Many of the ancient Guilds in local places which related to ironmongers will be mentioned further on, but we may mention that Walford, speaking of the Reading Cutlers’ and Bellfounders’ Guilds, tells us that one of their orders was:—“No smith may sell iron wares within the borough except a freeman, on forfeiture of two shillings each time.” Next to the Saddlers’ and Weavers’ Guilds of London in antiquity are the Glovers’ and the Blacksmiths’—the latter ordinances are dated 1434—and of this particular Company the writer of the present history will at some future time give some interesting and little known details. Suffice it to say now that one of the orders particularly ordained: “If eny of the seid bretheren or there wyves be absent fro oure comon dyner or elles fro oure quater dai schall paie as moche as if he or she ware present.” It is proved in this ordinance that dinners were common with the City Guilds four centuries ago, and that the wives of the members were of as much importance to the craft as the members themselves. At the present day, we regret to find that the ladies are not always considered with so brotherly an attention as the blacksmiths considered their ladies in King Henry’s day. Another of the ancient Guilds was the Farriers’, whose orders, about the year 1324, included the charges to be made for shoeing horses, at the rate of a penny halfpenny for six nails, and twopence for eight nails. In Buckingham there was a Guild called the Mercers’, which existed from early days. Even as late as the seventeenth century the minutes of this Company contained many very curious entries. For instance, in 1665, when Thomas Arnott, the eldest son of Walter Arnott, was made free upon the understanding that he was “to follow the trade of an ironmonger,” he paid “one gallon of good wyne for his freedom,” and when his brother Thomas was admitted in 1671 “to follow only ye trade of an ironmonger,” he also paid the like fee. Upon turning to the ordinances of the Company we find that the ironmongers of the borough were, with other trades, associated under the name of the Mercers’, and that the fifth clause particularly orders “noe strange pson or fforeigner inhabiting within the said borough or pish, and not ffree of the same, shall bee made ffree of the said Companies to the intent to sell or utter any kind of wares usually solde by any artificier, before such time as every such strange or forrein pson have paid for his freedome”—the sums specified in a schedule annexed, and which “for every ironmonger” was 20_l._, and “one good leather buckett for the use of the said Corporation,” and that the son of such person or freeman so admitted shall, upon being made free of the Company “whereunto he hath beene an apprentice in forme aforesaid,” pay to “the bayliffe and burgesses and his Company one gallon of good wyne.”