My Freedom Ceremony at The Stationers Company

It was the day that everyone remembers and one which I had been waiting and preparing for for many months. My Freedom Ceremony at The Stationers Company. The only thing that I didn’t foresee was that it would be the hottest day in the history of London. I have a lovely heavy and quite fine suit which I often don’t wear from one year to the next but on Monday 18th July 2022, there was I in my best suit, shirt and tie with shoes that were polished within an inch of their lives on the first day that London breached the 40 degrees Celsius barrier.

It was a hot old day, even hotter on the Underground. Riding it was a bit of a mix between a party atmosphere, dread, excitement and agony for many in my carriage. I wasn’t even sure if I would make it on time given I had been onboard 3 days earlier then the train was stopped due to a fire en route in the bone-dry grasses and bushes that line the route of the Jubilee Line in NW London.

People had been encouraged to stay at home although that option is never open to a tour guide and I didn’t think there was that much difference between the 30-35 degrees I encounter quite often and 40 degrees. However with many tube cancelled and those that were running were compelled to go at something like 25% speed to help stop the tracks bucking in the heat. It all rather reminded me of one of my train rides through Egypt. Ambling along a slow speed with nothing green in sight and never quite sure if you’re going de-rail or get there at all. Only the lack of chickens pecking at my ankles reminded me that it wasn’t 3rd class Egypt rail but London Underground.

As it happened, I arrived early which is always a good thing if your are a tour guide. I went and grabbed myself a hotter than usual hot-chocolate reasoning that if I love ice-cream even when its snowy outside then I can have almost boiling liquid to drink when it is over the boiling point outside. Mad Dogs and Englishmen 🙂

Stationers Hall is just a few moments walk from St Pauls Cathedral. I had been to the outside several times and even once peered in at their beautiful ancient garden (Doctor Johnson was a fan of it) but I had never been inside before,

In 1403, the Corporation of London approved the formation of a guild of stationers. At this time, the occupations considered stationers for the purposes of the guild were text writers, limners (illuminators), bookbinders or booksellers who worked at a fixed location (stationarius) beside the walls of St Paul’s Cathedral.Booksellers sold manuscript books, or copies thereof produced by their respective firms for retail; they also sold writing materials. Illuminators illustrated and decorated manuscripts.

The original hall didn’t survive the Great Fire of London but despite its close proximity to St Pauls Cathedral, it did somehow come throw the Blitz.

The Stationers played an important role in the development of British culture as the Stationers were legally empowered to seize “offending books” that violated the standards of content set down by the Church and state; its officers could bring “offenders” before ecclesiastical authorities. During the turbulent times when the country was repeatedly torn apart by the Protestant split from the Catholic Church, they could even have the power of life or death.

One aspect of life we are all familiar with that originates with the Stationers is that of Copyright. The Stationers’ Charter, which codified its monopoly on book production, ensured that once a member had asserted ownership of a text or “copy” by having it approved by the company, no other member was entitled to publish it, that is, no one else had the “right to copy” it. This is the origin of the term “copyright”. However, this original “right to copy” in England was different from the modern conception of copyright. The stationers’ “copy right” was a protection granted to the printers of a book; “copyright” introduced with the Statute of Anne, or the Copyright Act of 1710, was a right granted to the author(s) of a book based on statutory law.

If you ever wonder why papers, envelopes and the like are known as Stationery, it too has its origins here, perhaps not surprisingly. At one time stationers would travel around London almost like travelling salesmen with all of their gear, looking for customers to sell their wares and services to. Obviously given the time-period this could be a very cumbersome and tiresome thing to do so a group of them asked the authorities at St Pauls Cathedral whether they could pitch their stands in one place rather than spend all day walking around, hence they were Stationary and indeed Stationery. All part of the history that helped make nearby Fleet Street the newspaper capital of the world.

I had all these things swirling around in my head whilst trying to remember the oath I had to swear and wondering if my friend would arrive in time as I entered the hall. I was one of the first to go into the hall as it had been closed for several years due to intricate and complicated building work that was needed to bring this post Great Fire building up to 21st Century standards.

I was a little surprised that there would be so many people present but perhaps the Covid restrictions has resulted in a small backlog of people. After a few minutes we went upstairs and practiced our ceremony. Where to walk, what to say, when to bow, who to shake hands with and that sort of thing.

Luckily my friend arrived just as we were finishing rehearsals and so we had 5 minutes to prepare ourselves and she was able to take some photos and videos too.

Everyone there was lovely and friendly but as the weather was so extreme, we all only stayed 10-15 minutes afterwards. My friend and I had planned a day in the City but instead had a drink in Postmans Park to psych ourselves up ready for our hellish journeys back out of London.