The Honourable Company of Master Mariners is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Company was formed in 1926; it was made a Livery Company by the City of London in 1932, making it the first new Livery Company to be formed in over a century. While the other Livery Companies are entitled to the style Worshipful, the Master Mariners are styled Honourable, King George V having granted them that honour in 1928.
The Company aids nautical schools and promotes nautical research. It ranks seventy-eighth in the order of precedence for Livery Companies. Its motto is Loyalty and Service.
The Honourable Company of Master Mariners has a headquarters ship, HQS Wellington, moored on the Thames at Victoria Embankment.
Famous quotes containing the words honourable, company, master and/or mariners:
“We mustn’t complain too much of being comedians—it’s an honourable profession. If only we could be good ones the world might gain at least a sense of style. We have failed—that’s all. We are bad comedians, we aren’t bad men.”
—Graham Greene (1904–1991)
“The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that the company was not worthy of the joke. They have introduced an almost insane individualism into that one form of intercourse which is specially and uproariously communal. They have made even levities into secrets. They have made laughter lonelier than tears.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Love and joy come to you,
And to your wassail too,”
—Unknown. God Bless the Master of This House (l. 5–6)
“Ye Mariners of England
That guard our native seas!
Whose flag has braved a thousand years
The battle and the breeze!”
—Thomas Campbell (1774–1844)