Rare Antique 'Freedom of the City Of London' Certificate / Award, Dated 1856, Relating to Henry William Rich, written on vellum.
Authentic and original, not a modern reproduction.
39cm x 8cm
Good used condition for age, with some marks, curling, creases, wear, marks and discolouration.
As own by and secured from the Deceastes Estate of Sir John Harvey Jones OBE
Struggling to identify much information about Henry William Rich, but I have found a reference to the same name in the 1820 - 1843 London Bankrupt Directory - Rich, Henry William - Joiners Hall Building, City, Spirit Merchant.Sept 9th, 1834.
I have attempted to decipher the document and would suggest that it states the following.
Henry William Rich of 33 Great St Helens, in the City of London - Merchant, was admitted into the Freedom aforesaid and made the declaration required by law in the mayoralty of Thomas Quested Finnis Esq. Mayor and Sir John Key. Bart. Chamberlain and is culaed in the book with the letter Q relating in the 21st year of the reign of Queen Victoria and in the year of our Lord 1856 in 2 Vitnels where of the seal of the office of Chamberlain of the said City is hereunto affixed dated in the Chamber of the Guildhall of the same City the day and year abovesaid.
33 Great St Helens is a very address, as it is thought that William Shakespeare lived next door during an earlier period around 1610, at number 35, The property was most likely in a cluster of properties that overlooked the churchyard of St Helen's, yards from where the Gherkin stands today. This was one of the wealthiest parishes in London, where powerful public figures, wealthy international merchants, society doctors and expert musicians resided.Weblink as follows - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-47907984
Thomas Quested Finnis was a partner in the firm of Finnis and Fisher, London which were provision merchants, and he was the pioneer of commerce to the port of Bussorah. He was an Alderman of the lower ward and was Sheriff of London from 1848 to 1849, and Lord Mayor of London from 1856 to 1857.
Sir John Key, 1st Baronet (16 August 1794 – 14 July 1858) was a wholesale stationer and Whig politician in England.
He was elected Sheriff of the City of London in 1824 and Lord Mayor of London for two years, from 1830 to 1832.
He was elected at the 1832 general election as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the City of London, but resigned his seat on 5 August 1833 by taking the Chiltern Hundreds.[5] During his parliamentary career he supported the abolition of slavery, the repeal of part of the assessed taxes, abrogation of the Corn Laws, the adoption of triennial parliaments and the vote by ballot.
He was made a baronet in 1831, of Thornbury and Denmark Hill. In 1853 he ran for election to the office of Chamberlain of the City of London, emerging victorious after a closely fought contest with the young liveryman Benjamin Scott. He died in the office of Chamberlain, and Scott was elected unopposed in his stead.
Freedom of the City certificates were typically written on narrow pieces of paper or vellum and were kept rolled up within tube. Like a modern-day passport or driver’s license, a freedom certificate would have been carried on one’s person to prove identity and citizenship.
In London, freedom had to be earned before it could be granted until 1832. Starting in the Middle Ages, a man was considered a “freeman” as long as he was not ruled over by any feudal lord. If he was a peasant or a serf, his freedom was in the hands of the lord of his land. A freeman, though, enjoyed such privileges as the right to earn money and to own land. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, freemen were few and far between. Only lords enjoyed property ownership and income until England experienced industrial progression in the late eighteenth century. The influx of industry created a middle class who were no longer agrarian peasants, but not rich enough to become lords. Such people lived in cities, often practiced specialized trades, and were commonly referred to as townsmen. Towns were often under the rule of the monarchy instead of a local feudal lord, and thus townsmen could be granted Freedom of the City.
The granting of Freedom of the City, particularly in London, is one of the oldest surviving traditional ceremonies still in existence and practice today. The first freedom is believed to have been presented as early as 1237. These early freedom ceremonies held great social importance because they affirmed that the recipient would enjoy privileges such as the right to trade and protection within the town. Until 1835, Freedom of the City members were the only people within London who could legally exercise a trade within city limits.
Members were presented with a notarized certificate proclaiming their freedom and a book titled Rules for the Conduct of Life, which was intended to guide them in their life as freemen. While providing many basic laws and recommended codes of conduct, the book also outlined several interesting freedoms available only to freemen. For example, the book notes freemen have the right to herd sheep over the London Bridge, go about the city with a drawn sword, and—if convicted of a capital offense—to be hung with a silken rope. Other ascribed privileges are said to include the right to be married in St. Paul’s cathedral, to be buried in the city, and to be drunk and disorderly without fear of arrest.
Sir John Harvey-Jones MBE (16 April 1924 – 9 January 2008) was an English businessman. He was the chairman of I.C.I from 1982 to 1987. He was best known by the public for his BBC television show,
Troubleshooter, in which he advised struggling businesses.
John Henry Harvey-Jones was born in Hackney, London, but spent most of his early childhood in Dhar, India, where his father, Mervyn Stockton Harvey-Jones (né Harvey), a former Captain in the Indian Army and bank employee, was guardian and tutor to a teenage maharajah. He was shipped back to Britain at age six to attend a prep school at Deal, Kent. He entered Dartmouth Royal Naval College at age 13.
Harvey-Jones joined Dartmouth Royal Naval College as a cadet in 1937, and in 1940, at the age of 16, he joined HMS Diomede as a midshipman. The next two ships that he served with, HMS Ithuriel and HMS Quentin, were sunk by enemy action. Harvey-Jones went on to join the submarine service in 1942, and received his first command at age 24.
With the end of World War II, Harvey-Jones went to the University of Cambridge to learn Russian in six months and joined Naval Intelligence as an interpreter. He married Mary Bignell in 1947, and he commanded the Russian intelligence section under the guise of the "British Baltic Fishery Protection Service", which used two ex-German E-boats for gathering clandestine intelligence on the Soviet Baltic Fleet. Rising to the rank of lieutenant-commander, Harvey-Jones was awarded a military MBE in 1952 for his work in Naval Intelligence, although his citation stated that the award was for "fishery protection duties in the Baltic".
Refused permission by the Royal Navy to spend more time with his wife and daughter Gaby, who had contracted polio, he resigned his commission in 1956 and joined Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) on Teesside as a junior training manager. In 1973, at age 49, he was promoted to sit on the main board of directors. In April 1982, he became chairman of ICI, only the second split-career man and non-chemist to reach the top.
Mentored in part by John Adair, Harvey-Jones saw his responsibilities to both stockholders and employees as "making a profit out of the markets where the market is".He maintained a firm belief in "speed rather than direction", on the assumption that "once travelling a company can veer and tack towards the ultimate objective. Thus, at the business level he cut non-profit making and what he saw as non-core businesses, so that at board level he could concentrate on putting more power in fewer hands "to reduce the number of those who can say 'no' and increase the motivation of those who can say 'yes'", maintaining that "there are no bad troops, only bad leaders". After only 30 months in the job, having cut the UK workforce by one third, he had doubled the price of ICI shares and turned a loss into a one-billion-pound profit.
According to one newspaper, it was the BBC's Troubleshooter series, first broadcast in 1990, that made Harvey-Jones the most famous industrialist since Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It ran to five series and several specials in the 1990s and also won him a BAFTA award. His advice was at times controversial—in particular he was critical of the Morgan Motor Company, which some argue was vindicated, as it is still trading successfully today.
In 1989, he became chairman of The Economist, was a non-executive director of Grand Metropolitan plc (now part of Diageo), and honorary vice-president of the Institute of Marketing.
Harvey-Jones was also chairman of the Burns-Anderson Group plc, a conglomerate spanning merchant banking (Burns-Anderson Trade Finance), financial services (Kelland & Partners Ltd headed by Steve Kelland), recruitment (Premiere Recruitment headed by Dorian Marks), marketing and business services (Ultimate Response headed by Eric Baskind) and stockbroking (W.H. Ireland Stephens & Co Ltd).
Between 1986 and 1991, Harvey-Jones served as the second Chancellor of the University of Bradford. A commemorative painting exists in the University of Bradford collection, and Harvey-Jones also agreed to sit for sculptor Jon Edgar for a terracotta portrait at Clyro in July 2004.
He was chairman of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and member of the Advisory Council of the Prince's Trust. In 2001, he became the president of the MS Trust.