The Worshipful Company of Fletchers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London.
Originally, bowyers (longbow-makers) and fletchers (arrow-makers) comprised one organisation. However, in 1371, the fletchers petitioned the Lord Mayor to divide into their own Company, leaving the bowyers to form the Worshipful Company of Bowyers.
The trade of fletchers, considering the development of more technologically-advanced weapons, has disappeared entirely. The Company still remains, however, primarily as a charitable institution, as do a majority of the 108 Livery Companies.
The Fletchers' Company ranks 39th in the order of precedence of the Livery Companies, immediately below the bowyers. Its motto is True and Sure.
Famous quotes containing the word company:
“The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that the company was not worthy of the joke.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)