At the yeomanry meeting at Easter, 1883, a special vote of condolence with the family was recorded in the minute-book upon the decease of “its much respected clerk, Simon Adams Beck, Esq., who for the long period of nearly fifty years so ably discharged the duties of his very important office.” The death of Mr. Beck, who was at one time Governor of the Gas Light and Coke Company—the district in which the works are situated being now known as Beckton—was a sad loss to every member of the Ironmongers’ Company. His portrait appropriately hangs close to that of Mr. John Nicholl, the Company’s historian, in the court-room at the hall. CHAPTER VII. THE APPRENTICES, THE HALL, AND THE IRISH ESTATE. The London apprentice of the olden time was as different a personage to the ’prentice lad of to-day as the streets of the City are now unlike the thoroughfares of two or three centuries ago. The ancient Guild ordinances relating to apprentices prove that they were considered a most important part of the establishment of a citizen, and this is not to be wondered at when we consider that not only the trade of his master, but the trade of London, depended entirely upon the skilled artisan and craftsman’s ability, without which all the money-bags of the merchant were of little use. We could fill a volume with the history and anecdotes of the apprentice, but must content ourselves by giving a brief summary only; and the notes that we do give will show that our apprentices were not unworthy of the City, notwithstanding they were never backward in crying “Clubs! clubs!” and eager for the fray. In every festival, on the “high days and holidays” of civic life, at the marching watch or a Lord Mayor’s Show, at “going a Maying” to Shooters’ Hill, and archery practice in Finsbury Fields, the apprentice was an expected visitant. As he existed in the days of James I., Sir Walter Scott, in his “Fortunes of Nigel,” conveys to us a presentable and true picture. Since the year 1662, no sooner was a boy aged fourteen than a master was found, and to him he was “bound” to serve, to follow his master’s trade, and to learn it until the age of twenty-one, when, having proved a good apprentice, he was admitted to the freedom of the Company to which such master belonged. Sometimes his master in the meantime died, and that necessitated his being “turned over” to another employer. If the boy misbehaved himself, then the Company and the Chamberlain took him in hand, and, if incorrigible, to Bridewell he was sent. It neither benefited the Corporation, the Company, nor the master to take too severe measures, and in recent years the cases have been few where correction has been administered, although to our minds it should have been oftener; and instances, too, have occurred where the master ought to have paid the penalty as well. [Illustration: ST. ELIZABETH. ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST. ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. THE HEARSE-CLOTH, OR IRONMONGERS’ FUNERAL PALL. 1515.—PLATE II.