clear whether a name that appears in the list more than once during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century refers to the same person, or to a father and son. Further complications arise in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Masters appear first under their own family names, and then subsequently in the guise of a member of the Peerage. However, the Clerk's best guess is that the Master who took office on "the first Wednesday after the Feast of St Michael the Archangel" in 2007 was the 176th person to have held that office.

The first Charter authorized the appointment of only eight Assistants, but on 21st June 1956 the current Sovereign granted the Fellowship a second Charter authorizing an increase to "not more than fourteen". This Supplemental Charter also stipulates that the quorum for a meeting of the Court is to be "The Chairman and six other members present (of whom one shall be a Past Master or Warden)". The Chairman is defined as being "The Master or failing him the Immediate Past Master (now termed the Deputy Master)... but if neither of them be present a Chairman shall be elected from the Past Masters who are present."

Thus, while the 1629 Charter makes no mention of Past Masters, (presumably on the assumption that a Master would hold office until he died) the 1956 Charter explicitly recognizes that they will continue to keep a fatherly eye on the activities of the SMC once they have passed through the Chair. Indeed it would be a waste of hard gained experience were they to do otherwise. Accordingly, the Court of Assistants was restructured in 2002, to allow four of their number to sit as "Assistants above the Chair". Those Past Masters who are not invited to fill one of those four places nevertheless still receive the Court papers, and are encouraged to comment on them, until they have completed 10 years since passing the Chair or reached the age of 75, whichever comes sooner.

The Court of Assistants acts as a Board of Directors, receiving reports from all the Company's committees (which should more properly be referred to as committees of the Court), as well as from the Master and Wardens and, occasionally, the Clerk. The Court tries not to concern itself with minutiae, but endeavours to remain focused on the policy and principles that it believes should shape the future of the Company.

Liverymen are invited to become Assistants after their suitability for the appointment has been agreed in open Court. No guarantee of accession to the Mastership is extended to them, until they have completed at least three years on the Court, and have been selected to serve on as Senior Assistants.

The Chaplain reads the Bidding Prayer.

MANAGEMENT

Responsibility for translating the policy laid down by the Court into action plans, and for deciding how those plans should be implemented rests with the committees of the Court. The number of these fluctuates as a need is identified, or considered no longer extant. Those currently in being are:

• The Finance Committee
• The Membership Committee
• The Awards Committee
• The Professorial Committee

Committees meet four times a year in order to submit a report to each meeting of the Court. Their chairmen are appointed by the Court, and are then free to co-opt whomsoever they wish to serve alongside them, or in ad hoc working groups. Again, however, the Court has the right to veto an appointment, and it will anyway ensure that at least one, often two, of its members are sitting on each committee. Prior service on a committee is normally the sine qua non of appointment as an Assistant.

The incoming Officers make their Declaration before the Clerk

EXECUTION

Where specialist professional knowledge is required, responsibility for executing the action plans agreed by committees rests with individual members of those committees: otherwise, it devolves to the Clerk and his only full time assistant, the Administrator.

The Clerk is the Company's Chief Executive, and is employed under contract. He attends all meetings of the Court and its committees, the Spectacle Makers' Society's committee, and of the trustees of the Spectacle Makers' Charity. He sets the agendas in consultation with the Master and the committee chairmen, and is responsible for coordinating all the activities of the SMC. As Masters (and chairmen) come and go, he is also in the unique position of being able to encourage continuity of purpose. However, he can only advise and encourage.

The Administrator is there to support the Clerk as required, although his primary function is to manage the Company's training programme.

ADMINISTRATION

Administration is almost the sole preserve of the Clerk and the Administrator, although the Company uses the consulting services of an accountant who, besides dealing with the book-keeping, also maintains the Company's membership database. He normally spends one day a week in the office in Apothecaries' Hall. Otherwise, the two permanent members of staff are left to maintain and update the Company's records, and attend to the minutiae of daily administration, which include:

• drawing up the Company's programme, looking at least two years ahead.
• coordinating its activities, including convening and minuting all Court and committee meetings.
• taking such follow-up action from committee meetings as does not call for specialist professional knowledge.
• planning and organizing the Company's functions.
• dealing with queries/problems posed by individual liverymen, freemen, students, employers and members of the General Public.

Charity

Echoes of the religious fervour which characterized the origins of the ancient guilds may be seen today in the importance that the livery movement attaches to charitable giving. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the livery companies of the City of London were donating some £40 million a year to various charities. Between them, they also now provide sheltered accommodation for nearly 1,000 residents at an annual cost of over £2.5 million, and support some 124 schools and educational establishments to the tune of a further £5.5 million.

The SMC has always tried to ameliorate the lot of those of its members who fell on hard times, but until very recently the main focus of its charitable activity, centred on its "Education and Examination Fund", was the promotion of "craft skills". However, a new Charitable Fund, established in 1998, is growing fast. It is an enabling charity that primarily supports other, national rather than local, charities working to improve the quality of life for the visually impaired, both at home and overseas. Members of the Company are finding it increasingly convenient to channel their regular charitable donations through this Charity, as their collective contributions can achieve results far greater than might be obtained by relying solely on individual donations, and many are remembering it in their wills. It is possible to designate gifts or bequests for particular purposes.

This is allowing the Company to support the widest possible range of work directed towards helping those whose sight is impaired. Action for Blind People, The British Paralympic Association, Blind in Business, The Macular Disease Society, Henshaw's Society for Blind People, The National Library for the Blind, The Royal National College for the Blind, The Talking Newspaper Association and The British Wireless for the Blind Fund have all been included amongst recent beneficiaries, along with The British Council for the Prevention of Blindness, the St John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem and Vision Aid Overseas.

Grants are also made to more general charitable campaigns, particularly in support of the Mayoralty and collective livery company causes, such as welfare support of units of Her Majesty's Armed Forces.

Spectacle Makers & The City Of London

As was outlined earlier in this brochure, the livery companies and the City of London have developed and adapted together over the centuries to sustain London's pre-eminence as a financial and business centre, and the companies' influence over the governance of the City can be traced back to the Saxon folkmoot and to the "Great Concourse" of the early Norman Kings. As London grew, its population, trade and craft industries expanded to such an extent that it was no longer possible for all Freemen to be directly involved in determining the evolving structure of local government. The direct involvement of Freemen in the government of London thus gave way to indirect government through the Masters and Wardens of their guilds and livery companies. The livery companies still provide the City with its 25 Aldermen, and they are responsible for nominating one of them each year to act as its presiding officer, the Lord Mayor of the City of London. Since 1475, Liverymen have also had the exclusive right to elect the City's Sheriffs.

Today, the formal link between the companies and the City is through the Livery Committee, which is first mentioned in 1782, although the forerunner of the present Committee began in 1864, and its present form was only established in 2002. Besides organizing and supervising the two annual meetings of Common Hall, the Committee's key tasks are:

• To maintain a close liaison with the Mansion House and Officers of the City of London Corporation on matters affecting the livery companies generally.
• To research and advise livery companies on current practice and to develop best practice generally.
• To act as a forum to which livery companies can bring matters of concern for discussion.

Each livery company has the periodic right to nominate members to sit on this Committee for a period of three years, and any liverymen may volunteer to serve on it. In short, membership of the SMC offers the opportunity to contribute to the welfare of the Country by playing an active role in the governance of an area which is of vital importance to the national economy.

The first Spectacle Maker to hold office as Alderman was James Harmer (1833). He subsequently also served as Sheriff, but the Company had to wait until 1845 before it saw its first Lord Mayor, John Johnson. The Company was particularly heavily involved in City politics during the 1880s, when it "held" the Mansion House in 1880, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886 and 1887!

Recent research has revealed that 32 men who were at one time or another members of the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers have held the "ancient and honourable" office of Lord Mayor of the City of London. Others may yet emerge from the continuing research, but a distinction should be made between those for whom the SMC was the "Mother Company" and the rest.

The following were not only first and foremost Spectacle Makers, but also Master of the Company:

• John Johnson (1845)
• Sir George Carroll (1846)
• Sir James Duke (1848)
• Sir William Rose (1862)
• Sir Benjamin Phillips (1865)
• Sir Thomas Dakin (1870)
• Sir Andrew Lusk (1873)
• David Stone (1874)
• Sir William McArthur (1880)
• Sir Robert Fowler (1883/85)
• Sir Polydore de Keyser (1887)
• Sir George Faudel-Phillips (1896)
• Lieutenant Colonel Sir Horatio Davies (1897)
• Sir Marcus Samuels (1902)
• Sir Bracewell-Smith (1946)

The following were first and foremost Spectacle Makers but, for one reason or another, never served as Master of the Company:

• Sir Henry Knight (1882)
• George Nottage (1884)
• Sir Joseph Renals (1894)
• Sir Frederick Hoare (1961)

The following Spectacle Maker Lord Mayors had other "Mother Companies", but still served as Master of this Company:

• Sir Reginald Hanson (1886) (Merchant Taylor)
• Sir Alfred Newton (1899) (Fan Maker)
• Colonel Sir Charles Wakefield (1915) (Haberdasher)
• Sir Horace Marshall (1918) (Stationer)
• Sir William Coxen (1939) (Cordwainer)
• Sir Frank Newson-Smith (1943) (Turner)
• Sir Cullum Welch (1956) (Haberdasher)

The following Spectacle Maker Lord Mayors not only had other "Mother Companies", but did not serve as Master of this Company:

• Sir Francis Moon (1854) (Stationer)
• William Cubitt (1860/61) (Fishmonger)
• Sir William Lawrence (1863) (Carpenter)
• Sir John Bell (1907) (Haberdasher)
• Sir William Dunn (1916) (Wheelwright)
• James Roll (1920) (Horner)
• Sir Alfred Bower (1924 (Vintner)

The SMC might even claim a thirty-third Lord Mayor, Sir William Lawrence, who was Lord Mayor in 1863. However, he did not become a Spectacle Maker until 1880 and, while he was invited to become an Assistant ten years later, the minutes of every subsequent meeting of the Court noted that he was unable to attend to make the Declaration, until we get to 1897, when it was recorded that he had died!

Social Activities

In common with all other Livery Companies, the SMC has an annual programme of dinners and luncheons, the majority of which are held in London at the Company's home in Apothecaries' Hall, and all of which are designed to promote fellowship. Besides allowing the Company to offer hospitality to members of other liveries and to prominent persons in the City and the optical world, these occasions provide its own members with excellent opportunities to entertain their private guests, and to talk to their fellow liverymen and freemen about matters of professional and private interest.

The fact that 25% of the membership is deliberately recruited from outside optics ensures that conversation is broad in its topics and far-ranging in its scope.

However, much of the social life of the Company is conducted in less formal surroundings, and away from London. On first joining the Company, all freemen automatically become members of the Spectacle Makers' Society. In many other livery companies, the Society's function would be exercised by a "Livery Committee" but, by being a self-governing entity with its own accounts, it cannot be categorized as a committee of the Court. Nevertheless, the Court appoints two of its members to the Society's own Committee, and receives regular reports from them.

The Society's Committee organizes an annual programme of day and weekend visits to places of interest all over the Country, and occasionally overseas. The visits are advertised well in advance in the Company's six-monthly newsletter, "From the Master & Wardens" which is issued free to all members. They are an excellent means of widening Members' horizons, and, on some occasions, they provide access to places not normally open to visitors.

The Society also organizes and runs the SMC's annual golf meeting, and is always looking for members to represent the Company in inter-livery competitions ranging from golf and sailing, through tennis and bridge, to clay pigeon shooting.

The Achievement Of Arms

Although incorporated by Royal Charter in 1629, it was not until 1950 that the Spectacle Makers' Company approached the College of Arms for a Grant of Arms. Prior to then, it had adopted two unofficial devices.

The earliest reference to the first of these appears in W. Maitland's "History of London", published in 1739. It is possible that this device of three pairs of spectacles on a green background was adopted, without authority, between the years 1629 and 1666, but unfortunately the records of that period were lost in the Great Fire. We can only presume that the device was depicted on the Company's seal that was reported lost in 1810. As that loss rendered the Company unable to purchase stock, the Court resolved to remedy the situation forthwith (but without any reference to the College of Arms) and, on 28 June 1810, it adopted what became known as the "pseudoheraldic device", which had been designed by Henry Lawson (Master 1803-04 & 1822-23). This device, which had a blue background, recognized the Spectacle Makers' involvement in scientific instrumentation by replacing the lowest pair of spectacles with a pair of dividers and a terrestrial globe, and adding a set of prisms on top. It may be seen today on the Upper Warden's badge.

It was not until 1949 that the Company opened negotiations with the College of Arms for an official grant. This was made on 18th September 1950, after a degree of argument, and is properly described as follows:

• Blazon: Vert a chevron or between three pairs of nose-spectacles proper framed of the second.
• Crest: On a wreath or and vert two arms embowed vested vert cuffed or the hands proper holding a sun in splendour within an annulet gold.
• Mantling: Vert doubled or
• Supporters: On either side a falcon proper belled or charged with a sword erect gules.

Join

If you would like to join the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers or simply find out more about it and what it can offer you, then please contact the Clerk by either:

• telephoning 0207-236-2932 or 0207-236-8645, or
• sending a fax to 0207-329-3249, or
• e-mailing clerk@spectaclemakers.com

¹ In medieval times, by "the custom of London", a woman married to a freeman could share in the advantages of his status, rent a shop, trade on her own account, and take in her own apprentices: and a widow had the right to a house and income for life (unless she remarried) and a substantial share of her husbands goods and chattels. Many widows did continue their husbands business, and could devise lands, money and moveable wealth as they pleased.