On Ludgate Hill we find also Stationers’ Court, where is the Stationers’ Hall. THE STATIONERS COMPANY The Company was incorporated in 1557, but it is believed that a brotherhood or society existed upwards of a century and a half previously, called the Brotherhood or Society of Text-writers. There was a Gild of Stationers as early as the beginning of the fifteenth century. It appears to have been a branch of the Scriveners, and to have left them to carry on the preparation of legal documents while they themselves took over the production of books. The charter of the Company shows that it was regarded as a company of printers, and that Queen Mary intended it to be especially a guard against the issue of heretical doctrines. [Illustration: _Drawn by Thos. H Shepherd._ STATIONERS’ HALL IN 1830 ] The original charter was destroyed in the Fire of London, but the Company have a copy of it; also of the charter granted by William and Mary, confirming the privileges granted by the charter of 1556. The Company has continued ever since its incorporation, and still is, a trade guild consisting exclusively of members of the trade of a stationer, printer, publisher, or bookmaker, and their children, and descendants born free. The greater number of printers’ apprentices in the City of London are bound at Stationers’ Hall, and the Company’s pensioners, and the recipients of the charities under their control, are principally journeymen printers, compositors, and pressmen. The Company was originally established for the purpose of fostering and encouraging the trade of a printer, publisher, and stationer, and from the time of its original foundation to this date a limited number of liverymen of the Company have carried on at Stationers’ Hall the trade of a publisher for their own benefit, and a division of profits has been annually made amongst the partners. Other portion of the profits has been distributed annually amongst poor freemen of the Company, applied towards the necessary expenses of the Company, and invested in the purchase of the hall and premises adjoining. The capital for this trade was originally subscribed by the members of the Company in certain proportions or shares, and these shares have been regularly transmitted from time to time since 1605, as in the case of shares of trade companies.