Worshipful Company of Vintners
{{short description|Livery company of the City of London}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2014}}
{{Use British English|date=November 2014}}
File:Arms of the Worshipful Company of Vintners.svg arms: Sable a Chevron between three Tuns Argent]]
The Worshipful Company of Vintners, one of the Great Twelve City Livery Companies, retains close links with the wine trade. It traces its origins to the 12th century and received its swan rights from King Edward IV. Its motto is Vinum Exhilarat Animum, Latin for "Wine cheers the Spirit".[https://www.royal.uk/clarencehouse/speech/speech-hrh-duchess-cornwall-wines-great-britain-industry-dinner-vintners-hall-london www.royal.uk]
History and origins
The vintners of London formed a guild as early as the twelfth century and received their first royal charter in 1363.[https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-the-vintners-company/page/24/mode/2up Anne Crawford, A History of the Vintners' Company (Constable, London, 1977), p. 24.]{{Cite web |last=Spurrier |first=Steven |date=2013-05-22 |title=Vintners' Company celebrate 650th Anniversary |url=https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/opinion/guest-blog/vintners-company-celebrate-650-th-anniversary-18923/ |access-date=2025-02-11 |website=Decanter |language=en}} This granted far-reaching powers including duties of search throughout English dominions and the right to buy herrings and cloth to sell to the Gascons.
This royal charter effectively granted a monopoly over wine imports from Gascony, securing the Company pre-eminence in the wine trade. Ranked eleventh in 1515 when the order of precedence of City Livery Companies was established by King Henry VIII, Queen Mary revoked the Company's rights in 1553. Its privileges removed under the Stuarts were restored by William and Mary, but the Company could not recover its former trading dominance in Europe. By 1725 few wine merchants were joining the livery, so the Company finally abandoned claim to the duty of search.
Until 2006, the Vintners' Company retained autonomous alcohol sale licensing rights in certain areas of England, such as the City of London and along the route of the old Great North Road. Its ancient rights being abolished, limited privileges remain to the livery.{{cite web |url=http://www.vintnershall.co.uk/?page=vintners_privilege |title=Free vintners |website=The Vintners' Company}}
Actively engaged in wine trade education, including the prestigious Master of Wine qualification, the Vintners' Company supports many charities, including those concerned with treating the effects of alcohol and drug abuse.
In modern days, the organization was criticized for the opaque management of its annual budget.{{Cite news |date=2019-02-12 |title=London's secret billion-pound guilds |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46781809 |access-date=2025-02-11 |language=en-GB}}
Swan upping
Since the reign of King Edward IV, the Vintners enjoy a peculiar right of swan upping,[http://www.vintnershall.co.uk/?page=swan_upping Swan Upping – The Vintners' Company] whereby swans on the Thames are apportioned among the Crown, the Vintners' and Dyers' Companies.
Vintners' swans are given two nicks to the beak (the Dyers' have one): hence the Swan with Two Necks, London.
File:Vintners' swan marker.jpg|Vintners' Swan Marker, in blue uniform, during annual Swan Upping at Abingdon, summer 2011
File:The Vintners starting Swan Upping, Sunbury. - geograph.org.uk - 122599.jpg|The Vintners at the start of Swan Upping, Sunbury 2004
File:Swan Upping.jpg|Royal (white flag, far right) and the Vintners' (red flag) and Dyers' (blue flag) Swan Uppers at Abingdon in 2006
File:Procession of the Worshipful Company of Vintners, London 1.jpg|City publication procession of the Worshipful Company of Vintners in 2019
Vintners' Hall
= Hall and ceremonial =
Vinters' Hall stands on Upper Thames Street in the City of London. It dates from 1671 although very little of the exterior of the 17th-century building survives.{{NHLE|num=1180690|desc=Vintners' Hall|grade=I|access-date=28 October 2024}} The Hall is in Vintry Ward, London EC4. The building was re-faced in the 19th and 20th centuries. It consists of a suite of rooms, including the main hall, court and drawing rooms and a boardroom.{{cite web|url=https://www.vintnershall.co.uk/our-hall|title=Vintners' Hall|publisher=Worshipful Company of Vintners|access-date=28 October 2024}}
The Vintners elect a new Master annually in July, celebrated by a publication service at the Guild Church of St James Garlickhythe, opposite the livery hall. The procession starts at Vintners' Hall with the Master and Wardens in Tudor dress carrying nosegays, their path being swept by a Wine Porter using a birch broom.
Sir Lionel Denny, is the Vintner most recently to serve as Lord Mayor of London, and elected Master Vintner for 2023/24 is Anthony (Ant) Fairbank.[https://theoldmapshop.com/products/mrs-anthony-fairbank-miss-harriet-lascelles-country-life-magazine-portrait-february-16-1989-vol-clxxxiii-no-7 Country Life - Mrs Anthony Fairbank, Mistress Vintner]
Every region of France is usually represented at award events, in the name of the Entente Cordiale. The Hall's cellar (Red Cellar) can contain 16,000 bottles.{{Cite web |last=Makris |first=Christina |date=2023-01-30 |title=The historic heart of the English wine trade |url=https://www.apollo-magazine.com/worshipful-company-of-vintners-english-wine-trade/ |access-date=2025-02-11 |website=Apollo Magazine |language=en-US}}
File:High tide on the Thames at Vintners' Hall 2024-10-18.jpg|Thames at Vintners' Hall.
File:Flickr - Duncan~ - Vintners' Hall (1).jpg|Dining hall.
File:Vintners' Hall, Upper Thames St, London 30.jpg|Banner of the Swan Warden.
File:Vintners' Hall, Upper Thames St, London 31.jpg|WWI memorial.
File:EH1180690 Vintners Hall 05.jpg|Swan statue.
= In popular culture =
- The music video of Liberty X's 2002 smash hit "Just a Little" was filmed at Vintners' Hall, featuring a gang of professional burglars (with two of its members, Jessica Taylor and Kelli Young, in tight black latex catsuits) stealing a diamond from the building's atrium.{{cite web|url=https://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/news-photo/kelli-young-michelle-heaton-and-jessica-taylor-of-pop-group-news-photo/2084464?adppopup=true|title=Liberty X Video Shoot 'Just A Little'|publisher=Getty Images|first=John|last=Rogers|date=16 March 2002|accessdate=4 December 2022}}
- Vintners' Hall also features in Mimi Webb's 2022 music hit video "Ghost of You".{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF1kwc7kxC0|title=Mimi Webb - Ghost of You (Official Music Video)|publisher=YouTube|author=Webb, Mimi|date=7 October 2022|accessdate=31 March 2023}}
See also
Further reading
- Crawford, Anne (1977). [https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-the-vintners-company A History of the Vintners' Company] (Constable, London), 319 pp.
- Herbert, William (1836). [https://archive.org/details/historyoftwelveg02herbuoft/page/624/mode/2up 'Vintners' Company'], The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London: principally compiled from their Grants and Records; with an Historical Essay, and Accounts of each Company; including Notices and Illustrations of Metropolitan Trade and Commerce, as originally concentrated in those Societies; with attested copies and translations of the Companies' Charters , Vol. II, pp. 625–42.
References
{{Reflist}}
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External links
- {{Official website|https://www.vintnershall.co.uk/}}
- {{Official website|https://www.royalswan.co.uk/|name=Official website (National Swan Upping)}}
- [https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F98748 Collections archived] by the Company at the National Archives
{{Livery Companies in the City of London}}
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Category:Great Twelve City Livery Companies
Category:Companies of medieval England
Category:12th-century establishments in England
Category:Wine industry organizations